My Deaf voice

If you have met me in person, you will notice how I have an accent. It’s my ‘Deaf’ voice. I was raised in the oral method in New Jersey, where I was born. When my family moved to New York I was learning in the oral method + SEE (Signed Exact English). What is SEE? It’s sign language that follows English grammar. ASL has its own grammar rules different from English. I picked up on some ASL when I had an interpreter with me in my mainstreamed classes from Grade 5 until high school graduation.

I took countless hours of speech therapy from 3 years old until freshman year of college. 16 years. I had to memorize how to pronounce words. I don’t hear myself talk. I never will. So many people have said to me how impressed they are with how well I speak for a Deaf person. I talk so well that some people doubted that I was Deaf, they think I am Hard of Hearing.

When I went to RIT (college in Rochester, NY), I immersed myself in the Deaf world. But I was criticized for using my voice. Why?! It was highly frowned upon to use your voice while signing simultaneously, this was the only way I knew how to communicate! They had an insult sign, which was the sign for ‘hearing’ on the forehead - I was called that a few times. That insult is most common towards Deaf people who looks more ‘hearing’ based on their signs/using voice/oral/etc. I’ve gotten mistaken many times as a hearing person.

This was the hardest part about trying to find my place within my world. This weighed on me so heavily that I went through a period of depression over my identity.

Being back in the hearing world now, I’ve learned a lot since then. I realized that it was important for me to continue using my voice because my family and husband relies upon it. We also use sign language so using both helps them to understand me better. I’ve decided to accept that this is the best way for me to communicate.

I have stopped using my voice when I go out in public. I realized that once people see me using my voice, they automatically rely on that. It puts all the burden of communication onto me. I have to lip read and talk. I don’t lip read well! When I don’t use my voice, they focus on other ways to communicate (paper-and-pen or Notes app on the phone).

When I am around Deaf people or anyone who uses ASL, I do try to drop my voice. It’s such a hard, hard, hard habit to break after using sim-com for 16 years. Most often my voice would be very quiet or some words still gets pronounced (quietly). I still use sim-com when I’m around my hearing family and friends. I do hope that my voice helps them to understand me, but I would always appreciate if they took some of the burden off me by learning a little sign language.

My ‘Deaf’ voice is something that I’ve took a long time to accept. I’ve got questioned a few times about why my voice sounds funny. My favorite question is always the “Where are you from?”. I can play around and throw out random locations. But it’s also something that I am very self-conscious about because I know my accent isn’t perfect. It obviously sounds different. I always muted all videos on social media. I don’t want to get bullied over my voice.

Many people don’t realize that when a Deaf person talks it is based from memorization. We learned all of that in speech therapy. I never can tell the tone of my voice, as much I try to control that. Sometimes I don’t always realize the volume of my voice too. I learned how to pronounce every single word by memorization. Imagine learning how to swim without being in a pool then you swim based on memorization! That is what talking is for me!