What If You Were Deaf

Nate Roberts
2 min readApr 22, 2021

--

If I woke up tomorrow deaf my life would be changed forever. Personally I would freak out for a straight week but that’s not the point. The first thing that would happen would be denial. Personally I wouldn’t be able to believe that I was deaf. Next I would go through a process of doctors all telling me the same thing. Once I accept that I am deaf i would be enrolled in the school for the deaf in Olathe.

I would have to learn sign obviously. But since I don’t know about hearing aids and cochlear implants I would have to learn about them and make decision of which one I want. At first communicating with signs around the house would be difficult, but I would learn and so would the people around me. Communication with my parents would not be easy but I think that it would be better after a while. I couldn’t see my parents not supporting me because its not a thing you can make a choice on. My parents support me on all my decisions and this one isn’t a hard decision to make because it’s not my choice to be deaf.

I think my life would take a real turn. Nobody around me knows ASL. I think that I would lose some of my close friends because of it. Mostly because of communication. I just couldn’t imagine some of my experiences with my friends if I couldn’t hear. I think my friends would become distant people because of losing my hearing. My future plans would for sure change, because of communication. If it’s possible I would try to be a deaf dentist or orthodontist. I feel they are high paying jobs but they still can be done by the deaf.

Overall it’s a big life change all together. I don’t think any two people would act the same about losing their hearing so suddenly.

--

--