Deaf Girly's world of employment

This morning, I read the latest report from the brilliant charity Scope about 'Why we need to see changes in support for disabled people in work' and it really struck a chord for me.

I am disabled. I lie awake at night worrying about my job prospects and where my career is going. About my earning potential and the restrictions my disability places on my ability to do jobs.

I know – I was told in an email – that my deafness has cost me an interview for some work. You can read about that here. And I know that this damaged my confidence in a way that it had never been damaged before.

The Scope report states that 58% of disabled people have felt at risk of losing their job because of their impairment. While I have never felt this, I have felt the sick fear of how I will get another job if I lose the one I am in – and as my industry is precarious at the best of times, this feeling never really goes away. It's a 24-hour, 7-day, 52-week low-level nausea. It's a bit exhausting.

I am lucky too in that I am not one of the 18% who was refused support by their employer. All my employees have striven to meet my needs. Things like amplified phones – which it turned out didn't help – and vibrating pagers for the fire alarm.

But still I get that low level nausea about work and my disability.

The 53% who experienced bullying? Sadly yes, I fall into this category. Although not in the last eight years... but just remembering it? Yep, that nausea is back.

And what about the 13% who don't disclose their disability to their employer? Yep, I've been there too. I don't just apply for jobs on a whim. I research the companies, I look at the role, I do all the thinking about whether my deafness would prevent me from doing the job. And then I apply.

I don't ever apply for jobs via agencies because they always call you, and then I would have to disclose my deafness at the very start, which means I don't stand a chance of making it into the potential employer's office to make a different impression.

And that's the exact reason I don't disclose my deafness. I have hope that if they meet me beforehand, the idea of my disability will be easier to understand. Easier to see around. And whether you can do the job will become the important thing, not whether your disability prevents you from doing so. Seeing as I will have already taken all that into account beforehand.

But that sick feeling? It's there, from the very start of the application process right through to the rejection letter or even the acceptance letter. Either way, it's hard not to feel anxious that at some point that disability is going to put up a barrier that wouldn't otherwise be there.

And the most shocking thing about this? To me, I feel like my disability is simply a part of who I am. Heck, it's given me this blog. It's made me Deafinitely Girly. And it inspired my first novel. And that if I lost out on a job, it would be the same as someone losing out on a job because they had brown hair, or were too tall, or had a lisp.

I have had 27 years to come to terms with my deafness, slowing working out how to live my life in a way I want to live it. Yes, I am profoundly deaf, but I have thirteen years' of experience in my chosen field under my belt. To a senior level. And sometimes I feel like that counts for nothing.

I look at the findings of Scope's survey and wonder how horrific the day-to-day lives of some of the respondents are. How tough they've had it. Whether they too have the same low-level nausea or something much worse.

Right now, I have a job. It's not full time, or permanent, but it's with a company I know and trust. A company that has been supportive of my disability. With people who know my ability. Who don't see me first as a deaf person, but instead as a colleague with 13 years' experience in her field.

But I am aware I have many years left to work. And truth be told I am slightly terrified. Terrified of the fact the job market is getting smaller and the fact that people who aren't deaf on the surface are more employable than me.

I hope that Scope's findings reach the souls of the people who have turned me and others down for work. I hope that they open the eyes of employers who 'choose the easy path' and employ the ones with the straightforward CVs. And I hope that things change. Because I don't want to live with 30 more years of employment nausea. I don't ever want to receive another email telling me that my deafness means I am unsuitable for a job. And I don't want to live a life half lived.

Happy Valentine's Day peeps!

DG
xx

10 things my deafness makes me better at

The other day I was thinking about what I might be like if I wasn't deaf. Firstly, I wouldn't be here as Deafinitely Girly. I'd probably be blogging about other things though... but this wouldn't include defending myself against a coat stand with a hot water bottle and many of the other scrapes I've found myself in as a result of not hearing much.

But what about the other things that I think my deafness enhances. The things I've become better at, quicker at, more efficient at. Here's my round-up of the 10 things I think I do better than I would if I was hearing:

1. Form filling

Who doesn't love a form eh? Especially those ones with the boxes where you have to get your letters just inside and hope your email address isn't too long to fit. In my life I have filled in countless forms to do with my deafness – from Freedom passes and my recent application for a Hearing Dog (YAY!) to complaints online about subtitles, service and applications for various things to help. You name it, I've filled it in. I love forms! 

2. Planning ahead

I wonder if I'd be quite so organised if I wasn't deaf. If I'd be more laissez-faire, leave things to the last minute, and fret less? Maybe not, but I do know that being deaf means I consider all options, all scenarios and all possible outcomes when planning, organising and booking things. This means I can request pre-boarding on planes, seats at the front of talks, or tweet the relevant people my questions and worries and ensure that at no point is my deafness going to trip me up. Of course it invariably does, but I'm still on a quest to plan ahead to the point that it doesn't.

3. Finding out names

I am terrible with names. I never hear them and then am too embarrassed to ask someone to repeat their name. But this means I have a stealth-like skill at finding out people's name and NEVER forgetting them ever again. When starting in a new office, I always draw a floor plan in the back of my notebook and then find a friendly face to help me fill it in. I will hit up linked in and match faces to names, whatever it takes. 

Of course, I could simply admit that I hadn't heard their name three weeks ago when I first met them, which is why for the first two weeks at one of my recent jobs I called a guy Tom and not Adam, before LinkedIn told me otherwise… but that would be too simple wouldn't it?

4. Understanding ignorance

Do you know I once pointed an empty seat on the tube out to a blind person by saying 'There's a seat over there'? It was one of the most embarrassing disability unaware things I have ever done. But it made me realise that when people ask you odd things about your deafness – 'Can you drive?' being one of the most asked and ridiculous ones – I don't get so riled anymore. After all, if I can forget that pointing to an empty seat is really not helpful to a blind person, then hearing people with little knowledge of deafness deserve a break.

5. Sleeping with the light on

I can sleep pretty much anywhere – planes, trains and automobiles and even trendy nightclubs... actually especially trendy nightclubs. One of the reasons for this is that I've spent much of my life sleeping with lights on – I hate darkness you see, it feels like I have no senses left and it's very isolating. As a child, my parents used to leave the hall cupboard light on, when I lived alone I left my hall light on, and in my current flat, if FJM is away, lights galore provide me with the visual reassurance that all is OK. My light resilience is very useful when it comes to needing naps in non-nap friendly places.

6. Making up stories

Before I knew I was deaf, I spent much of my life guessing what was going on. After I knew I was deaf, I continued to do this as well. Things like Chinese whispers at sleepovers – I always made my own ones up as never heard the whisper. Or Dictation at school, which I treated like a creative writing exercise. Or basically any conversation I ever had was pieced together with lipreading and a good amount of guessing what was going on. I've now written a book. A whole book. And I love making up stories.

7. Having a specific morning and evening routine

Every morning and every night I have the same routine. It's meticulous. It works. I could do it with my eyes closed. I could do it drunk. Why? Well it's all about my hearing aids and making sure I don't get halfway to work and wonder why I can feel cold air in my ears and then realise in a panic my hearing aids are somewhere they shouldn't be, not right beside my glasses on my dressing table ready to go in straight after I've finished putting on my make up. OK, so it's vaguely OCD, but it works. In the five years I've had hearing aids, I've forgotten them three times.

8. Bagging benefits

I don't mean the DLA variety. But in life, there are many benefits available to deaf people and I make sure I boldly ask for them all. Things like friends going in free as carers to museums, country houses, zoos and art galleries. Getting pre-board on planes so that you can be the first on, not miss your row being called and let the crew know that you can't hear announcements. Or asking for discounted tickets at the theatre if a subtitled show isn't available – I've done this and taken a script for things I really want to see. The Barbican has an access card, which gets me all kinds of benefits and I could write a whole blog about what else is available. My deafness means I am never afraid to ask – nicely, in a non-demanding but totally, hard-to-say-no-to way.

9. Laughing at myself

Deafness can be embarrassing sometimes – like the time I leant my head out a changing room to lipread my mum, tripped, pulled the whole curtain rail down and found myself flat on my back and naked in the middle of a shop. In those times, you've just got to laugh… and drink gin.

10. Being determined

This is perhaps my favourite thing. I wonder if I'd give up more easily if I had hearing. If I'd take things for granted, be less bothered about things. When I look back at what I've achieved and what I want. At the forecasts from teachers or even my own worst fears, I can see that I somehow found a bloody-minded determination to go after what I want. Of course it wavers in the same way it does for everyone else, but for me, there's always the nagging in the back of my mind that I need to do this, and my deafness isn't going to stop me.

Happy Wednesday peeps! Hurrah – it's Bake Off Semi Final night!

DG x

Deaf Girly's and the world of work

The fab peeps over on Twitter will know that since I quit my job to write a book and be an au pair, then got a permanent job for one year and then left it again, I've been going it alone in the world of employment. With varying degrees of success.

But this morning as I was walking to one of the offices I am working at, I suddenly realised I should in fact feel incredibly proud of myself.

When I first started out working in London many many moons ago, I used to look at the freelancers who came into our office on a regular basis and wonder how they did it. How they slotted into a different team, got to know different people and different ways of working and didn't panic about it.

I mean, me getting a job in the big bad world was the reason I started this blog. Learning how to be deaf in a professional environment sent my head into a spin, I cried every day - in a cupboard where I did much of my work. I loved that cupboard, it was my safe haven away from the people who could use the phone and be efficient in the world of new millennial media.

In my 20s, I clung to every job like my life depended on it. My food and rent certainly did depend on it. I was terrified of redundancy and so eager to climb the ladder that I think I lost perspective of what made me good at what I do in the first place.

And then in 2013, I had that brainwave to quit my job, rent out my flat, write a book and be an au pair. All of which were varying degrees of successful... But all of which taught me an awful lot about myself and my capabilities as a deaf person.

And then I finished the first of many drafts of the book, got a job while being an au pair (RESPECT TO WORKING MOTHERS HERE BECAUSE THIS WAS A MENTAL TIME IN MY LIFE), then stopped being an au pair, left my job, continued to rent my flat, and had to rent another one...

You still following?

So what does a thirty-something deaf girl with a patchwork CV and an unpublished book with bills to pay do?

I did something I'd never thought I could do... I went freelance.

To be fair, at the start I kept it local. I contacted former colleagues who gave me work and gradually built up my confidence again. But then - because I really did need a bit more money - I sent my CV out to random places to see what happened.

And that had varying degrees of success.

There was the company who contacted me and were really interested having seen my
CV but then on finding out I was deaf, told me I wouldn't be suitable for the job and they needed a hearing person who could communicate well... All without finding out whether I can communicate well and dismissing the fact I have a CV showing 13 years of communicating well. *scowls

Then there was the office who gave me chance but was so frantic I swear I only peed once the whole time I was there...

Shortly after the 'you're too deaf to do this job' rejection, I got an email from another company I'd sent my CV to. They offered me some work – a trial. I accepted. But as the dates drew nearer I found myself getting more and more anxious.

What if my deafness let me down? What if I was required to use the phone and there was no other alternative? Should I have told them in advance about my disability? What if they had a problem with me not telling them about my disability? The worry list went on... and on... and on... I almost talked myself out of doing the work.

On my first day, I went through all the possible disaster scenarios before shooing myself out of the door reminding myself that the need to earn money was greater than my anxieties about being deaf.

On arrival, I discovered my lovely manager had a Scottish accent, which meant revealing my deafness in the first second of our meeting. And he didn't bat an eyelid. Not even a tiny flinch. He just accepted the information. I passed my trial.

And since then, in the three months that I have worked at this office, my manager has continued to accept the information I give him about my deafness. He's made phone calls for me, repeated things without any issue, reminded me of people's names and he always, always comes over to speak to me rather than shouting.

It's amazing.

I am lucky. I know I am. Not all offices are like this. But I think quite a few are. And now, when I realise that freelancing is going OK, and I'm not falling apart in a deaf-related anxious heap, I can't help but beam to myself.

It's made me realise that some of the things I've avoided in the past because of my deafness are do-able... and it's made me wonder what else is...

I'm just off to make a list!

Happy Tuesday peeps

DG
xx

Deaf Girly's deaf week

I'm having a bit of a deaf week if I'm honest with you. And it's only Tuesday.

I KNOW!

A deaf week for me is when I find myself being constantly reminded of my deafness. In the olden days these weeks would reduce me to a gibbering wreck on the sofa by Friday – holed up with my housemate watching Ally McBeal DVDs and lamenting my need for subtitles.

But these days, I just find myself wondering at or simply side-stepping the issue of me being deaf.

Yesterday of course, there was the Starbucks episode. The 'Pardon, pardon, pardon, NO I DON'T WANT KETCHUP WITH MARMITE, ARE YOU MAD?' event.
Deafness 1. DG 0.

But before that, I failed to mention that I had got up at 5.50am to try a new form of exercise – you see doing a HIT workout in prescription swimming goggles really isn't working out for me. This new exercise routine is downloadable off the internet and is circuit training. You don't need a scrap of hearing – it's all picture based. Brilliant eh?

Deafness 1. DG 1.

Well kind of. You see yesterday morning at 6.15am, halfway through and about to pass out from lack of breathing, FJM stumbled into the living room wondering where I was, and found me, mid step-up on the coffee table holding a 6kg weight. I didn't hear him until he started to laugh and then that scared me so much that I dropped the weight, forgot to breath and almost threw up on the living room floor. Brilliant that deafness of mine, eh?

Well not really. After all, what girl dreams of the man they adore finding her standing on a coffee table, red in the face, hair everywhere, holding his dumbbells (CLEAR OUT YOUR MINDS PEOPLE).

Deafness 2. DG 1.

Last night, neither of us could sleep. I wondered if it was because FJM was still traumatised from his discovery that morning. So he put a podcast on his phone and began to listen. I watched him press play. I knew there was a podcast playing. I could see him chuckling at something funny being said. But I heard nothing. And that made me sad. It reminded me of what I am missing out on. Of the information that hearing people can effortlessly access when they can't sleep, without the blue glow of their mobile phone screen feeding it to them. But then I remembered there is an alternative way of accessing information without a blue glow of a mobile phone screen, and I picked up a book.

Deafness 2. DG 2.

And then I fell asleep. For eight whole hours. And looking back on yesterday, yes, there were loads of ways my deafness kicked my butt and I am sure there will be many more times when I am mortifyingly embarrassed by my deafness. Like the time, my iPad – unbeknown to me – started blaring out Taylor Swift on the tube and an enraged man had to ask me to turn it down. Or the time I thought a shop assistant was asking me if I wanted a bag so I kept saying no and in fact she was asking me to enter my pin – thank goodness for contactless eh?

But I will keep finding ways to kick it right back, because my deafness is going to work with me whether it likes it or not.

Happy Tuesday peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly in Starbucks

This morning I was reminded embarrassingly of my deafness when, as a special treat, I decided to get a toasted Cheese and Marmite panini before work.

With Starbucks, I always try to pass the Denny's test when giving my order (you know the one where you have to get your entire order through without the waitress asking any qualifying questions) and usually I do well. I make sure if I'm ordering a drink I give the size, clarify that I won't want any bells and whistles and that I don't want anything else. It's a self preservation thing – I find it so hard to hear in Starbucks, Pret, Itsu and all the other breakfast and lunch places in central London.

So today I thought would be relatively straight forward. After all, it was a Cheese and Marmite panini to take away, no hot drinks. But apparently not.

The woman behind the counter asked me something. She asked it again. And again and again. She was embarrassed. I was embarrassed. The information I gave her about being hard of hearing fell on deaf ears. The situation was too far gone to salvage.

Eventually after leaning my head between the till and the counter in such a way that had I been in a bank, I would have set alarms off and been carted away, I managed to grasp that she was asking me whether I wanted Ketchup or brown sauce with my Cheese and Marmite panini.

Never in a million years would I have guessed she was going to ask me that, because ketchup or brown sauce with cheese and marmite seems to categorically wrong that I simply can't envisage it. And that's coming from someone that eats baked beans on lettuce and adds salad cream to practically everything.

Failing the Denny's test was a stark reminder that I am deaf. And while most of the time I can wing it, some days, like today, I fail spectacularly. But just incase, from now on I am going to add that to my Starbucks order.

'Cheese and marmite panini please. Toasted. To take away. No ketchup or brown sauce (no I'm not crazy). No hot or cold drinks. No receipt. Thank you.'

I'll let you know how I get on.

Happy Monday peeps.

DG
x

Deafinitely Girly and Prom number 63

Yesterday, I told someone at work that I was going to a Prom and the first thing he thought was that this was a high school prom involving big dresses, limousines and layers and layers of fake tan. And, while I was flattered he thought I was the Dougie Howser of the workplace and merely masquerading as a 34-year-old woman who was actually still at school, I was relieved that I was actually off to a musical Prom.

I'd chosen this Prom because I thought that FJM might like it. It had a guaranteed easy-listening hit of a Mozart Piano Concerto (No 27 in B flat major) smack bang in the middle of Messiaen's Hymne and Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major. And he did like it.

I did, too. Thanks mostly to the seats I chose.

If there's one thing I've learnt from going to the Albert Hall it's that I sometimes 'lose' the sound. But with seats in the choir – facing the rest of the audience and, most crucially, overlooking the orchestra, I was able to read the conductor, which helped me work out who was playing when and of course what tempo, and most importantly during the piano piece, 'hand read' the pianist – a very wonderful and enthusiastic Igor Levit, who did an encore, before the interval. Brilliant eh?

After my previous experience with Messiaen I was pretty sure that Hymne would be 12 minutes of largely unintelligible sound, and it kind of was. The high strings were totally out of my frequency. But this meant I was able to play around with my hearing aids and see which settings helped, and which didn't.

My Phonax Naxos hearing aids have Sound Recover, which moves the frequencies I cannot hear into a frequency I can. In the Sound Recover setting, I could hear quite a bit more, but it sounded even more discordant that I think perhaps Messiaen himself intended. Without Sound Recover, I lost the entire string section save for the cellos and bass. And then I decided to take my hearing aids out. After all, until three years ago, I attended all classical music concerts without my hearing aids.

I will never do this again. Without my hearing aids, it was almost entirely silent. The difference was so marked, I frantically searched the orchestra and watched the conductor in the vain hope there was just a really long rest in the music. But they were all moving.

'Do not cry,' I told my frustrated (and a little bit devastated) self. And so I, totally didn't, hold it together until the Mozart.

And if the Messiaen had me crying tears of frustration, the Mozart had me weeping tears of joy – yep, I was the crying blonde girl in the choir yesterday if you were there. As the strings started and the piano began, although I knew there were lots of notes quite simply not reaching my ears, there was enough that I could imagine the complete score. I could recognise the comforting phrasing and lilting melodies I grew up listening to before I got really deaf.

And I could follow Igor Levit's hands on the piano and see what he was playing.

I was happy again.

And then came the Bruckner with its low bass notes and emotional second movement. And I absolutely didn't weep my way through this either. Nope. That was definitely not me snivelling between FJM and the rather bemused old chat next to me.

Standing up to cheer my head off – probably a bit louder and 'Pretty Woman'-like that FJM would have preferred – I realised that I just have to focus on the positives with music. That I can still hear enough to make it enjoyable. That it is still enjoyable. Provided I choose my pieces well. And that means that Messiaen is out...

And Mozart and Bruckner are most definitely in.

*beams

Happy Thursday peeps

DGx

Deaf Girly and the Step class

Today I went to the gym for my usual lunchtime workout where I don't talk to anyone, interact with anyone or hear anything. My hearing aids come out and I just zone out for one hour. It's bliss.

But as I walked in today, there were the tokens for the lunchtime classes sat by the towel bales and for some reason I picked up a token for a step class.

I usually avoid classes – especially ones I have never done before like step as I find them so hard to follow and always end up making a complete fool of myself. And so, as I was throwing on my kit hastily I was having a mental yell at myself for being such an idiot.

The tiny optimist in me suggested that I might enjoy it. That I might follow it and that it might be OK. So gripping onto that thought, I headed into the already full studio.

Everyone had set up their step. There was very little space left. In fact, the only space left was a bit of the studio floor that was a bit shonky and that according to the instructor who was extremely bouncy and bit shouty, 'YOU WEREN'T ALLOWED TO JUMP ON'.

'But see how you get on and move if it feels too dodgy' he said cheerfully before adjusting his sweatband and getting on with the class.

Honestly, I looked like a newborn foal on acid but I did try very hard. And for that I think I should get a gold star. And what's more – I actually enjoyed it a little bit, too. I enjoyed zoning out and following the moves of the instructor.

OK, so I was about half a move behind him constantly as I had no idea what he was yelling down his head microphone. But it was 45 minutes of pure escapism. Of spoon fed exercise. Of just doing what everyone else was doing.

Has it made me braver about trying other classes? Quite possibly yes. I mean, I'm not sure I will ever try Body Pump without a friend to tell me what weight I should be using when, but Step was simple. You got on the step. You got off the step. You waved your arms around. You looked like a complete nutter.

Well I did anyway.

So if you were at my gym at lunchtime and wondered who the girl was dancing slightly out of time with no clue what was going on, refusing to do any of the jumping moves for fear of crashing through the slightly shonky bit of floor. That was me.

I looked good eh?

Happy Tuesday peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly's 24 years of deafness discovery

This month I will be 34.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I am in my mid thirties.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I've known about my deafness for 24 years now.

But recently I've been reflecting on my journey a bit more. Just how I got here. Just how I became Deaf Girly.

You see, my deafness still feels quite new to me. In the same way as when you first get your ears pierced and forget you have earrings and then get excited all over again. Except I don't really get that excited about my deafness.

Funnily enough though, when I discovered I was getting hearing aids – aged 10 – my mum lowered the age I could get my ears pierced from 16 to that exact day. So soon I had earrings to be excited about and hearing aids to erm well… put in a pocket and forget about.

In my teens I was pretty much in denial about being deaf. I knew it was the reason I got exhausted from lipreading in class. And one of the reasons why I fell asleep a lot in history – the other one... sheer boredom perhaps. And the reason why I was more than a little grumpy at times. But I absolutely refused to acknowledge it. And actually I found that most people were happy to ignore it with me.

At university, I faced another struggle. Getting people to acknowledge my deafness. The special needs person was absolutely useless and it wasn't until my third year that I got a notetaker and the difference in my marks was such that I finally realised I might not be so thick after all.

Moving to London put my deafness under the spotlight again. In early jobs I played it down. I didn't tell people until I had to and I cried every day. In secret. In the cupboard at work.

When I had jobs to do that involved phone calls, I cried some more and my amazing line manager at the time used to come with me into the cupboard, which luckily had a phone and make the calls for me so no one would know I couldn't do it.

I remember at the time trying to put into words what was making me cry and realised that it was frustration. Frustration at being reminded every day that I couldn't hear. That I couldn't do have the things on my job description. Or the things I wanted to do.

But gradually – and probably with the help of writing my blog – I began to find my voice. The one that told people what I could and couldn't do. Without sounding like I had a chip on my shoulder about my disability. Without sounding like I was going to make their lives super complicated or be super demanding. Because I'm quite lucky really. My deafness isn't that demanding.

I've learnt to say – 'I don't use the phone but I treat email in the same way that you would the phone and pick them up straight away.' and I've learnt to work hard within the limitations I have and accept help graciously.

I've also learnt to laugh. Like the time I was hard at work in one of my old jobs and turned around to find the whole office empty. Evacuated during a fire alarm that no one thought to tell me about. Or the time I had Taylor Swift blaring out of my phone for a good few songs without realising it until someone asked me to turn it off or at least down.

And now, 24 years after finding out I was deaf, it's safe to say I'm the happiest I've ever been. In general and also in relation to my deafness. I have hearing aids that give me 3D sound. That give me sounds I've never heard before. Things like cats meowing and the occasional police siren if I'm lucky. And I have a fantastic quiet life when I take them out.

I have a job where I can't tell you what my direct line phone number is because I have never had to use it . AMAZING HUH? If you'd told my crying self that when I was hiding in the cupboard at work 10 years ago, I would have never believed you.

I have an amazing support network of people who will pick up the phone and be me, or listen for me when there is no other alternative.

And most of all I have that confidence that at 10, 14 and 24 I never thought I'd have.

Of course there are still bad days where I am reduced to tears of frustration over a phone call (most recently to HSBC) or because I've managed to embarrass myself in some way. Not heard something important. Or felt like I've missed out on something. But my recovery time is quicker. And after 24 years, I've got the experience to know that the good far outweighs the bad.

The last 24 years have been quite an amazing journey of discovery. An initial discovery of deafness, which quite possibly changed the path I decided to take in life. Not the end goal of course, which is the career I'm in now (with a bit of my own writing thrown in for fun) but the way I got here and the person I became on the way. And looking back, I wouldn't change a thing.

Have a lovely day peeps

DG
xx

I'm hearing in my dreams

I dream a lot. Most mornings I will wake up and remember my dream from the night before. Sometimes they're mundane dreams about everyday life and sometimes they're nightmares  but the one thing they all have in common is that in my dreams I can hear. 

I am never deaf in my dreams.

In my dreams I do things like hold hushed conversations or hear people whispering to me. I make phone calls, people yell stuff from upstairs and I can understand and I've even heard a mobile phone ring before.

I'm not sure why I'm not deaf when I go to sleep at night. Sometimes I wonder if it's my memories of being less deaf as a child coming through. I mean, I do remember being able to hear stuff being said from another room and I'm sure I used to be able to hear the phone ring at my rents' house. It was one of those big retro phones with the dial of numbers you turned.

But the one thing I have never been able to do is hear whispers. And I know this because of that incredibly popular children's game from the eighties, Chinese Whispers. I remember being utterly confused by this game from about the age of 5 upwards, and that's taking into consideration the fact that no one knew I was deaf until I was 10.

I remember sitting in a circle with my friends and thinking that no one could hear whispers and the whole point was to be creative and make something up from your own imagination. So that's what I did.

I remember everyone being utterly confused at how the start and finish whisper had become so different. But thankfully, I don't remember anyone ever pinning it on me.

I honestly didn't know you were meant to hear whispers.

But it wasn't just whispers I thought you weren't meant to hear.

There were song words – I thought you were meant to make up your own. And dictation at school – I thought the hard thing about dictation was working out what the story was not getting the words down spelt correctly. I could never understand why I got bad marks for being creative. 

Then there was French listening. I thought the difficult thing was being able to tell what words were being said, not translating them. I used to do so badly in French listening until my amazing teacher at GCSE – post discovering my deafness – read the whole thing to me. I got 100% for the first time ever.

Anyway, back to the dreams. Last night, I dreamt I met up with a colleague from one of my first jobs. She was asking me what I was doing with my life at the moment and all I could tell her was that I was taking a year out. 

But because I'm not deaf in my dreams, it was as though Deafinitely Girly didn't exist. It was really odd. In my dream, I couldn't help feel like I was forgetting something, like I couldn't quite justify why I was not working and taking a year out.

And to be quite honest, I was relieved to wake up. Relieved that on waking, I was back to me. Back to being Deafinitely Girly.

Because you see, I like being DG. She's a part of me. And I'm a part of her. And right now, I'm quite happy to leave being hearing in my dreams. After all, with hearing, there'd be no Deafinitely Girly. And that would make my life a much less interesting place.

The power of (deaf) Twitter

Every day I am more and more amazed by the power of Twitter.

Twitter – in all it's 140 characters of sometimes hilarity, sometimes abuse and often just random chatter – is becoming quite a fixture in my life.

But not just in a way to showcase my latest baked goods or banter with some of my favourite Twitter peeps – come back soon @grouchotendency – but in a way of finding out stuff, accessing information that I would otherwise struggle to access and get things done where once, only a phone call would do.

Take yesterday for example. I finally took the plunge and applied to Thames Water for a water meter. After all, there is only me in my flat, I don't have a dishwasher, I take showers not baths, and I do one load of washing a week. I even brush my teeth with the tap turned off. So I had begun to resent paying so much for water, when I clearly wasn't using it.

I applied online for the meter. It was compulsory to put your phone number and email address and when I hit send, I got a notification message that someone would be calling me to arrange a home visit to check whether my house was suitable for a meter.

'Bother' I thought, dreading that unrecognised number flashing up on my telephone and I immediately tweeted about this issue and thought nothing more about it.

But then, this morning, I received a tweet from Kirsty @ThamesWater asking me if there was anything she could do to help – she'd obviously seen my indirect mention of Thames Water from the previous day. I told her my predicament and she started following me on Twitter so that I could DM her my details. 

As a result of this, there is a now a note on my details making sure that I am only contacted by post and email and apparently also, there is a letter about someone coming to check whether it's possible to have a water meter fitted and appointment times. So no phone calls will be needed.

Amazing huh?

All that from Twitter.

It's not the first time I've sorted something that I'd otherwise need the phone for. The marvellous peeps on the @o2 Twitter feed sorted out my home broadband, if I tweet that I'm not well, friends will offer to ring the GP, and when I locked myself out of my flat, lovely peeps as far away as Edinburgh offered their ears to make calls for me. 

And let's not forget last Friday evening when my First Great Western train was diverted via Bath and Bristol. Unable to hear the announcements, I tweeted @FGW and the lovely Ollie got straight back to me explaining that the diversion and delay were due to signal failure.

When I joined Twitter all those years ago, I thought it'd be fun – a way of spreading the Deafinitely Girly word. But what it's becoming more and more is a way to help me live my life – a productive, informative, phone-call free, deaf-friendly way.

That and a way to win books – since I've joined Twitter, I have won a lot of books.

Twitter doesn't have to be about trolling or controversy. It's possible to turn it into a little information machine, another pair of ears in a very un-deaf-friendly world. People like @Kidsaudiologist who advised me when I had a hearing wobble or @paulbelmontesli who offers advice on everything from chocolate to well, everything actually.

I never thought it was possible. But it really is.

And let's not forget half the guest list for my Accidental Wedding in April is coming from Twitter. Including @KatieFforde who is my maid of honour – who I met on Twitter because of my love of cooking.

Thanks to my First Great Western delay I bashed out more than the first two chapters of The Accidental Wedding on the train last Friday…

Better get writing faster though if the wedding's in April really, hadn't I?

Save the date peeps! Save the date!

Today, Deafinitely Girly is 4 years old

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to Deafinitely Girly, Happy Birthday tooooo-oooooooo me!

That's right - today is a very important day. It is the fourth birthday of Deafinitelygirly.com. The fourth year that I've been writing about being deaf in the city and having fun.

And what a four years it has been. There's been love, there's been heartbreak, there's been an awful lot of growing up - I bought a flat for heaven's sake  - and there's been a rather unfortunate hospital stay, which happened smack bang in the middle of it all and it's all recorded here, on this blog.

One of the things I love about this blog, is that it serves as a wonderful memoir for me to look back over, so see the introduction of new people, with new blog names, new jobs, new loves, new gyms, new everything.

For this trip down memory lane, I've included nice clickity clicky links so you can take a stroll with me, back to the days when...

I lived with Shakira Shakira. Boy, did we party hard, with sometimes hilarious results.

But as well as partying, I did try to be cultured too but not always successfully, as I discovered.

While other times it was a resounding success.

I learnt foreign languages.

I won competitions.

I took up running but quickly gave it up and joined a gym. But was told I needed a doctor's note to attend because of my deafness.

I got all emotional.

I continued to be a whirlwind in my little kitchen.

I made a few wedding cakes.

I accidentally went dating.

I learnt to tap dance… Kinda.

I finally got broadband.

And lots, lots more.

Looking back, it's amazing. Amazing to read about everything I've done. The friends who've got married, had babies, asked me to be bridesmaid, wedding cake maker, godmother. There's Big Bro who now has a whole family of Clogs. There's the Rents who never cease to amaze me.

And there's you guys - my fabulous readers. The ones who hit on me daily, even though recently, I've been more than a little quiet.

It's hard to believe that Deafinitelygirly.com was born one day over a brainstorming dinner with NikNak after a job interview where I was challenged to write my perfect column. In the year before that job interview, I'd had almost continuous writer's block, but it was as though the floodgates opened and everything came tumbling out.

Deafinitely Girly has been my therapy. She's enabled me to have tantrums, to shout about the frustrations I feel about my deafness, the sadness I feel about the uncertainty that I may somehow be missing out and then the elation I feel when I work through all the crap and realise that life's pretty damn good.

Deafinitely Girly's moved with the times, too. I'm on Twitter, where I'm far more vocal than I am on here these days.

But that doesn't mean I'm going anywhere. The posts will still happen, just not with the alarming frequency of the early days.

And while the lack of blogging may mean I'm busier than I used to be, it also means that just perhaps the blog worked. The home-made therapy worked. Do you know, when I first moved to London, every day I remembered I was deaf. It got in the way of things, tired me out, chewed me up and spat me out.

Writing Deafinitely Girly has allowed me to regain some of that emotional control over my disability.

The tough days occur less and less and my deafness has simply become a part of me. A part of me I wear with pride.

I'm deaf and girly.

I'm Deafinitely Girly.

And it's my fourth birthday.

Now, where's my cake?