[NFB-DB] Identifying as deafblind

[Tony May]

Hello Marsha,

Thank you so much for sharing!  I really appreciate it.

Take care,  
Tony


> On Aug 17, 2021, at 1:30 PM, Marsha Drenth <marsha.drenth at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Greetings,
> Marsha Drenth here. I was born visually impaired first. As I grew older, my vision decreased. I lost all of my usable vision in 2004. As a child I had learned to use a cane and read braille, but never used them since I could still see. It took a few years for me to adjust to vision loss. In 2007, I was diagnosed with a hearing loss and prescribed hearing aids. I didn’t wear those aids since I didn’t like how it made sounds weird or how the aids felt in my ears. In 2011-2012 I had the ost significant hearing loss. I am now considered to be profoundly deaf. I ware two of the most powerful hearings on the market. At home I mostly function as a hearing person, although speech is the hardest for me to hear. Outside of my home its a different story. I attended HKNC in 2013-2014, to learn to be a deafblind person. I use tactile sign language and love PT/Haptics/Hand signals. Although I have been a long time NFB member and grew up culturally hearing blind. I do identify as DeafBlind. Being DeafBlind allows one to fit into 3 different communities. 
> 
> The first time I started to accept that I had a hearing loss, was during a tour of HKNC during lunch. Scott might remember this. I was considering attending to learn how to be a Deaf hard of hearing person. It was a normally busy and crowded time. I sat down at the table with Scott in which we started a conversation about technology or something. Then one person sat down, but they could not hear me and I could not hear them. Then another person sat down at the table, Nor could I hear what that person said or what I said. I knew at that point I was no longer alone in the world. We all had trouble hearing each other. No one could see. But it was all okay. So how are we going to make this work. I don’t remember what we did but in the long run I came away from that knowing I am DeafBlind and proud of it. 
> 
> That is my story. 
> 
> Good day! 
> 
> Marsha drenth  
> Sent with my IPhone  
> Please note that this email communication has been sent using my iPhone. As such, I may have used dictation and had made attempts to mitigate errors. Please do not be hesitant to ask for clarification as necessary. 
> 
>> On Aug 15, 2021, at 2:56 PM, kg 6sxy (kg6sxy) via NFB-DB <nfb-db at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> 
>> For those of you that were not born deafblind, how long did it take you to self identify as deafblind?  My tinnitus has been really driving me around the bend lately where I'm completely deaf more often than not but it still feels like I shouldn't be self identifying as deafblind because I still have functional hearing from time to time. It's probably not important either way, just a matter of not feeling like an imposter, I guess.  Just having a bad week all around.  I appreciate your feedback.
>> 
>> Take care,  
>> Tony
>> 
>> 
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