Being deaf and miscommunication

Today I went to get some bread, a very ordinary gesture, but the person who served me was new and did not know me. She asked me a question but she had turned around, not seeing her lips, I could not answer her. She got angry, thinking that I did not care about her. So I explained myself, but she did not believe me. Why ? Because I was talking …
She did not understand that a deaf person could speak.
Spoiler! A deaf person is not necessarily mute.

If there has been no any damage or malformations in the throat, all the deaf can speak (orally). If some deaf people do not speak it is often because they became deaf before they could hear or learn to speak. (Even after learning, do not hear any more voices around us either push us to practice less.) When you grow up without speaking, it’s not easy to start talking again, to take classes with a speech therapist, and the oral for someone who has never heard, or heard a voice for a long time, it does not represent more.

Reading on the lips is something complicated, especially when talking with a bearded man. It may happen that we ask to repeat, to be sure to have understood.
But, dear hearing people, it is useless to SPEAK LOUDLY while repeating! We are deaf by definition, we do not hear you. 🙂
Exaggerating the joint, does not help either because it changes all our bearings.
To help us, you just have to repeat your sentence by speaking more slowly.

How do you as a deaf person to communicate with hearing people?

Personally, I speak but we can also use the screen of our phone to write messages.

And to talk on the phone?

I can not. But I use a lot of sms, or so I use videoconferencing, but on mobile phone I can use it only with people speaking in sign language, the screen is too small to read properly on the lips. Finally I write a lot of mails and handwritten letters, but that’s just because I’m a weird girl! I really like the romantic side of the handwritten letters.

I wrote this article because I was frustrated by the reaction of the person I am talking about in the introduction, but I hope it will help you understand us a little better.