Deaf for an hour

I stuffed the cotton in my ears making sure that it was well secured so that no sound would get past the cotton. I was quite nervous about how this experience would affect all the things that I usually do without thinking, even if it was only for an hour.  At first I was at a loss on what to do, my first thought was to watch some TV, but then I remembered there really wouldn’t any point in doing that. Finally, I decided to sit down to do some homework.

A while later, it was time for dinner my mom had to tell me by pointing at the table instead of just calling like she usually does. Dinner was a peculiar experience. I had no way of participating in a conversation with my parents like I usually do. All I could do was to observe their mouths forming the words that I couldn’t hear and speculate on what they were conversing about.  

After a long hour I could finally remove the cotton from my ears and regain my hearing. I was surprised that I didn’t find this experience as awful as I thought I would. In a way it was nice to be able to shut out the world and be alone with my thoughts for a while. However, I don’t think being deaf is in any way a pleasant thing to live with as you have a lot disadvantages that other people don’t, especially when communicating. From what I experienced losing one sense, in this case my hearing, heightens your other senses. I felt that I used my sight much more for orientating myself than I usually do when I can do it by just listening. Overall I have found this whole experience really interesting and it gave me a different perspective on how it is to be deaf.