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Jackson Palafox

Professor Kevin Garrison

Topics in TBW: Deaf/Disability

24 February 2023

An Extra Dimension

Before I begin recounting my experience passing as a hard-of-hearing individual, I

believe that it is very important that I first disclose something about myself: I am partly deaf in

my left ear. I do not know the exact decibels that my hearing is limited to, but I can say that it

has enough of an effect on me that I cannot tell where some sounds are coming from. However, I

have lived with this ear for many years, so I am somewhat used to it. The cause of this partial

deafness is caused by, at the expense of being slightly graphic, a section of my ear being filled

with some kind of fluid, which in turn compresses my ear canal, limiting the sounds that can

make it to my ear drum. In other words, this deafness could be surgically treated without any

drastic measures being taken; the fluid simply needs to be drained. For a large portion of my life

that is still underway, I have been partially deaf, and I was now about to commit to a full

immersion in the world of deafness, if only for a short period of time. If the medical model were

to be a bit more prevalent in my life, I would be going into this project with a different hearing

state, and maybe even a different perspective on, not just deafness, but the whole world.

This is what I was thinking before I put in the earplugs, along with the worry that the

plugs would somehow not work on me and I would not be able to do the assignment. Just to be

clear, the plugs did work. In retrospect, this was an odd worry to have, even on a conceptual

level. I was worried that I was going to be too hard-of-hearing to be even more so. Even if this
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could have been considered irrational, it reminds me of how audiograms are used to measure

deafness. As discussed in class, audiograms are only limited to the decibels mostly related to

human speech, while the decibels outside of that range are considered irrelevant. In a way, this

was how I felt my hearing would be interpreted in this project: that my preexisting condition

might somehow be considered an irrelevant part of the situation, despite being very real. Despite

these worries, I was able to reverse-pass and experience another dimension of human existence.

I first inserted the earplugs while in my room so that I could understand what was in store

for me. Being isolated to my room was a good start since I would be able to see what kind of

peculiarities being deaf would bring without any social interactions. I wanted to take one step at

a time so that each layer of the deaf experience could have time dedicated to it. For example,

even just putting away laundry while deaf is a different experience. The subtle sounds produced

by touching and interacting with everyday objects, as minute as they may be, still add another

facet of reality. The small wood-on-wood slam signaling that my dresser drawer has closed all

the way is not a vital part of my day, but the lack of that noise would normally let me know that

some clothes are probably preventing the drawer from closing all the way. Now, without sound, I

have to take extra care to make sure everything is where it needs to be. My deafness, when

combined with my anxiety, thoroughness, and distaste for being clumsy, makes me go through

my day at an incredibly slower rate. When I would enter and leave a room, I would basically

have to take stock of myself and my surroundings so that I would be aware of how likely I am to

cause some sort of accident. This worry is born more out of irrationality than any actual

precedence. Removing a way that I can perceive my surroundings fuels this need for awareness,

and increases how often I look over my shoulder to see if I’ll knock something off a table. In a

way, in order to make up for the absent audio, I am more aware of my surroundings, noticing
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more than I previously would have. Obviously, the human experience is more than just

interfacing with ordinary objects and doing chores, but this was still a big part of my time

reverse-passing as deaf.

Social interactions while reverse-passing was not what I expected. Initial conversations

between my family and myself did not go how I expected. My mother and father both

subconsciously chose to communicate through pantomime. Considering that the majority of what

they were communicating was the status of dinner and when I had to stop school work in order to

do some chores, this seemed an efficient enough means of communication. I was reminded of

how certain communities developed entire languages around the common denominator of

deafness. While my family would still communicate amongst each other using verbal means,

some messages are short enough to be understood by all when sent by visual means, such as the

sign for eating signifying when food is ready. Visual communication has been used in my

family’s household for a while. When my brother and I would have headphones or earbuds

blocking off our hearing, our parents would resort to some form of sign that something needed

our attention. In fact, during the infant and toddler phases, my little brother would use the sign

for “eat” to let us know that he was hungry. Basically, the seeds of a Deaf community are already

present in my home, and this is probably the case for many other homes. These interactions with

my family made me wonder how close other close-knit communities could be to relying solely
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on visual communication.

A Day of Reverse-Passing
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Double Checks Hours spent working Visual Communication Volume of Movies

Deaf Hearing

Another big part of my daily routine that was changed by reverse-passing as deaf was

how I handle my workload from school. I usually work while listening to music or some kind of

YouTube video in the background. Taking away that background noise, I was not sure if my

efficiency would increase because of a lack of distractions, or if I would be less productive

because my mind’s work rhythm was off. What actually ended up happening was a mix of both

with a sprinkle of “no change at all.” However, after completing my schoolwork, I found that the

way I relax had been greatly altered. For example, I normally enjoy putting on an album and

trying to find any musical intricacies that I may have missed on previous listens. Music as a

whole is a big source of entertainment for me, so having it become inaccessible to me was

disorienting in a way. Even if the music was at a volume that I could hear it, I was still upset that

I was missing out on certain nuances that make music such a beautiful art form. Movies and

television shows, however, were still enjoyable for me. I sometimes use movies as background
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noise, similar to when I do schoolwork with music. Because of this, I would put on movies and

shows that I have already seen so as to not be distracted by any unexpected imagery or sounds.

This preference, combined with the year-long inclination for my shows and movies to have

subtitles, made for my deaf movie-watching experience to me very similar to my hearing

experience. While I had felt like I was missing out on something vital when it came to my music,

movies provide enough visual storytelling, be it cinematography or the dialogue portrayed in the

captions, that I was able to enjoy it nonetheless.

The occasional feeling of missing out, along with the aforementioned increased

awareness, makes for a very unique sense of alienation that is only heightened even further when

I was interacting with strangers. While going to a Dollar General near my house with my little

brother, I had to rely greatly on my brother’s help. Even though I was paying for everything we

were buying, my brother had to uncomfortably handle all interactions with the cashier for me.

Even though the questions were innocuous, such as whether or not we would prefer a receipt, it

was still very odd for the two of us, especially my little brother who is a little over half my age.

The interaction was short and inoffensive, but I still found myself wanting to let the cashier

know that I was not going to be able to hear him very well, mostly so that the cashier would have

a concrete reason for any awkwardness that would arise during the transaction, but also for

another reason: I felt as though I was lying to the cashier. Disclosure, which can be a powerful

event validating the self, can also just be a matter of lies and truth. Brueggemann said that

disclosure is “an airing of the closeted self”, which, while clearly allowing the person to no

longer hide who they are, can also be about the simple matter of telling the truth (154).

At worst, the cashier might stubbornly try to make me hear by repeating the message

louder and louder until I heard. Some individuals just will not consider the possibility that the
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person they are talking with is deaf and may need a different form of communication until they

are explicitly told so. As the old gentleman in “Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom” said, “I

will make him hear” (Craft 44). While this may come off as cynicism, the cashier did not adhere

to this way of thinking. Instead, once my brother began answering whatever questions were

being asked, he seemed to subconsciously accept that it was my brother who was in charge of

our purchasing the products, even though I was clearly the one who was paying. He even gave

my brother the receipt despite me having provided the debit card. I may be looking too much into

the subtleties of this interaction, but I feel that there is still some meaning behind how things

played out.

My deaf experience was not what I expected. I had assumed that my preexisting

condition would somehow effect it, or even outright hinder it. I felt more aware of what was

around me, but only because I was missing another layer of reality. The world is an

amalgamation of stimuli, so having one of them be suppressed made it seems so different while

remaining the same. When I spoke, I knew that those around could understand what I was

saying, but knowing that the communication could only really go one way, as though I was on a

separate wavelength was incredibly odd. I know there are other ways to communicate, such as

ASL, but for me, someone who does not know ASL nor how to read lips, I was present, but

separate. I am reminded of how objects in the 4th dimension would appear to us, 3rd dimensional

beings; some of their movements make visual sense, but once they take advantage of that extra

axis, or extra dimension, even if we can tell that they are still there, visually, they are completely

confounding to us.
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Works Cited

Brueggemann, Brenda Jo. The Coming out of Deaf Culture. Taylor & Francis, Ltd., 1995.

Craft, Ellen, and William Craft. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom. University of Georgia

Press, 1860.