Being deaf

1) can the poster not lip-read? I realize it's not 100% accurate and you only get the portion of the conversation from the person you're looking at at the moment but from the description it sounds as if the poster isn't getting ANY of the conversations.

2) Didn't take the offered speech therapy funding?!?! WTF. I wouldn't even remotely suggest that every Deaf person needs to learn to speak BUT if you are feeling so left out of conversations with hearing people, and it's effecting you so significantly emotionally not taking advantage of this just sounds crazy.

I recognize that us hearing folk can never fully understand what it's like to be deaf, but at the same time this post really makes it sound like the poster hasn't been taking any steps to counter the situation that's causing them emotional distress. Getting your employer to pay for someone to come in and translate for you is NOT the solution. Sure it may help, but unless they're going to follow you around all day it only addresses a teeny portion of the problem.

Also, regarding the avoidance of the deaf community: I can understand not identifying with Deaf culture, but getting together with other deaf people doesn't have to be about that. I live in Cambridge, MA (very white and very english speaking). On my street there's a portugese club where people get together simple to communicate in a familiar language. Down the road there's a portugese sports club where they get together to watch soccer. A couple miles away there's a Korean church. These people are primarily getting together because of language. This sounds like exactly the same problem to me. The poster has trouble dealing with oral language, feels isolated as a result, and then actively avoids getting together with people who do speek their language, thus increasing the sense of isolation.

Yes, there's much we hearing folk could do to help improve the poster's situation, but it seems as if the poster isn't doing much to improve their situation either.

I don’t know if it’s whether they never saw my note, whether they rejected my resume silently, or whether they attempted calling my phone number (which doesn’t take calls).

stood out to me. It wasn't clear to me what happens when someone called the phone, but seemed like it rejected calls. Why not have an answering machine like service, where people can leave a message and it gets transcribed?

Short version: the stat is 15y old and mostly measures the unbelievably bad teaching theories (oralism, mainstreaming) that hurt a lot of deaf kids and are still being fought over.

As a stutterer, I like to think that I understand a bit of what's it's like to not be able to communicate as well as some people. There's times when I have valuable input, but I won't say it out of fear of wasting people's time. Why would I spend a few minutes trying to say a few sentences when I can sit and wait and hope someone else could say the same thing in a few seconds?

It's not nearly the same, but I think it gives me an edge in understanding this kind of thing. Posts like this really make me more aware of what everyone can do to help the deaf and other people who struggle with things like this. Take a few minutes out of your day to help someone.