OK, gather round peeps. Today’s guest blog is my very good friend, Michale. Our children once played together as tots, and Michale’s wife and I have sometimes worked in the same school. Not many people know this, but I write and (sometimes) perform spoken word. Just by pure coincidence  (Or not if, like me, you don’t believe in coincidence ), The first night I ever read for the first time in public was with Michale, and it was also his first night. We were both a bundle of nerves, our hands trembling, our hearts racing, but we did it. Michale is also a comedian, and I immediately noticed that he used comedy on stage as a distraction; however, most recently, he has had the confidence to step on stage and just be….Michale.

I have always known Michale was deaf. I would say the most “effort” I ever put in was speaking louder in the busy little places we found ourselves in when performing poetry. It’s never been a big deal for me. What is more of a big deal is how Michale now beats everyone in poetry slams!

And that’s the point… he is just Michale. But I guess sometimes we don’t know the struggles people are going through daily when most of us, if we are being honest, are masking ourselves. Like many others, Michale might be facing challenges that we are unaware of, yet he continues to persevere and succeed.

I’m very proud that Michale has chosen this blog, this virtual space, to remove that mask, even just for 5 minutes, and share his story and achievements with all of you.

So find a comfy place, block out the world, and listen to the impact of being unable to do just that…listen. Michale’s story deserves to be heard, and I encourage you to lend him your ears (I am sure he has a very good joke about lending ears)

Awkward Conversations

I’ve always preferred to send messages, emails and poems, rather than talk directly to someone. I fear being in a position where I see someone I know and have to make conversation. This isn’t because I want to be rude, it’s just the crippling effects of being socially awkward. I have walked in the wrong directions away from my destination intentionally, on a countless number of occasions. I have pushed many shopping trolleys heavily laden with food and drink right back to the shop entrance in order to avoid speaking to familiar faces. I have pretended to tie my shoelaces to avoid confrontation in the streets. I have pretended to be distracted by other things if I’m walking in close proximity towards someone I know. I have let my phone ring out or ‘accidentally’ cancelled a call. I have created elaborate excuses which have been incoherently conveyed in order to find a reason to escape socialising. It is exhausting. In the company of others, there are many similar traits akin to the sensations of a panic attack. After each and every instance, I’m left feeling full of guilt, embarrassment, frustration and sadness. So to be able to explore this aspect of my life in a blog entry is an opportunity too good to turn down.

I’ve always been shy, to a certain extent, and when I’m not I overcompensate. This has many guises; I’ll ramble on and on, often retreading the same bits of conversation; I’ll be over the top with confidence, taking it to cringe worthy levels; or I’ll be extremely daft and silly, dancing and singing, just generally auditioning for a role fit for a court jester. If you take all this masking away, I’m left feeling pretty vulnerable with nowhere to hide.

I do believe that a vast proportion of my awkwardness is down to my hearing loss. There is a phrase called “Dinner table syndrome” which is used to describe how a deaf person feels whilst conversations are taking place all around them, leaving the person to feel isolated. I find hearing exhausting. There are many times when I’ll just try and follow snippets of conversation and nod when I think it’s appropriate to, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and that’s when the awkwardness starts. I become apologetic as if I’m to blame for my deafness. I’m then confronted with the sayings “oh you should have said!” which just plummets me into a vacuum of embarrassment even more, to the point at which I want to disappear. The people in my company will then tend to overemphasise their pronunciation of words, for reasons which I can understand why, but it often veers into cringe worthy territory. It takes a lot of willpower to explain my deafness to others, and often the response from the person I’m speaking to is one of sheer panic. Subsequently, once I’ve explained about lip reading, bsl, and writing things down, I’m often exhausted before I’ve even begun talking about the original point of the conversation. So sometimes just avoiding interaction completely is more preferable, at least until deaf awareness becomes much more second nature for everybody.

I am often dictated to by my health when it comes to speaking with others. As I’ve mentioned, being deaf plays a significant part in this, and to a lesser extent, having Crohn’s and OCD does have an impact as well. Crohn’s disease can often act as a silent saboteur in a conversation. Its volatile and unpredictable nature has been known to cut short conversations, by crippling me with pain and embarrassment as the need for a toilet break becomes a priority above everything else. OCD also shares similar traits with the Crohn’s saboteur, but is less inconspicuous in the way it goes about its hindrance. It will use lateness and doubts as its destructive tools. As a result, I am often made late due to obsessive checking and compulsions to repeat the checking, such as ensuring windows are shut, doors are locked and so forth. When I finally arrive at an event, meeting or appointment, the humiliating feeling of having to explain why I’m late is unshakable.

So what of the actual conversations themselves? Well, after the aforementioned confidence inhibitors, I find talking a difficult, and even alien concept. As a bystander, I will often look around at people conversing and ask myself “what are they all talking about?” I then see the shared laughter, hugs, interest, and feel envious, even of more heated and argumentative encounters. I am hopeless at thinking of things to say, other than the mundane small talk topics of work, family and the weather. That is not to say that people’s lives relating to these topics are uninteresting, it’s more of my conversation style or lack of, that will ground the dialogue to an abrupt and awkward halt. I often wonder why I’m able to harness the confidence to get up on stage and perform poetry. I do know that spoken word brings out this self assured aspect, something which I’d love to be able to translate into general day to day chat. What this looks like escapes me though, and we’re not in Shakespearian times now, so as much as it is appealing, talking in verse all day and everyday is simply not viable.

I don’t know if my health reasons are just a wall of convenience to hide behind. I think my personality goes AWOL when talking to others, albeit making cameo appearances in the guise of my nervous, eye rolling puns and jokes. I still to this day do not know how people can talk to each other with such ease. I’d love to know, but the irony is that I’m too afraid to ask. I am grateful for emailing, texting and messaging though, because there are less visual and emotional factors to contend with, but the level of detachment it brings makes me yearn for change.

© Michael Isaacs