How to be Deaf

by Rosie Malezer

Imagine waking up one morning at the age of 43, only to discover that the sounds around you no longer exist. How would it change your life as you know it? Read the true story of a bilingual, university educated woman who is suddenly dismissed as too stupid to learn, work, drive or even catch a bus, while the audistic world around her refuses to allow her access to an interpreter after she is diagnosed as profoundly Deaf.

118 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 7, 2016

About the author

A domestic violence survivor, Rosie Malezer was born in 1971 in Queensland, Australia. She is a profoundly Deaf, legally blind Australian Aboriginal author, writer and blogger (thanks to her incredibly fast touch typing skills) and a proud member of the Gubbi Gubbi tribe. Gubbi Gubbi Country is situated on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

Rosie's father - a retired military police officer of the Royal Australian Navy - trained her in the usage and safety of various guns at a very young age. Although she enjoys target shooting, Rosie is strictly against the idea of hunting for fun; her belief being that unless you need to hunt an animal for food and clothing in order to survive, animals should be treated with respect and left to live in peace.

Rosie now dedicates all of her spare time promoting awareness of issues relating to domestic violence, the vilification of her own people in her home country, as well as standing up for Deaf rights. When not writing, she spends her time doing everything she can to remove the communication barriers between the Deaf and Hearing people of the world.

PS: Rosie loves cats.

Reviews

[Lucia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant

I'm very happy I read this book. It is very informative and very helpful as I am able to relate to some. Thank you for sharing your advices and experiences.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled across How to be Deaf at Goodreads where its author Rosie Malezer had reviewed another self-published book that I was curious about. This is the blurb:

For over 40 years of living in a hearing world, a woman wakes up one day without sound. After being diagnosed as profoundly Deaf, she realises that she now lives in a world filled with audism, surdophobia, and people who blind-side her at every opportunity.
After having her rights being taken away and being threatened with arrest for talking too loudly in a government building when she begged for an interpreter, she decides to put together a book for her younger self, in the hopes of softening the impact of such a hard transition. Going from hearing to Deaf really knocks the wind out of you, but not for the reasons you would expect.

I was puzzled by those two terms: audism and surdophobia and had to hunt around online to find out what they meant:
Audism is the notion that one is superior based on one’s ability to hear or to behave in the manner of one who hears, or that life without hearing is futile and miserable, or an attitude based on pathological thinking which results in a negative stigma toward anyone who does not hear. (Wikipedia)

Surdophobia is the hostility, intolerance or fear against Deaf people, Deaf culture and the Deaf community. … It can consist of a range of negative attitudes towards Deafhood, the idea of deafpositive and Deaf rights. (This definition came up on Google search results page but the Wikiwand site from which it came seems not to exist any more).

Unwittingly, I had dipped my toe into the Deaf culture v Hearing culture debate, about which I knew almost nothing. But I also didn’t know anything about what adult onset deafness might be like, so I bought the book.

At the outset, I should say that the Kindle edition of How to be Deaf does have some of the problems that mar self-published books. Malezer writes well in an engaging style and there are few flaws such as missing words or faulty spelling or grammar. But there are some repetitions of incidents that an editor would have corrected, as when she writes twice in two separate locations about being given a wheelchair or a menu in Braille because that’s what panic-stricken people do when they think she is ‘disabled’. Also, the voice of the older and wiser Rosie advising her younger self seems to fade away in sections of the book where strong opinions dominate, particularly in the section about cochlear implants, about which Malezer writes with passion. (I don’t have an opinion about this issue, other than that, as with most of such issues, I think it’s a good idea to take advice from professional sources with experience in the field).
More problematic is the issue with the layout of images which obscure the text in the Kindle edition.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/07/10/h... and you can also see an interview with the author at https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/07/10/m...

[Renée · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have a Deaf or Hard of Hearing loved one or friend, this book is a must for you to read. If you are losing your hearing and need support, this is also a must read.

As somebody who is losing her hearing, I found myself nodding in agreement with every paragraph in this book. It was nice to know that there's somebody who understands the challenges of being Deaf/Hard of Hearing in a hearing world.

[Jane Firebaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very informative and necessary book for anyone who is or knows a Deaf/deaf person. Loads of great advice on how to deal with life if you have suddenly found yourself deaf or have a deaf child. I wish I had known of this book when I first lost my hearing. It would have made some things so much easier to handle. I feel this book is a "must read" for all, as it it's a wonderful view into the Deaf community and would help build a bridge between Deaf and hearing people.

[Rosie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for Deaf and hearing folks alike. It not only shares the authors experiences of waking up Deaf in a hearing world, but also gives others pause for thought, as to how they treat others and would like to be treated in the same situation.