🎙️ Wired for Sound: Voices from the Cochlear Implant Wellness Collective

 🎙️ Wired for Sound: Voices from the Cochlear Implant Wellness Collective

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I Couldn’t Explain Then, But I Understand Now: What My Parents Didn’t Know About My Life as a CI User

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I Couldn’t Explain Then, But I Understand Now: What My Parents Didn’t Know About My Life as a CI User As a cochlear implant user who grew up navigating an often misunderstood world of sound, I wrote this to help parents and others see the parts we often can’t explain as children. When I was a little girl, I couldn’t explain what I was feeling. I didn't have the words then. I couldn’t explain why I kept saying “huh?” or “I didn’t hear you.” I couldn’t explain why I looked blank, why I didn’t respond, or why I got tired so easily in noisy places. My parents, concerned, suddenly took me to an audiologist to check if there were any problems. I could hear, but I didn't know how to explain my struggles and the barriers I faced, because I didn't know what natural hearing was like. But as I grew up, through countless conversations with friends and dedicated research into the science behind my experiences, I finally began to understand. And I wish my parents knew these things earlie...
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I Act Like I Hear You: The Hidden Toll of Trying

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 I Act Like I Hear You: The Hidden Toll of Trying Sometimes, I nod when I didn’t really understand. I laugh when others laugh, even if I didn’t catch the joke. I rehearse responses in my head because I’m not sure if I really heard you right. I act like I’m hearing more than I am. This isn’t lying. It’s survival . In psychology, it’s called auditory-verbal masking or effortful socialization-  a term used to describe what many deaf and hard-of-hearing people do to fit into the hearing world, especially those of us with cochlear implants or hearing aids. It means mimicking behaviors of hearing individuals responding quickly, maintaining eye contact, laughing at the right times even when you’re exhausted, even when you’re lost. We do it to pass. To avoid being left out. To not be the “inconvenient” one in the group. But there’s a cost. 💢 The Psychology Behind the Mask In social and cognitive psychology, this behavior mirrors autistic masking and code-switching in margina...
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I Can Hear the Silence Before It Arrives

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 I Can Hear the Silence Before It Arrives There’s a moment, so subtle, so quiet, that I feel before silence arrives. It’s not a sound, not exactly. More like a shift. A soft drop in the energy around me. My cochlear implant might still be working, people may still be talking, but something inside me already knows: silence is coming. It’s like the final blink of a streetlamp before it goes dark. I’ve lived with this sixth sense for years. Most people think silence just happens when the noise stops. But for me, silence is something I sense. It builds like fog rolling in over a quiet town—slow, inevitable, and soft around the edges. I don’t hear silence. I feel it. I feel it in my fingertips. In the way my skin suddenly tightens. Like the world is packing up its sound and slipping it into a suitcase, one rustling layer at a time. When my battery runs low, I don’t need a beep to tell me. I already know. It’s not panic I feel. It’s preparation. Like the hush before a lightning strike, w...
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