Claudia Marseille - But you look so normal

Claudia Marseille was nearly four years old and had hardly uttered a word. Her German parents, a disturbed psychoanalyst father, and Jewish mother, survivor of the Holocaust, immigrated to America after WWII and were adjusting to new lives and being new parents. They didn’t absorb at first that Claudia wasn’t speaking. Finally they had her tested and discovered her severe hearing loss. The hearing aids that she received were primitive versions of the sophisticated hearing aids and assisted listening devices available today.

Claudia’s parents decided to mainstream her in the Berkeley, CA. public schools, supported by a hearing aid and with the firm belief that she’d advocate for herself in the classroom, especially as she got older. The result was the opposite. Claudia hid her disability, desperately wanting to fit in, and frequently struggled to hear, lipread, learn, and make friends. Often isolated and lonely, she didn’t entirely fit into the hearing world, nor into the deaf culture. When her father became increasingly erratic and difficult, swept up in one get rich quick scheme after the other, her parents divorced, and again Claudia had to grapple with navigating her world.

After earning master’s degrees in archaeology and in public policy, and finally an MFA, Claudia developed a career in photography and painting. She ran a fine art portrait photography studio for fifteen years before becoming a full-time painter; her paintings are now represented by the Seager Gray gallery in Mill Valley, California

In this podcast:

  • Learning to lip-read and developing visual acuity.

  • Why Claudia attributes her resilience to her parents, who instilled a belief in her that she could achieve anything professionally.

  • How a social nature and love of music helped Claudia cope with feelings of isolation.

  • The challenges of hearing loss, and how it's not just a volume issue but difficulty in distinguishing speech over background noise.

  • The importance of pacing in communication, especially for those with hearing disabilities.

  • Developing resilience through personal connections and technological advancements, such as digital hearing aids and closed captioning.

  • The significance of social and cultural changes brought about by legislation to increase awareness and accommodation for people with disabilities.

  • The positive changes in attitudes towards accommodating people with hearing loss in modern society.

You can find out more about Claudia at her author site claudiamarseilleauthor.com or her painting website claudiamarseille.com Claudia’s memoir is But You Look So Normal: Lost and Found in a Hearing World

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Photo by Anita Scharf