Someone recently asked me why I use the term hearing loss in my advocacy work. I can’t remember if they preferred deaf or hard-of-hearing or some other term, but they took offense at my use of the word “loss.” It’s a fair question, and a very personal one since we all experience hearing difficulties in Continue reading
Disability
Announcing My Hearing Loss Helps Me Communicate Better
It takes effort to let people know about our hearing loss and educate them (perhaps for the umpteenth time) about what assistance we need from them to ease conversation. But what choice do we have? Good communication is a two-way street and without the critical step of self-identifying, difficult listening situations cannot be remedied. My Continue reading
Sometimes I Forget How Hard It Is for Me to Hear
Thanksgiving was the first time our extended family had come together in two years. All eight of us were hyped up, excitedly talking at once in our attempts to say everything we had missed sharing during the pandemic. Cross-talk abounded. Our voices reverberated and bounced around the high ceilings and hard surfaces of my in-laws Continue reading
I Inherited My Hearing Loss Stigma from My Father
What causes hearing loss stigma? Does it come from within — our own insecurities about whether we are now as whole as we once were before we lost our hearing? Or from external factors like societal pressures that demand perfection and youth. For me, it started in my childhood, watching my father struggle with his Continue reading
Hey Zoom! Where is Universal Live Transcript?
I recently attended a Zoom webinar hosted by my daughter’s school. I was excited because accommodations were prominently featured on the invite. “If you would like to request accommodation for this meeting, please email such and such.” So I did. Within a day, someone from the planning office reached out to find out what I Continue reading
