Hearing And History

Hearing and History

12th April 2023

So, I recently found out that my level of hearing is a lot lower than I thought it was and probably always has been.

What does this mean? Basically I probably would've benefited from hearing aids and learning sign language as a child rather than relying on self-taught lip-reading, guesswork, and asking people to repeat themselves/be patient.

Let me tell you, people are not always good at being patient.

I have very mixed feelings about this. Listening is very tiring, and I have always said this! I couldn't do mental maths questions because they were on a tape recording. Ditto language listening and oral exams, which I kept failing at school. French was nearly impossible for me because I cannot hear the words or make sense of the month movements. Thank gd for Spanish!

I didn't have a hearing test until I was in secondary school. That policy has changed now in the NHS so hearing loss is picked up very soon after birth. Basically, there were a bunch of points in my life when someone could have intervened to give me the tools to navigate the world rather than just let me figure it out.

I am not part of the Deaf community. I don't know anybody my age who is hard of hearing or deaf. My family thought it was 'normal' because my mum, her sister, and my grandad all have hearing loss. I was teased for being deaf while simultaneously nobody taking the implications of my deafness seriously. It was a lose-lose situation. Essentially, it wasn't that I wasn't deaf enough, it was that it didn't effect me obviously enough for anyone to do anything.

Now I have hearing aids, I can hear music, I can hear lyrics. I can hear (although not focus on) multiple conversations. Birds are insanely fucking loud. Projectors and air-conditioning drive me up the wall. My tinnitus is definitely worse, but that may also be a side effect of long covid (apparently that's a thing). It's a wild experience that I'm still getting used to, a year later.

I would still love to learn sign language. But now's not a great time: I'm tired, working and studying full-time, recovering from covid, and generally have shit going on. British Sign Language lessons are expensive in person, but learning online is something I'd rather avoid as I can't concentrate easily. This means more travel, more money, more time, more energy. This means I have to wait.

I wish I could've had the chance to learn when I was first diagnosed.

TLDR; just because you can work to the point of exhaustion to fit the needs of the world, doesn't mean you should have to! You deserve accommodations. The world needs to bend so that people don't break.

Day 8: Frail. Except nah, frail has too much of weakness in it for me, so actually let's use fragile instead. Because breakable doesn't mean broken, and broken doesn't mean unfixable. Not so much a Plot Twist as a loop-the-loop going on with the haiku. And yep, it's late for Inktober! Start where you can, stories are circles.

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HELL yeah I'm fragile.

As a fucking FREIGHT TRAIN, girl.

Made brittle by rust.

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AKB 2019

Photo reference here:

Railroads, Chicago-style

Railroads, Chicago-style

Milwaukee Road freight train along York Road in Bensenville, Illinois Caption: “It’s well below zero December 1977 one of the worst winters

[Image Description: a meme which has a painting of Greek philosophers who are talking, gesturing, and carrying books on one side which is labeled "Talking about disability with disabled people", and across from that is a photo of an adult showing a toddler a toy labeled "Talking about disability with abled people." End ID/]

TIME IS THE FOURTH DIMENSION

WE'RE ALL HERE WORKING IN 4D LIKE IT'S 3030

Day 5: Build. This took me a while, I was stuck until early on Monday morning, London in rush hour - not usually the most inspirating time and place - when, walking into Trafalgar Square with the beat of the Samba band drumming at my back, I suddenly felt that things were things were finally, actually, changing.

Rebels everywhere, thank you.

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turn up, build a band:

from that, a movement rises.

We Are The Water.

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AKB 2019

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A tree is growing

In a place it shouldn't be;

But it's beyond me.

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AKB 2020