Hearing from a hearing disabled person on World Hearing Day.

Just a few experiences and things you might be curious to know about.

On this occasion of world hearing day, I have decided to give y’all an accurate representation which is shown above, of me on a daily basis, stepping out of my cave to interact with the good people of this universe. A multiverse version of me might not be having this hearing disability, so lucky me get to write a blog about it today.

How it is like:

I could bet on any day that I’d give up my hearing than lose my eyesight. Those poor humans who run around without glasses, with bad eyesight, the blurry version of the world are not gonna be so kind to them. Imagine losing the glasses in the middle of the traffic, and you can’t see or model the figures around you, and tires screeching just so that it doesn’t hit you. The funny part is, I get more sympathy from people than those who have bad eyesight, and this is totally undeserved, as you can see. A hearing disabled person can survive alright, and at least save themselves from most imminent threats to their life, if they’re careful enough. But my best guess about the sympathy gap would be that people with low eyesight are so common in the world and people with hearing disabilities are rarer, and the world has a tendency to give a bit more attention to the rarer phenomenons.

Sure, it’s a bit hard to not hear. When you realize you might not hear anytime in your life what most people get to experience. When you are in the middle of a group and people might not open up a conversation with you just because you might ask them to repeat what they said. When you find out there are no subtitles to the movie that you so badly wanted to watch.

But have you been in an airplane and there’s a baby on board and everyone’s terrified?

Boom. I will be the only one who will be having a peaceful journey.

Turning the tables:

A hearing disabled person can use various technologies nowadays. You can use hearing aids, or use your headphones with the sound amplifier app to listen to people through a mobile phone’s microphone.

There are reservations available, which can be availed for people with a disability above a certain percentage. This can help you get into a good college, land a good government job, evade some tax money, get deductions in multiple government programs and even in public transport. There are also scholarships available, which you can use to fund yourself into buying a new hearing aid, fund your academic journey, etc.

Never shy yourself away from receiving a reservation benefit if you wanted to, just because you worry about what society might think of you. You deserve it, it’s something you earned for yourself, it is a token to reward you for the struggles you had to face to come this far, and thus it makes you eligible.

The communication :

Personality development is a major milestone for most people in any part of our society. Properly navigating through social interactions is an art, and it’s also an elephant in the room when we grow up. The key is to be able to communicate properly, and people with different ranges of hearing adapt or respond to communication challenges in multiple ways. And developing the ability to speak turns out to be a major challenge for many hearing-impaired people. Many seek speech therapy at younger ages, in order to understand and speak languages commonly used.

The extremely impaired in hearing would use sign languages. Given an ecosystem, they communicate with their others using sign language expressions. I have personally found it a marvelous thing to watch when they’re in groups, everyone talking to each other using hand symbols vigorously and communicating in the speed of light(Oh damn). It’s almost as if they have created their own world, something which the outer world would never experience.

The moderately impaired in hearing usually tends to opt for the common choices like the rest of the world. They might study in normal schools, workplaces, and other ecosystems. One of the common challenges I faced in such situations is the fear of asking people to repeat what they said. This usually appeared as a major barrier to my ability to smoothly blend in. Well, my momma gave an advice one day, which kinda made a big impact on the social navigation thereafter. “You shouldn’t try and adapt yourself so that you can hear them better. Be such an important person in the room yourself that people will be compelled to repeat their words for you, and make it their need that you hear what they say.” Smart move mom, I have achieved dominance in a lot of audiences thereafter :P.

My personal experiences:

I have a moderate hearing disability of around 60 percent. This would mean that without the usage of hearing aids, my ears could hear 40 percent of what normal humans would hear. I use a 16 channel device for a hearing aid, and from what I know of my parents earn, both my ears use expensive ones. Even with the help of the hearing aid, the hearing ability reaches max up to 70-80 percent of normal human hearing, and it mostly sounds like an electronic voice, just a bit higher quality than your average radio.

I started using hearing aids from the age of 15. Until then I struggled with social interactions, blending in, etc.

It is at these times when you need a solid mentor, or a teacher to guide you through, see what you’re missing, and guide you through a good path. If you’re a parent of a disabled child, never hesitate to be their side to help them experience what they might feel they’re missing.

There were a few career choices that I have to turn down, like joining the army, communication-related jobs, etc. It is okay to accept certain realities, it’s part of what we gotta do as humans.

I also turned down certain opportunities where I could have landed using the reservation for the disabled, for example, a space science research career. This was debated upon between myself and many of my peers. My personal take on this is, don’t let the disabilities you have, let you get into tunnel-vision as well. It’s not always about landing the best jobs or titles as it sounds, it’s about finding what you’re truly made of, no matter however you are built. My tunnel vision in the above example would have been, that I would opt for doing space science, because that is something I would imagine as success to my career, given my limitations. But upon careful inspection, I could find that I was good at computers, and also started working on cool stuff like AI, and pounced in the arena at the right time, and my intuitions also helped along, thereby proving myself that an awesome career according to me is something I purely wanted and was intuitive and able in navigating to, not something which was merely just the highest option available at the time.

Ending Notes:

While you are reading this, and you are celebrating this world hearing day with me, let’s take a stroll down the empty road and dance like you don’t care about anybody. The world is your oyster, my friend.