areweouthear

[areweouthear]

Looking for mods

Hello! So, if you've followed this blog for a while, you've probably noticed that it's gone a bit dead. The reason for this is partially a lack of asks, and partially because I no longer have as much time to try and create original content. I'm now a college student, and so I have less free time.

I'm looking for someone to help me moderate, create content, and possibly answer asks if any more come in. Send me a message if you're interested, and hopefully with this addition the blog will get a little more life back into it.

[areweouthear]

A warning for all my deaf, hard of hearing, and difficulty auditory processing friends: the Disney+ subtitles may not be very accurate. The ones for Mary Poppins (the original one) are absolutely terrible they skip or edit like half the words being said

[areweouthear]

Today in class, everybody fell silent all at once. It was a slow fade to zero sound, and I looked up and asked my friend, "did everyone just stop talking or did my hearing aid die?"

It proceeded to die later that day, so... foreshadowing?

[areweouthear]

"unmute this!! 😂" kay, but I'm deaf

[areweouthear]

My partner has ASD and they sometimes say they want to turn their hearing off. I get that and feel weird being uncomfortable about it but also don’t know if they should be saying it. Should I be? Should they not say things like that? I understand where they’re coming from as someone with anxiety and noise sensitivity (which is weird because I’m hoh but yeah) so thoughts? Thanks!

Oooh, anon, thank you for sending this in, because it makes me realize that I made a mistake in making that post the way I did. I'm not that familiar with ASD, and I don't know anyone who has noise sensitivity issues. When I made that post I was thinking about allistic abled people, because in my experience most of them will say that they want to "turn their hearing off" on a whim. I made that post after talking with a hearing kid in my class who very clearly didn't know anything about hearing loss and was using one of the two most common phrases that people give me when they learn that I'm hard of hearing. I don't feel that I have the authority to tell you whether or not you can be offended- I don't think such an authority exists. I think you should talk about it with your partner if it's really bothering you, and tell them that it bugs you. Hopefully you can talk it out and come to a better understanding.

If this answer wasn't what you were looking for, feel free to message me for clarification! I'm much quicker at answering dm's.

[areweouthear]

So, today I stood up in front of my class and talked about my many surgeries. I'm not sure if they're detailed in my intro post, but I was born with biolateral microtia, a disfigurement of both ears, so when I was twelve I had surgery. If anyone wants like the full story I'm sure I could write it out, but the main point that I wanted to make with this post was the fact that when I got up there and I started to tell that story, I was shaking like a leaf. I've been writing essays and giving presentations for four years, and after all that time I'd gotten apathetic to the nerves of public speaking, but with that topic... I wasn't sure if I was ready. But there wasn't any time to just scribble out another essay and lie my way through a different story. And you know what, after I was done, I felt euphoric. It was like that part of my life, that side of me, I had tucked away and kept quiet for so long that to let it out felt like I was really embracing the whole of who I was. Sorry for the long post, I just kind of wanted to share this story.

[areweouthear]

Why Is Samsung/Google allowed to lock accessibility tools behind an upgrade/paywall?

As it stands now, Android 10 is the only version of Android that has DtHAS (Direct to Hearing Aid Support) which allows for someone with hearing aids to receive phone calls directly into their Bluetooth enabled hearing aids. The phone I currently own is a Galaxy S8, and per Samsung’s polices, they only give 2 major updates per phone model, which leaves the Galaxy S8/S8+ incompatible with Android 10, Despite the fact that the Galaxy S8 still isn’t that old of a phone and should be able to fully run Android 10. Some people who have hearing loss need that hearing aid support and Samsung is withholding it for what reason? more money? Just to get you to shell upwards of $1000 on a new phone? This applies to all Bluetooth enabled hearing aids as well, not every hearing aid model has a secondary accessory that can be purchased through the manufacturer, and even then, depending on the manufacturer, it may be just as expensive as a new phone capable of handling Android 10. Accessibility tools are meant to be accessible, and for people that live with low income and need a phone (people who have jobs for example, think of a hoh person you know who barely scrapes by with their jobs, struggling to make ends meet) Are they supposed to suffer because Samsung is withholding an update that could improve the QoL for a lot of HoH people just because they want more money? It’s immoral and most likely illegal, But I’m done with this vent, anyone in the HoH care to comment on this issue? I want to know other people’s opinions and see what you all think about this

[areweouthear]

*watches cartoons with subtitles on*

[areweouthear]

I didn’t like any pins online so I made my own :)

[areweouthear]

That back to school feeling when you realize just how relaxed you could afford to be over the summer, when you didn't have to strain to pick up one voice among a literal screeching horde

[areweouthear]

I'm coming back from the dead to remind you all that you're wonderful people and that you deserve all the good things in life

[areweouthear]

YouTube: dmhfskdfjasdhfaskhfghasgfshfg

My hard of hearing self:

[areweouthear]

Stuff about Deaf/HOH people I’ve never seen anyone talk about

From a hoh person

Signing makes noise. It can range from loud (hand slaps) to quiet (taps)

Hoh people can take a minute to respond because we have to fill in what we heard to the context in order to take a guess at what you said

We don’t all speak sign language (especially if we weren’t born deaf)

A lot of hoh people have Tenitus, which is high-pitches ringing when it’s quiet. Some of us use white-noise machines or play music to help.

We still like music (it’s really not hard to feel the vibrations)

Most of us are okay with being deaf/hoh

(For those of us who do use sign language) Meeting a hearing person who knows sign language is one of the best feelings in the world

[areweouthear]

Have I mentioned how much I love Pixar right now?

[areweouthear]

just wanted to say thank you for adding what u did to that deaf post about cochlear implants. I'd never quite understood the whole argument around them cause i thought they just made it so one could hear the same as a hearing person. now they just sound fuckin awful. particularly the culture surrounding them.

Oh, hey anon- Thanks. 

I sometimes feel awkward talking to the issue of CI’s, because I am solidly HoH, I have near complete loss at the common male registers for conversations, and partial loss for the higher female registers. BUT I am able to hear most wind and reed music. I can hear sirens, alarms, doorbells, and phone ringers on certain tones. That’s a huge benefit in a world that is pretty awful at adapting those things without someone arguing long and hard for it.

-

However, I also know for a LOT of Hearing folks- they think the hearing aids just- make us able to Hear- just like them. Your sending this, means I helped just one person understand that, and that’s AWESOME.

Without mine, I have to strain and struggle to hear most conversations directed at me face to face at high pitch and volume and with clear enunciation, and miss more than half of the words anyways. With them, I miss 5-30% of what is directed at me face to face, and have to struggle and strain, unless the person talking to me is the ONLY sound in the room. AND if there is anyone else talking, or other noises, I pick up those cross conversations, often having trouble distinguishing who said what, and I am in a constant state of high arousal and near panic. I can’t tell what is for me, and what is not. I strain to decipher if something was garbled, or what is going on.

At the end of the day, I am exhausted and want to cry, if I have been wearing my hearing aids. If I have not- I am still exhausted from straining most of the day- but people that know me, know to write shit down. Know to give me time and check in with me that I got something. I feel less like curling up in a ball because there is less second guessing despite having heard less.

When I have my hearing aids in- even having explained this to them- they tend to get frustrated. As much at the tech as at me, but the fact remains.

If there is one thing I could explain to people- it’s that while Hearing Aids DO allow some level of returned hearing to a HoH person, and CI’s allow SOME hearing to a born deaf person….

It’s not anywhere NEAR what the born hearing person has with well maintained hearing. 

The best hearing aids on the market, for someone with moderate to severe low range hearing loss (Most conversation happens in a VERY narrow band of hearing)

it can often sound like the parents from Charlie Brown

. 

Think of Hearing Aids as having a REALLY bad cellphone connection in a windy tunnel. Then imagine everyone expecting you to catch every word they say- because you HAVE a cellphone WITH signal!

I hope- this can help other hearing folks understand that a bit clearer. 

Yes- hearing folks can reblog this, and YES dear Deaf, deaf and HoH folks, please do add on your own takes and stories to this. 

[areweouthear]

Can someone please, just once, write a fic about someone with cochlear implants that isn’t just “deaf person gets cochlear implants to hear their lover and they’re so much happier now?” Because tbh, that storyline is just kinda “ugh.”

Please? Is it really too much to ask to want to read about someone like me?

[areweouthear]

how would you convey a character in something your writing to be deaf, its in their pov/they're the narrator (please help ive been thinking about this all day)

There are a lot of more micro questions to consider with this that might help, like are they fully or partially deaf? Can they lipread? Use ASL? What kind of hearing aids do they use, if they use hearing aids at all? Everyone is different, but I would say for a general feel, coast through some of the deaf and hoh tags and read about some of the experiences that people have. Because if you're trying to convey to the reader that your character is deaf, reading those posts might give you an idea of how to set up a scene for it, or how to treat a moment when the character mishears or doesn't hear something at all.

I think a big thing that could be helpful if you're not deaf yourself would be to have a deaf person who would be willing to read your story and kind of give you advice as you go along. The general question of how to write a deaf character can be hard to answer, just because it's so broad, and because deaf is such a spectrum that it would be hard to answer without knowing more details about the character or about the scene.