The other day, Julie and I sat down to watch the We Hear You documentary. This was the second time I’d seen it. The first time was at the very beginning of my hearing loss advocacy efforts. After I read Hear and Beyond, I knew I had to go watch the documentary one of the co-authors, Shari Eberts, produced. It was astounding to hear people talking about the challenges of hearing loss and the stigma surrounding it. That was back in 2022.
Watching it again, with four years of advocacy under my belt, allowed me to see it in a different light. Not worse, not better, just different.
There were so many moments that I could empathize with. As I’ve talked about on these pages, and in our show, there’s no substitute for empathy. It makes me feel less alone. And for a disability as isolating as hearing loss, that’s huge. It’s such a rare thing for me that I still felt bowled over by some moments, even though I knew they were coming. Those moments include:
- Shari talked about how the stigma of hearing loss affected her father and her own upbringing.
- At a restaurant everything is louder, including the background noise. Since my brain was never good at filtering out such noise, it’s actually harder to hear with hearing aids.
- Music is so important. For me, it helps drown out my tinnitus.
- ASL is not an accommodation for us of the lower-case-d deaf ilk. Yet it’s the first thing most people offer by way of accommodation. It shows how invisible the HH part of DHH is.
- Toni‘s CART request at the hospital was such a powerful moment. She didn’t get it but was able to get her healthcare team to use a speech-to-text app and keep her informed even without her implants.
- So many times it was mentioned the desire to keep even what little hearing we have left because it’s so precious – which is why people are hesitant to get a cochlear implant (if it fails you lose all hearing in that ear.) Plus, after you get the implant, you’re even deafer than before because when you take it off you have no residual hearing to use.
All those moments struck me both times I watched it.
There were a few new moments that struck me this time.
Roxanne mentions she hears her niece the best of anyone. That’s because her niece grew up with Roxanne’s hearing loss. That reminded me of Julie and her nieces and nephews. Julie taught them good hard of hearing speech etiquette as they were growing up. The result of this was something I experienced first-hand. When I met one of her nieces, Kathryn, at a tailgate. Katheryn always spoke facing me, spoke clearly, and in measured tones. It wasn’t easy hearing her (it’s never easy hearing anyone or anything) but it was easier. So easy that it was starkly apparent they were intentional efforts. Seeing the smile on Roxanne’s face reminded me of the smile that must have graced my face when I talked with Kathryn for the first time.
I also appreciated that the documentary was made by people with hearing loss. Too often people outside the communities being highlighted are in charge of the production. These outsiders have plenty of sympathy but can’t have any empathy. That’s reserved for insiders. After crossing paths with a host of different types of hearing loss advocates over the last few years, I’ve come to appreciate the need for people in the community to speak for themselves.
Speaking of communities…
It was mentioned that we’re the forgotten demographic because we don’t sign. ASL is the biggest way for hearing loss to be visible. But since I don’t sign, I don’t feel seen. I’m slowly getting over the guilt that accompanies that. For so long I’ve felt I’m doing deaf wrong because I don’t sign. The documentary didn’t go as far as that, the guilt is my own thing, but simply pointing out this issue was big. Whenever we disclose our hearing loss to someone new, it’s practically a given that they’ll mention something about ASL.
Chipping away at the stone of stigma to show how being deaf isn’t a monolith is so important. It’s at the heart of what Julie and I are doing. But we only have two perspectives. There are a myriad of ways to be deaf and I loved seeing a handful of others in this documentary.
Stories hold power,
there’s no one way to be deaf.
Everyone matters.
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