I’ve got my annual June blues – the feelings that always follow my time at the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) convention.
As much as I love my Hearing Husband and my wonderful Hearing Friends, after attending the conference I miss the connectedness of being with people – lots of people – who get each other. We understand that crucial aspect of each other: the hearing loss that disrupts, often severely, our ability to understand what other people are saying and the consequences.
When people with hearing loss come together, there’s no shame in saying pardon, in looking blank for a few seconds while we make sense of our auditory signals and speechreading cues, or fiddling with our hearing devices to adapt the current listening environment.
We laugh at hard of hearing and deaf jokes – because it’s our humor. It’s funny because we live it and understand it.
We get to tell our story and people listen to us with an interest that our families and friends often no longer have.
We can air our grievances with technology, with our ‘hearing’ people who continually forget the simple courtesies of good communication, and even with ourselves when we don’t stand up for our rights.
We learn stuff. Here in this place, we can see the past, the present and the future of our lives with hearing loss. The past, when we didn’t know how to make things better and technology was something we fought against. The present, where we’re equipped with new information and digital technology and improving norms of access and accommodation. The future, where we dream of the unprecedented promises of Auracast and artificial intelligence that can radically change our communication lives.
But technology only works when we enable it, when we use it. What’s equally important – and this was the theme of several presentations at the convention (including mine, delivered with Shari Eberts) – is understanding that we have the right to ask for communication support. When we take charge of our own hearing loss journey, sometimes simply by looking at it in a new way, communication cracks open and thrives.
This is what we learn when we come together with our people, the ones who have hearing loss.
I had the honor to address the Newcomer’s Session at the start of the HLAA convention, held this year in Louisville, Kentucky. I talked about how my life changed dramatically when I attended a hearing loss conference for the first time, just as they were doing here. I walked into that first conference as one person and walked out another. The people I met seemed to glow with confidence and possibilities, and I wanted what they had. My hearing loss stigma vanished. I walked taller, prouder, because I now had new knowledge, options and hearing loss friends.
It’s a powerful experience to meet others who have walked your highway, sat on your curbs and made it over your mountains. I felt the invisible irons of hearing loss suddenly unlock from my wrists and feet, even from my voice. From then on, I was able say to others, “Here, try this key, it may work for you, because it has worked for me.”
Go to where the people with hearing loss are. They’re waiting to meet you.
