As many of you know I am Hard of Hearing for those of you who don't know I am fifty percent Deaf. Categorised on the Hearing Loss spectrum as Moderate Severe. My left ear has forty-eight percent hearing and my right ear has sixty percent hearing. I am referred to as Hard of Hearing not Deaf because I still have enough hearing to communicate with the Hearing world. FYI people with normal hearing are referred to has "Hearing People" Deaf and we Hard of Hearing People tend to use it in a negitive, insulting way. Mostly when a Hearing Person does something to shake our heads thinking the person is a totally idiot or because a Hearing Person(s) did something to or did pissed us off. There are four types of Hearing Loss(I am just going to copy and paste the types and their definition because I really don't feel like typing them word for word). Conductive Hearing Loss:
Hearing loss caused by something that stops sounds from getting through the outer or middle ear. This type of hearing loss can often be treated with medicine or surgery. Sensorineural Hearing Loss:Hearing loss that occurs when there is a problem in the way the inner ear or hearing nerve works. Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder:Hearing loss that occurs when sound enters the ear normally, but because of damage to the inner ear or the hearing nerve, sound isn’t organized in a way that the brain can understand. And finally there is Mixed Hearing Loss:Hearing loss that includes both a conductive and a sensorineural hearing loss( which is what I have). For more information on Hearing Loss, you can go online. A great self-help group called HLAA or Hearing Loss Association of America has tone of information about about Hearing Loss including a National Convention that happens every year. I was apart of that group for awhile, but I talk about them later in the story. So now, that you have basic idea of hearing loss, you can now begin to understand where I am coming. You see, I was born with Hearing Loss, it wasn't something I delevoped overtime like most people nor did I get from ear infections, fluid build-up or catching some kind of illness. This is generally how young children get hearing loss (I had so many ear infections as a kid that I spent a good time of my Elementary school days being in bed with intense pain in both both ears). According to my knowledge or beilf (I haven't researched it throughly to know if it is indeed true or not, so I going on what I have, observed, heard and seen). It's rarer for someone to be born Hard of Hearing than Deaf, if that is not the case then thats where the ommition part comes. Generally most people only think that Deaf people can be born Deaf not Hard of Hearing, so when people meet a Deaf Person(s) they automatically assume and will believe that they were born Deaf. For me, I have a hard time getting people believing that I am Hard of Hearing in general let alone being born with it. Most people, think it's seniors who get hearing loss not kids. So when you wanna buy hearing aids with Batman or Spider-Man on it you have to make it yourself. There certain colors for hearing aids and earmolds that are made available only to children, leaving out adults. That has been a new trend because apparently more and more kids are getting hearing loss, but people like myself who now older but still born with hearing loss never got that chance. So we're left out from getting the colors we wanted as kid. It probably, maybe would've or could've help with the transition from wearing no hearing aids to wearing and to wanting to wear them. Being a adult under the age fifty-five is harder than it looks and needs to be. If your old and a considered to be elderly or senior people automatically assume your Hard of Hearing or tend to beilve it more. If your my age and or younger. People won't believe you and they'll asking all these questions because it's not possible for someone like me at my age to Hard of Hearing. So, if want to get technology or listening devices it will all catter to Seniors, heck there was even a time not so long only people on Medicare not Medicaid could get insurance to cover hearing aids or even a cochlear implant(what they do to people who are getting a cochlear implant is put a metal plate inside their skull that connects to the ear;however, the one disadvantaged is that when you take out the cochlear implant you are completely deaf, no hearing whatsoever, and the is the possibility that the cochlear implant will make your earing worse. It is an extremely expensive surgery, but it is to my knowledge covered by insurance).Depending on the private insurance you had you may or may not have insurance cover either one. Thanks to the hard work and several advocacy groups, hearing aids and cochlear implants are now covered by both private and both public insurance. Because of that I was able to get Oregon Health Plan or OHP to completely cover my brand new hearing aids with Bluetooth. after seven to six months I finally got them in June of this year, do to my age I would have been ommitted from getting hearing aids on public insurance. And it's not just hearing aids where I have been left out of it's technology. All current technology that used for and installed catters older technology that only seniors wear which is the T-Coil(T-Coil is type of technology that specificly connects hearing devices made specifically for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, you could say it is limited and specialize kind of Bluetooth doesn't alway work and is terrible compared to Bluetooth). All hearing aids including the ones I have now have the T-Coil programmed into them, but I could never get mine to work so would alway be left out from being to hear because the technology I was given and that was available never worked for me. Bluetooth works for me and now I can connect to everything with Bluetooth or a Bluetooth adapter. But that took years to happen and with T-Coil disappearing new technology to place the old ones are not being being made. So once I have been left-out and ommitted the process of accessiblity and inclusion. If that wasn't bad enough then there is being forgotten and the world pretending that you don't exist as a Hard of Hearing person. That only the Deaf Community represents the Hearing Loss World and Hard of Hearing on the sideline with occasional references here or there, otherwise completely forgotten and ignored from anything and everything involving Hearing Loss. And that, really hurts in fact I am getting emotional as we speak/type from just from mentioning and talking about it. Since I was fifteen years old I have openly-descriminated against by the Deaf Community. They told me I wasn't Deaf enough to go to Salem School For The Deaf. But everytime I mention I am Hard of Hearing, the first question they ask me is, do you know ASL(American Sign Language, sidenote: there is also Black Sign Language or BSL that was also developed in the States do to segregation and the Jim Crow. BlackDeafs were excluded from going to Deaf Schools because the schools were "White Only" So they created their own language. I think I heard about BlackDeaf from Comedian W. Bell CNN Show called United Shades of American but don't quote me on that also BSL is never mentioned in any and everything that refers to the Deaf Community and Sign Language. Another of the many things that has been ommitted and forgotten). The answer is NO, I don't know ASL because the Deaf Community wouldn't let me or Blacks and African-Americans from learning it even if wanted to learn it(I kinda and I kinda don't).My Dad forbid me from learning it anyways because he like many parents who have Deaf and Hard of Hearing children have this false narrotive that if we learn American Sign Language, we will some how lose all our connections to The Hearing World and lose our our ability to speak essentially what their trying to say is learning American Sign Language will somehow make me and others like me Mute. Which probably explains why seventy percent of Deaf and Hard of Hearing people don't speak American Sign Language. Let me repeat so you get a clear picture, seventy percent of DEAF and Hard of Hearing people don't know American Sign Language. Only thirty percent of Deaf and Hard of Hearing people know American Sign Language, THIRTY PERCENT, not fifty or ninity percent, THIRTY PERCENT! Yet, everybody in the Hearing World automatically assumes that because I have hearing loss and identitfy as Hard of Hearing I some how out of nowhere learned a foreign language which means miraculously out of thin air I suddenly know American Sign Language(sidenote: Hearing Impaired was once used as a term to describe people with hearing loss;however, that term as now deemed offensive do the word "Impaired" they we see is that we're not impaired, we just have a hard time hearing hense the word for people Identify as Hard of Hearing you hear some people still using it and it can be found as a technical term, but that is becoming less and less). I will admit, not knowing Sign Language has made it harder when receiving or asking for accommodations. You see, when ADA or American with Disabilities Act was passed and sign by George H. Bush in 1990, it used to phrase/term "reasonable accommodation" while the American with Disabilities Act opened whole door for Disables such as myself and finally giving us the chance to an "equal opportunity" the Act is very vague on what "reasonable accommodations" is, so its left up to individual institutions to interpret the meaning of "reasonable accommodations" that means they(institutions) decide what accommodations I can get and what can't. An interpreter for American Sign Language is considered to be "reasonable accommodation" because don't a lot of money same goes for a Real-Time Captioner( A Real-Time Captioner is literally what it says, they caption lectures in real-time and then transcripe it into notes. Systems, the captioners use has symbols or codes for certain letters, phrases and numbers you can either have in-person captioners or remote captioners. FYI and this based off of personal experience you always want to have an in-person captioner, will become your advocate while in class). However, there are and more problems are starting to come up. They're becoming an issue in having a Real-Time Captioner as an accommodation. Problems, I have had in the passed with Real-Time Captioners is only having one or the other, I want a Real-Time Captioner then I can't have an assigned Note-Taker. Possiblity the same rules applies for any language interpreter needed at school, but it's mostly American Sign Language Interpreters are needed in classes. That causes issues because I can't write and listen at the same time and I use the Real-Time Captioner for the parts I miss do to my hearing loss. Essentially, The Real-Time Captioner becomes the Closed Captioning for the lecture, but I still need the notes. But having both is not "reasonal accommodation" yet that may not be the case for ASL interpreters( I honestly don't know) either way it feels like I have fight in having a Real-Time Captioner while the Deaf Person(s) gets an American Sign Language Interpreters no questions ask. And it's not just with school.Any kind of announcement or public noticed will automatically have an interpreter but no Real-Time Captioner in sight and they don't even bother putting captions in after the fact. I see it all the time, especially now with COVID-19 and all these elected officials making announcements and giving updates on their City and States progress. It's all ASL interpreters, I as a person who indentfies as a Hard of Hearing am ommitted and left-out of knowing the state of country because no one thought or bothered to think of the millions of people forty-seven as a matter of fact that live in The United States and because of ignorance and discrimination of the Deaf Community we can't use it, therefore it serves us no purpose and thats all that they will be give and make available is ASL interpreters, but they had a Captioner during the announcement or a transcriper for transcribing after the announcement so people or the general public could read then both Communities would be served and everyone would happy. But, no that's not the reality and I personally feel forgotten and hurt from the exclusion of not knowing what's on around because the world didn't bother to care ommitted us from existant. Now, thanks to the interent and cost of labor, Community College and Universities are swifting from In-person to Remote Real-Time Captioners when though both are at the same rate. The internet is always funky, there are times where we're away from an outlet to plug in the computer and most importantly you lose your in-class advocate. They would never do this to someone who realize on an interpreter, but the need to it the Hard of Hearing Community because it might save them a couple bucks but disenfranchise me. It feels like their playing favorites and that I don't mattered and that I have become overshadowed because the Deaf needs are more important. It hurts, and it's making me bitter, angry and frankly pissed off at the Deaf Community because their becoming the center of attention it's all about the Deaf need and Deaf want, and here I am a Hard of Hearing person wasting in isolation because nobody gives a F*CK! And it's everywhere not just at school they got a Deaf Restaurant in D.C along with a Deaf University&High School, they got representation in movies, TV, documentaries heck they even have articles and journalists to write about them as if the Hearing Loss World and Community revolves around them. Even Chris Pratt cattered only to the Deaf Community when did his apology on Instagram? for mocking captioning which both Deaf and Hard of Hearing people rely on. Nope, he actually took the time and put in the effort to learn ASL and didn't even bother to add captions which is what got him trouble in the first place. So, yea I am very frustrated and annoyed with the fact that my Community the Hard of Hearing which is a Community and an Identity, regardless what the Deaf Community says. Is always, ommitted, forgotten and ignored. We don't existant, funny thing is that I am Alive, I am living on this Earth and I have a Soul thats literally definition of existant. Not to Deaf Community or the world revolving around them. Last I check the Earth revolves around the Sun not Deaf Community! You see, I am becoming prejudice towards the Deaf Community, because I always ommitted, forgotten, ignored and left-out. I am starting to Rebel, I am starting to say your rules of Deaf names can only be given to by a Deaf Person and you can't make up your signs don't apply anymore. I need ASL too as a Hard of Hearing person it's also within my benefit to learn it and I can do the F*CK I want with it because you don't own it, you can't copyright or trademark a language it just ain't possible. Also there is a Hard of Hearing Community that exist and we also Capitalized the phrase Hard of Hearing when to the community and Identity and did this because we didn't have a choice, didn't let us join your little club, and yes I am using little to describe your Community because is only 43 million Deaf living in this country and their is at 50 million Hard of Hearing Folks living in the United States, do the math!(Government websites currently say 47 million last time I checked, up for this purpose I am going to exaggerate the actual numbers). Just because I am bitter and upset doen't mean I hate Deaf People or Their Community. I am just angry, and pissed at them for not only excluded me and my Community to things we have a right too, also the fact that they Openly Discriminate against Hard of Hearing people and our Community what benefits them doesn't always benefit us. As for Advocating for the Deaf Community that isn't going to happen anytime soon and will require years of Counciling, besides they have more than enough advocates to fight for them. I don't or hardly have and what I do have gets as always an as usual jumbled in with the Deaf Community. So, being an advocate for the Hard of Hearing Community to me is more important and Desperately needed. I am opened to the idea of working with the Deaf Community, but my trust is on thin ice, or maybe the edge of the knife would better to explain my distrust towards the Deaf Community for all their BETRAYALS, EXCLUTION, and TREATMENT towards The Hard of Hearing Community my Community. Until then I just have to with the Earth revolving around them The Deaf Community and always be the Community and person excluded, ignored, ommitted and forgotten! Yea, for me 😤😠😡