Hearing loss is something that affects 1 in 6 UK adults; about 8 million of the people affected are aged 60 and over. But what about the youth of Britain who are suffering from hearing loss? Their struggles are under-documented.
There are different ways to define being d/Deaf. Deaf with a capital refers to people who consider themselves to be culturally Deaf and have a strong Deaf identity. Anyone else who has been introduced later to deaf community and is coming to terms with their hearing loss might refer to themselves as deaf without the capital as their Deaf identity is not as strong.
Like many other disabilities, there are many stigmas surrounding being hard of hearing. When d/Deaf people are approached, they are normally all faced with the same questions. Often if you do not have a speech impediment or communicate using British Sign Language, people believe that your hearing loss is not as significant as it is. Others may change their speech pattern to ‘accommodate’ d/Deaf people; the most common way people do this is by slowing their speed which often makes it harder for people to lip-read. For young people, it becomes ingrained in them from an early age to keep their disability hidden, some choose to wear hearing aids that are skin coloured or match their hair or not wear them at all. They may also do simple things like growing their hair long to distract from their hearing aids. All of this just to avoid ridicule from their peers. By the time these children reach adulthood, hiding their disability becomes second nature. They are never taught at what they can gain from their hearing loss. One should always remember the line between reclaiming your identity as a person with a disability and letting it define you.
Grace is a 21-year-old who has been deaf since she was 3 years old. Grace had cancer twice as a toddler and during her second lot of intensive high dosage chemotherapy, the hairs on the inside of her ears fell out. This meant that the vibrations from sound were not being carried to her inner ear. After 17 years of hearing loss, she is still learning to adapt to a hearing world and often feels lost within it, drowning under the overwhelming sounds of everyday life which we, hearing people, think nothing of. Grace calls herself ‘lazy’ as she only hears about 20% of sound but knows she could try harder and hear more, but hearing fatigue is real.
Being deaf as a young person is a difficult experience and one that is not often shared. At a time, where self-confidence may be difficult to find, there is another issue to try and learn to navigate. It can have a huge impact on one’s social life and independence which is all that most young adults want. Being in large social settings can be overwhelming, which can cause high levels of anxiety. Even something as minute as going to the shops alone can induce anxiety due to the potential of needing to speak to someone and not understanding what they are saying leading to social faux pas. Grace is part of the UK Deaf Community group which aims to aid young adults all with different levels of hearing loss. There is currently a notable lack of support when deaf people move from child services to adult services as less services are provided once they reach adulthood. UKDC aims to create a new community and help members with their transition from child to adult services with minimal disturbance and anxiety. 30% of d/Deaf people experience some form of anxiety, compared to 18% of people overall. While, as a society, we are increasingly focusing on the importance of mental health allowing for more support in this area, there are some areas where we are still lacking, highlighted by the Coronavirus pandemic.
In 2020, we all came across a situation that no one could ever have predicted and we all had to learn to adjust our lives accordingly. However, for Grace, after 18 years of adapting to just normal life, last year’s pandemic undid all her learning, and she was left in a position to adapt all over again. This is the reality many hard of hearing people all over the country and world have had to face.
Most recently, Grace’s employer made her the spokesperson for disability within the store she works at. She undertook media interviews, which were displayed on the homepage of this company’s employee website, and spoke very highly of the store’s management and fellow employees. However, with the rise in cases within the store, they issued her department with visors to wear alongside their masks. Whilst this is to improve the safety of other employees, which is of course important, the decision completely disregards the fact that this makes Grace’s life so much harder.
Visors block any vibrations which many d/Deaf people commonly use to put words and sounds together. They also cover even more of the face than is already hidden by masks making facial expressions a mystery to uncover. Anyone who has a full range of hearing can understand how important expression is to people, they often say things that words do not. They often stop the sarcastic among us from getting into trouble and often give away tell tale signs when people say they are “fine” when they quite clearly are not.
If Grace’s employer maintained their understanding and support for her, Grace would not be left in a position where she feels like she is struggling for options other than simply to stop working as she would be too overwhelmed and unable to do her job. 68% of d/Deaf people claim to feel isolated within their workplace. Here is just one example of seemingly small decisions that are taken with complete inattention to how they will affect employees with disabilities.
This abuse of her disability to further the company’s value and in turn an attempt to improve their market share is something that is commonly seen among large corporations. They all want to have some form of unique selling point or to be as inclusive as possible. However, when it starts to lose them money, then their narrative changes very quickly.
4.4 million people in the UK who are hard of hearing are of working age. The employment rate for those with hearing loss is 65%, compared to 79% of people with no long-term health issue or disability. There is a clear disparity here that shows that people who have hearing difficulties are not being employed for that simple reason. Even if they have the strength and intelligence to do their job, they are still being shunned for having a disability. This capitalist society forces people to choose the employees who are going to lose them the least amount of profit and for some that means not hiring one particular person is a smarter decision than having to spend extra money to accommodate them fully.
In this modern age, we are all taught to be proud of who we are and our identity, but having a hidden disability still carries a huge weight. People judge with their eyes before anything else and any sort of difference from the norm makes you ‘abnormal’. While we could argue all day about what society classifies as ‘normal’, I think we all picture a similar stereotypical ideal.
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