Bridging the Gap Between the Hearing & Deaf Worlds
After several years hiatus, I have gone back to the cinema to watch the new Star Wars movie, which also happens to be the first time ever I watched a movie with captions.
This post is not a review of the movie nor will there be any spoilers. It’s just a personal story of how it went for me and what could be done to make the cinema experience even more accessible for more people.
Click here to learn more about my first captioned cinema experience here
Do you have the habit of apologising for not being able to hear someone and you end saying “sorry” because you feel that it’s your fault.
Don’t worry if that applies to you, as I am also very guilty of saying the above and more over the years.
And personally, I believe should all stop over-apologising, as it having negative consequences to our lives.
For many people who are considered to be small ‘d’ deaf and particularly those who are hard of hearing, we are constantly labelled as being “not deaf enough” for the d/Deaf world, and “not hearing enough” for the mainstream hearing world.
The only place left is that awkward middle bit, the intbetweener, the lonely bit, where it is tough because you don’t feel like you belong anywhere.
I learnt a new phrase recently: ‘deaf anxiety’.
After reading and learning more about, I realised that whenever I get anxiety, it is mostly likely because of my lack of ability to hear. And the more I read about it, the more I realised that it resonates with me and it’s definitely a thing.
It also made me aware that it’s a topic that we should be talking about more often, and this is why I decided to open up about it.
I have noticed a few articles talking about the popular U.S program ‘What Would You Do?’ (WWYD) where in this particular episode, a waiter is being rude to a deaf customer.
And we ask: “what would you do” if you witnessed this at a restaurant?
So I decided to watch the episode and record myself reacting to watching it the first time so that I can provide unbiased thoughts and opinions about the programme and the scenarios that’s being played out.
As someone who is creating videos and audios on consistent basis, there is a huge challenge for me as a deaf content creator to deal with the audio aspects of it.
I mean, how do you deal with audio if you are deaf?
Instead of talking about the benefits of learning sign languages and why you should learn it, I want to talk about my own personal reasons on why I want to learn sign language.
Because as much as everyone has their own reasons and there are many benefits to learning any languages in general let alone sign language, I have my reasons which I explain in this podcast.
In episode #17 of the Hear Me Out! [CC] Podcast, I wanted to answer the question that (mostly) hearing people have asked me before; is it rude to call someone d/Deaf?
Maybe it’s because of political correctness or perhaps they just want to learn. Either way, I thought of answering that question in this episode so that nobody can make their own assumptions, which is probably the worst thing to do regardless of the scenario.
In the UK, one week it was Deaf Awareness Week. The next, it was Mental Health Awareness Week (which was when this podcast was recorded).
Yet, not many people realise that deaf and mental health they are very closely linked together.
So in today’s podcast (with transcript included), I share my own thoughts about this link, the struggles that d/Deaf people, my own personal experience with mental health and raise awareness of both topics.
