Hello im a writer and ive been creating a character who is deaf, i would like to know how this beautiful community works, fun facts or some events that would inspire me 😊

Hey everyone! I’m curious—when it comes to staying connected with hearing friends or family, what works best for you? Some people prefer texting, some like video calls, and others maybe just enjoy face-to-face time. For me, I find texting or messaging apps work well since I can keep up at my own pace, but I know everyone has different preferences.

What’s your favorite way to keep in touch? Do you have any tips or ways to make communication easier that others might find helpful?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! 😊

Hey, everyone—I could some advice.

I live in a small town in NW Europe for context, and I’m in my fifties.

I’m late-deafened, and silence is now essential for me: to think, recharge, and manage the mental load of a demanding job (I have a high-pressure academic role). My gym was supposed to be my refuge, a space where I could shut off my mind and focus. But instead, it’s become this painfully loud environment, where peace feels totally impossible.

The music is relentless—constant, pounding house beats that seem to shake my bones, so loud it cuts through even noise-cancelling headphones. It’s like this all the time, even when empty. I’ll be lifting or trying to lose myself in the rhythm of mind-body connection, and every beat pulls me back, breaking my focus and dragging me into frustration. It’s like trying to find calm while someone bangs a drum right next to your head. And on weekends, there’s vacuuming, cleaning, or some other noise. There’s just no escape.

I’ve spoken to the staff, but they don’t seem to understand why this is a real problem. It feels like they can’t even imagine how a loud gym could be an issue, as if blasting music is just part of the ‘experience.’ And this is where the ableism really stings—it’s like people with hearing sensitivities or hearing loss aren’t even thought about, as if our needs and comfort don’t belong in shared spaces. I’m being forced to consider spending thousands on a home gym just to have a safe place, because once again, we’re left out. It’s a predictable pattern.

Does anyone else feel this? How have you managed in situations like this? I’d appreciate any advice.

Heya guys so I recently lost my hearing in my right ear and I'm going to see the ENT this Tuesday. I was severely to profound in my right ear until I suffered with SSHL. I'm probably in profound.

Usaully I wear hearing aid to cancel it out but because I can't hear I don't have that magic trick up my sleeve. Any advice is appreciated.

Also I'm completely deaf in my left and no tinnitus in that one. 😅

Random question: my right ear which I lost my hearing in, sometimes when I talk (not other people) my right ear make a high squeak sound. Never happened in my deaf left one.

I never go out without my hearing aids. If I'm with my family they want me to be able to understand them so that's rubbed off and now I'm scared to not have at least some idea of what's going on around me audibly.

Today though, in a crowded mall I turned them off. I was with my boyfriend who knows ASL so honestly it felt freeing. I didn't have to worry about understanding speech or having hearing fatigue. I knew if there was something I needed to know he'd relay it to me, and he did many times. He told me that he got a few weird looks from people when he'd grab me to move me over a bit after they said excuse me but hey they can look all they like. I actually enjoyed a mall trip for the first time in a long time. My advice to those of you who are worried about understanding others over your own comfort is to cut yourself some slack. You have been pushing yourself to understand them, now it's their turn to give that effort into communication. You don't have to fit into the hearing world's standard, sometimes we need a hearing break.

I dated a girl, maybe a decade ago. I am HOH deaf in my right ear, 80% hearing in the left. I generally stand in the right side if people as well as read lips. Everything was fine for the first while with communication, however, eventually she began to get angry if I asked her to repeat herself. It ended with her yelling at me a few times for saying “pardon” to a question. I didn’t really know how to react, it’s not like i can control it. I eventually ended it. Another time a guy tried to fight me because I needed the “closed captioning” turned on, on the TV. He Said he couldn’t see the while picture. Anyone ever meet any total a$$holes being HOH?

I tried visiting a website where you can find a buddy to study on a same topic, but unfortunately I couldn't find anyone who can sign ASL like me.

I've been studying Japanese Sign Language and written Japanese on and off (and likewise for Swedish), and it can be difficult to keep myself motivated all the time when it's just by myself. So I thought I'll come here and see if anyone here share the same goals as I do, and also can sign. Nice to meet you, by the way!

Can you develop a deaf accent if you are late-deaf? Like, if you are going deaf or HoH and need hearing aids now, but didn't have as much trouble as a kid?

Sorry if it seems like a weird question! Just wanna know if that's a thing that could happen to me, or if that's just a thing that occurs for those that are HoH/deaf at an earlier age. Don't know how to phrase it sorry!!

Some hearing people really don't know how to converse with us deafies 😅 I was just hanging out with 2 friends (both hearing) at a bar, nothing big but we wanted to catch up. Then comes along this guy trying to approach me, my friend immediately tells him I'm Deaf. He looked like he didn't know what to do at first which I understand, then finally he started writing something down. I thought "oh hell yeah that's nice of him" but then I get to see what he wrote. It said "I feel so bad for you because you can't listen to music." That's the first thing you tell me? What happened to "hello, how are you?" 😂

I took the moment as an opportunity to explain that as a multiinstrumentalist, I definitely can enjoy music in my own way. It didn't anger or upset me, but regardless though, it was still an awkward situation.

I am a student in New Zealand studying NZSL interpreting. And we're currently doing an assignment on interpreting contexts, and I wanted to do mine on theatre.

What are you thoughts on theatre interpreters overall? Do you think they actually give full access to the performance, or is the fact that they are off to the side and not really a part of the performance restrict access? What are your experiences? I'm very curious to know!

Thanks!

Hi everyone! I’ve recently started participating in HOH communities since diagnoses not specifically categorised as HOH, but I have double hearing aids.

Anyway, I’ve been really panicked about this thing lately. Discussions around the term ‘tone deaf’ have existed for a long time (as searching in this reddit can prove) and every single post I’ve seen has agreed that overall, it is not offensive* However I’ve seen so many posts (and even had people confront me personally) about how ableist the term is, there hasn’t ever been an explanation on why it is offensive though… I’m curious if this is a case of attitudes towards the term changing within the deaf and HOH community overall (*last post about it here was 2 years ago, so I’m not sure), or if this is a case of hearing folks speaking on your behalf as some kind of attempt at activism? The lack of people saying it’s offensive being able to explain why, makes me think it’s the latter. But if I have been unintentionally using terminology for myself that is offensive, I want to be educated.

I am autistic and struggle very severely with tone, so I have always described myself as tone deaf as I have found it an accurate explanation of my experience. It’s not as though in using it, i’m making fun of HOH experiences or undermining them. If anything (from my own perspective and use, as someone who is ND and have hearing related conditions) it is the opposite. It is an acknowledgment that deafness can be extremely difficult, it is a disability, just like the inability to read tone. By definition, deafness is a spectrum of impaired hearing. Impaired hearing can lead to misinterpretations, just as my impairment to tone can.

Kind of basic question but I got really curious. The way I’ve been told to think about CIs is that they don’t necessarily “make you hear”, so I’m wondering what it does instead of that.

Is it like a whole new type of sensing? Is it like hearing but radically different in some way? Is it pretty much the same as hearing just that it sounds different? Or maybe is it a thing where you know of a signal your brain sent you without sensing it consciously (like when some blind people can know what they’re looking at without seeing it).

the question might be weirdly formulated and it might be hard to answer, sorry!

A few days ago me (SSD) and my husband where at a dinner celebrating a anniversary at his workplace. So we were about 10 couples or so at a smal higher end restaurant, so private room.

As anyone else who is deaf on one side knows. In such a situation where people are chatting up a storm, we are effectively fully deaf, it's all just one big loud ocean of sound.

I knew this would be the case, But I was like "sure I'll be isolated but it will be good food and good wine and my husband looks forward to this" so I went along with it.

But to my suprise, when another couple heard, I needed to sit next to my husband rather than across from him (as is customary) for him to be able to speak into my hearing ear or such they where insanely supportive.

Especially the wife of my husbands coworker made my entire evening. She made sure that she articulated more and kept me engaged in conversation. If she noticed me getting overwhelmed, she went outside for some fresh air with me.

It was genuinely such a small thing, but for me.. it was game-changing.. A dinner becoming something I sincerely enjoyed rather than a sacrifice I just did for my beloved.

Hi, (37M) im not deaf. And totally ignorant when it comes to the subject. But ive been doing research and learning more about it.

So I was put in charge of training a small group of people at my job. We work remotely. When i was getting ready for the presentation the day before, my manager reached out to me and said “oh by the way Lisa (not her real name) is deaf, so make sure your captions work”. And i was like “wft” (in my head), i started to worry. I was thinking “omg, should i speak slowly?.. No, because the rest of the ground is going to think im weird… is going to be hard to read captions and look at what i'm showing on the screen at the same time, she’s going to get confused” (our line of work is very technical) i mean, i was thinking all kinds of stuff like that.

I started the training by greeting the group, and then i said “Lisa, can you see the captions?”, and she spoke (which surprised me) and confirmed she sees them. During the training she made a couple of questions, and her voice sounded pretty good, with a distinct… accent? I guess you would call it. But on her last question i could tell she was a bit lost. And it was slightly hard for me to understand a couple of her words when she spoke. But i did my best to answer her, and she replied back quickly by saying something like “oh, ok, i get it…” but i could tell she didn't, because she didn't let me finish. It was as if she didnt want to hold back the meeting with her questions, which made me feel bad because i wanted her to feel confident in her work. So i just made a mental note to reach out to her one-on-one to make sure she understood the material.

So fast forward to now, we reach out to each other at work often. She told me she’s new to the field, which is great because i love teaching.  And here is my problem: i am constantly thinking if she’s ok. I wonder if there are things at work that don't take her disability into account. Sometimes i feel like im overly empathetic because I worry so often. I can’t imagine how hard is to be deaf. Im also scared of coming across as a creep or something, idk. One day we where talking in private about work stuff and she said something like “she’s happy that i’ve been so helpful to her” and i told her that “im glad that she thinks that, because i always worry if she’s ok”.

It genuinely brings me joy to help her and i want her to succeed. but i wonder if im just being rude and ableist for thinking of her differently than the others.

Edit:

First of all, thank you all for the supportive and educational comments.

Second, just want to clarify. Im not, hovering over her or constantly reaching out to her asking if she’s ok or anything like that. I am very mindful of how detrimental this can be, and i wouldn't want that done to me. All i wanted from this post was to express my MENTAL STATE in all of this, and to get the perspective from this community, which I am grateful for.

For those of you who are Deaf/deaf, how often do you "randomly" encounter hearing people who can carry on a conversation in ASL (or your local sign language)? By "randomly", I mean the hearing person isn't an interpreter, spouse of your Deaf friend, etc., but rather someone you happened to meet at the grocery store, for instance.

Hello

I recently suffered with SSHL as my right ear was my savings grace. Left was already deaf.

Any advice or what I can do? BSL is definitely on my list but I don't have anyone to learn it with. 🙃

Any advice from the UK fellow D/deafies would be much appreciated and anybody else word of wisdom also appreciated. :)

This is where I'm talking about, I need a device to stick on the intercom to detect the ringing sound because I don't want to buy a Sub intercom and I don't want to mess with the building's wiring. Point indicates a product that alerts the cell phone to the vibration detected from the intercom. No, I want to use the detector sound because it detects all intercoms in the building

Any tips or suggestions to make him comfortable and also for me to be aware of? I’ve not really interacted with any deaf people before. We’re both in our 40s with kids fwiw

Hi all, I am supporting someone to try and set up a phonak roger on in v2 to use in headset mode. The issue we are having is that the audio output on their computer is showing as the roger device but the input is not. When speaking to IT they said it could be to do with microphone drivers not being installed correctly. We’ve sent the device back to the supplier and it’s came back and we are still not seeing the audio input drop down. The supplier is saying it works on their computers but we’ve tried it with two company laptops and a personal laptop with no success. Have anyone experienced this or had any advice?

Hi, I'm HoH but I'm not deaf/Deaf and I don't use sign language on a daily basis, so I wanted to ask if it would be offensive to create a sign conlang for a fun project? I love Zelda and I'd love to make a sign conlang for Hyrule with different dialects but I'm not sure if it would be wrong. Thanks for any answers!

Hey guys, hope this question is allowed, apologies if not! HOH girlie here.

So I broke one of my hearing aids (was taking them out before entering the club and dropped it, and someone stepped on it before I could pick it up 🤡). I have decided to try out private hearing aids, since the nhs waiting lists are insanity where I’m based, even though I’m actively in the department, and also because if I hate them then I can just return them during the trial period so why not.

I was just wondering if anyone has experience with boots hearing care or hearing aids uk, and how did you find it? I specifically have moderate to severe low frequency hearing loss with some mild high frequency sprinkled in for good measure which is a bit harder to program aids for, even on the nhs, so also wondering if you guys have any specific model recommendations for this, I know everyone is different and different hearing aids suit different people, but was wondering if in general there were any models that could be promising. Thank you so much!

Hello! Im someone who isnt exactly deaf, but i am hard of hearing. Sometimes my hearing goes out, and i cant really understand what someone is saying to me even if standing next to me. My hearing tests come back for the most part normal, yet i dont understand why i cant hear. ive had multiple surgies done to correct my hearing. All of which backfired and only made my hearing worse.

So now im struggling, i can barley hear and highschool is terrible. I have so many peers trying to talk to me, but i feel so rude when i keep going. " huh? Huh? What? " over and over no matter how loud they get. I want to wear a pin that says hard of hearing, simply so that people can understand that im not ignoring them or being stubborn, i just simply cant hear. Would it be wrong? Im not offically dignosed with anything yet, but i am hard of hearing.

As in the title. Our PCP office can't remember that my spouse is hard of hearing and always calls to confirm appointments, can't be bothered to text and their patient portal does not respond or inform about the visit. Since they installed an automated prescription line, the human factor vanished and it's next to impossible to contact them. We already missed a visit and had a medication refill denied. Can we get unpleasant or is it better just to change the provider and never think twice?

Hey everyone! My name is Bella, I have hereditary hearing loss and have worn hearing aids for 14 years. I am 21 years old.

I recently got approved to get one cochlear implant, and I was wondering if anyone has any tips or kind words because I am quite nervous, but also excited! I’m interested in what life is like for bimodal people and the struggles of adjusting to new hearing..

my dad wears cochlear implants as does many of my family members, but it would be nice to get the perspective of a stranger! Also, anyone in the Reno area hmu!

I had a surgery 2 months ago and now I'm deaf at 61 and having a hard time dealing with it. One of my biggest problems is learning to keep my voice down. It causes problems at home because people think I'm yelling at them. How do you learn to keep your voice down ? I'm also still walking with a walker after being in a hospital bed for 2 months. I have a son with downs and when he saw the walker it scared the heck out of him. We seemed to have gotten over that scare. Anyway, if anyone can help with the loud talking that would be great, my ears are ringing so loud it's like I have to be louder. ~ Lis

I recently moved to Hawaii from mainland U.S. and I’m working on getting accustomed to the Japanese people’s social customs. I find them to be standoffish and emotionless, almost rude, but I realize this is just their culture and I’m working on getting used to it. This got me to wondering about the Japanese people’s views and attitudes towards Deaf people as well as other people with disabilities. Do they share more or less the same views as Americans do and don’t treat us as outcasts, lepers, beneath them, so on? Do their people with disabilities have the same level of governmental support and protections like in the U.S., e.g., the Americans with Disabilities Act, federal ban on discrimination in the workplace and in housing, equal access in education, so on? Do their disabled people have the same opportunities as we do? I’m curious to know so I’ll know more of what to expect from my interactions with the Japanese here. Are they pretty much us but with different social customs or do they fundamentally hold to a different set of social and cultural values to the point of some values being offensive to most Westerners, e.g., racism. I have the feeling it’s the latter but I want input from those more familiar with Japanese culture than myself.

As said before, the NHS grades my hearing loss as Bilateral Sensorineural hearing loss in the mild to moderate range*. Usually, I opt to go for Hard of Hearing, but am starting to wonder if I should start owning my deaf identity more. Can I even use deaf??

[ It’s unclear if this is as bad as it will get, for me, but I often get huge fluctuations in my ability to hear each day… I recently had an appointment with my GP where he said something like “it would be hard to prove eligibility, for support, based on the fact you are so borderline” ( about a different diagnosis ) and I can’t help but find myself realising that his comment applies to a huge chunk of my life including my hearing… ]

I'm profoundly deaf in both ears, with Cochlear implants. I wasn't like this when I was way young, but I'm pretty much 100% hearing/oral. Going out in public is a struggle for me sometimes, and I feel like hearing might be part of it. For example, I have to put on my processors and mentally prepare myself for possible interactions and you know, working to hear and understand unfamiliar voices and sounds... so, basically hearing fatigue. Also, being in public just makes me anxious in general.

Recently though I realized that I could just *not hear* if I wanted to. Just take off my processors and remove the whole hearing fatigue part of daily life. But then how do I navigate the world as a deaf person, not as someone who just has a hard time understanding things sometimes? Instead of masking as a hearing person? It's a strange question isn't it....

Hello,

As you see, everyone has been discussing about the hot trending about AR (AI) Glasses on social media and how it impact them and does it improve their communication needs and so forth. I decided to write a blog more detailed all about all companies that develop and sell the AI Glasses so you can get better point of view and make the right decision before an purchase. I want to hear anyone's opinion and if you already have one, I am curious on yours too.

I will post the article link if allowed later on. This is exciting journey for us because I want to more understand and see what AR Glasses does really benefit for the Deaf community!

Cheers everyone.