Hell

Wife: "A window to hell has been opened." 

Me: "... what?" 

Wife: "The Rideau canal is open"

Defiance

If my posts are bumming you out, I apologize but I feel I don't have many other places I can speak my mind.

Another possibility, the flip side to autism is making others feel uncomfortable around me because the usual social bullshit doesn't work on me. I question everything. I defy authority openly. Etc.

It's getting lonelier by the day.

Maturity

I contend that if you don't wince at some of the things you did when you were younger, you still haven't grown up.

Jesus Christ VS Santa Claus

Compare Jesus Christ to Santa Claus. 

1) Legends

2) Celebrated in December

3) Used to frighten children into behaving

4) Milk and cookies & wine and bread

5) Candy Canes & Shepard Crooks 

6) There is a list 

7) Knows what you're doing all the time

8) Coal and Brimstone if you're bad

9) Theme Songs

10) Magic!

Ear Buds

I know it's a niche subject, but I'm a person who has lived at the intersection of technology and deafness all of my life.

I'm quite interested in where the technology is going re: ear buds. As they evolve & become more powerful and capable, I'm hoping the barrier to entry gets lower. Prescription hearing aids have been prohibitively expensive - these will allow more options for more people.

Speaking for myself, I need a LOT of power for my hearing loss - so I'm still using BTE units for now.

There's a whole 'nother cultural side to this re: the Deaf Community, but that's a topic for another day.

ASMR

ASMR is mildly triggering to me - as it seems to be centred on sounds that are just underneath my hearing threshold.

Speaking as a hearing impaired person, I find ASMR to be annoying, akin to a hearing test if that makes sense? It initiates an instinct in me to 'listen harder', and I do enough of that in my lifetime as it is.

Choice

It could be a world of plenty. But for stupid, selfish reasons, we just don't do that.

This is a choice.

Identify

Ever since I realized I could be autistic/on the spectrum, I've been reconciling with my memories. It seems that my brain likes to churn through past events and highlighting cringe behaviour on my part, arguments with friends, misunderstandings with strangers, the whole lot.

I attempt to console myself, by recalling that I didn't have any of this information available to me at the time; If I had, I may have been able to regulate my emotions or reactions better - but being hearing impaired was a separate thing to deal with at the same time. I used to label myself "hard of hearing" as if that was effective at explaining anything. Now, I identify as "Autistic", because I realize my brain has been responsible for everything.

ChatGPT is Bullshit

 

I haven't used ChatGPT, not even once. When I first heard about this thing being an "LLM" - which is basically wholesale, bot-driven strip mining of the WWW for information.

With apparently no regard for sanitizing the input, no method of fact-checking, you've essentially condensed a lot of garbage into a smaller space.

Why should I trust any of the answers it outputs?

#ChatGPTIsBullshit 

Assholes

I have a theory.

There's a bunch of us in the world who want to see things done correctly - "the right way"; then there are those who just want things their way and fuck everybody else who argues with that.

The people who want things their way are always angry at the people who want things done the right way.

That is why people think you're an asshole, because you want things done correctly.

Willing To Learn?

This morning while I was unable to sleep my brain offered up this little factoid:

Nobody in my life has been willing to learn sign language to communicate with me.

Roscko

"Mrow? Purr. Mrrrrp."

If I don't have the hearing aids on, I have no idea Roscko's making all these little noises.

I guess I'm saying, I'm glad he's not holding it against me that I'm deaf.

Self-Diagnosis

I'm not sure if "imposter syndrome" is the correct term to describe what I'm feeling most of the time. 

I've never felt like I was part of the Deaf community, not really. Growing up mainstreamed meant that I spent my time among the other kids in public education, for the most part. I've learned enough sign language to manage communicating, but I don't get to sign often enough. 

I had an unscheduled mental break in 2022 & was forced to reconcile my identity, abilities, and sense of self-worth. 

I do not have access to a psychiatrist because they are in short supply in Ontario. I am eternally grateful to my partner for listening to me deconstruct my entire life in an effort to put it back together. I suppose this is why I now consider myself to be autistic first, deaf second.

LibreOffice

 

 

Folks, if you're looking for a free Office suite, use LibreOffice. It is still being maintained

and updated regularly, unlike OpenOffice from Apache. You can download LibreOffice here. 

Requiem

I pour one out for what Twitter USED to be: a USEFUL, "public utility". Almost instantaneous updates from around the world. Journalists, Pundits, Scholars, Scientists, and yes even goddamn Celebrities contributed. And for a brief moment, it was COOL and GOOD.

All gone. Why? Fascism. Nothing good ever comes from fascism. All it does, is destroy diversity and courage.

There is no honour in being selfish.

My Experience

Things I've experienced about Autistic unmasking:

1. Masking is mentally costly and a false "me". Use only when necessary.
2. Not everybody thinks like me.
3. Expect nothing and I won't be disappointed.
4. Always be kind.
5. I am autistic first, deaf second.
6. I naturally question authority.
7. Everyone deserves respect until they don't - stop being a doormat.

Mimic

 

In light of Autism, during my years of speech therapy, I think that is where I learned to "mimic" things in order to speak. I had a moment in the 90s to improve my diction by singing Karaoke. Nothing like live on the floor feedback.

Back to the speech therapy. I would mimic the lady who was trying to help me, but I seem to recall mocking them, making it a game once in a while.

Them: "Now repeat after me."

Me: "After me."

This is probably where I started doing impressions - recording TV shows and playing them back, trying to copy the sounds I heard. It was an annoying skill at best, at least according to my parents.

Anyway, I've started researching mental health, it is looking very likely I have some ADHD as well. I had difficulty concentrating on one task for long stretches when I was younger, but I was probably bored.

Isolation

"Autism is a mental state which appears from early childhood, characterized by a massive difficulty in communicating, interacting, and forming relationships with other people. Children with Autism do not generally have decreased cognitive functioning."

"These individuals may navigate social communication challenges, exhibit restricted interests and routines, and experience sensory processing differences. Nonverbal communication difficulties and executive function struggles can also be part of their daily lives. Moreover, emotional regulation issues, literal language interpretation, social anxiety, and isolation often play significant roles."

Reflecting on my past through the lens of autism, I believe I now have a better understanding of how people perceive me, why I'm alone all the time, & why it feels that way.

I find the quotes above helpful, in forming a positive mindset about myself, rather than a negative one. It is a liberating journey, albeit a humbling one.

Source 1): Fluent AAC 

Source 2): Perplexity AI

Alexa

Me: "Echo, turn out the lights."

Echo: *mumbles something*

Me: "Great, I'm not wearing my hearing aids. ECHO. TURN OUT THE LIGHTS"

Echo: *mumble*

Me: (walks to bedroom and has partner turn off the lights remotely using app). "Alexa's being difficult."

They: "Oh, here's why it says it's offline."

Me: 😑

Sign More Often

I've asked my partner to sign more often, and I'm happy to report that I am remembering to do so as well.

Use it or lose it, folks.

Us And Them

Organized religions are one of the oldest forms of corralling & organizing humans unto "us and them" camps; the believers and the heathens. That was the first step towards lack of empathy. By separating us, via whatever microcosm you choose, you weaken us. Gotta keep 'em separated, or they might love each other.

We never learn natural empathy because we are conditioned that we're better than they are.

Communication

 

"You speak very well for a deaf person."

Thanks. I worked very hard at it, I still do. If you really wanted to pay me a compliment, you could instead commend me on the fact that I'm the one carrying the burden of the conversation. I am capable of speaking and I have some residual hearing. I speak because I don't have a choice most of the time, as the majority of the population couldn't be bothered to learn sign language.

Yet another device has been trialled; this time a ring that can decode finger spelling into English through a smartphone app (I'm guessing). This is again technology stepping in. Let me rewind a little bit.

I learned sign in my early 20s, growing up I was mainstreamed in a public school. I did not have any deaf peers near me really, so I was pretty much always isolated most of the time. Fast-forward to today, I'm now in my 50s and no amount of finger spelling cards or YouTube videos produced by sorority sisters has moved the needle. We've had representation on TV for decades, most recently Switched At Birth, which I thought was a commendable YA series.

Perhaps this new ring idea might help, it might not because I see 2 points of failure: The ring itself malfunctioning, and the other person not having a compatible phone to download the app, or horrors, even willing to do so.

We could just learn sign language and avoid all of this nonsense, but the hearing people won't do it, so we're back where we started.

Reality TV

I never got into "reality" television. I was turned off by the way these shows would celebrate the rudest people they could find. Then people would have water cooler discussions about the show and laugh about how terribly they treated each other.

I think this is also when Americans lost whatever remaining empathy they had.

The End

...And he never logged into Facebook again and lived happily ever after.

The End.

UPDATE: Still Writing

(1/23/2021) I should write more. I want to - it's laziness that's winning over sometimes. The real trick to writing comes down to 2 things:

1) a topic

2) discipline.

 

Without those, it's stream of consciousness writing like Michael Stipe does; only he does better it than I do.

 

So I suppose a low key vibe like a blog is a good place to start. Sometimes longer thoughts happen & I need a place to put them that don't really fit on Twitter.  

 

UPDATE (1/24/2025) I no longer own a Twitter account, I deleted that 2 years ago or so, when Elon bought it and ruined it. Ah, the magic of being able to go back in time and update your original blog entry! It's been 4 years, & I've kept busy with posting commentary, mostly. However, I'm writing much more often now. I've shaken the rust off, as it were.

I would like to reiterate to myself that the title may be "Hard Of Hearing Problems", but it has always been about focusing on putting a positive spin on life. Whether it be assistive technology, or finding a news tidbit, or a comment in a forum somewhere that's useful. I like to focus on those aspects. I shall spruce up a few things here and there along the way as well. 

 

Cheers, and I hope you enjoy reading.

Silent Sunday