stilltiedtothetracks:
vodkaandvicodin:
it’s the easy way out.
how about getting some help for your psychiatric problems?
asking for help doesn’t make you any less of a man.
what about his 3 kids?
what a coward.
*DEEP BREATH*
I like Dana (and not just because we share the…
Oh. My. Fucking. Buddha.
Are you kidding me? Suicide is NOT the easy way out. Do you have any idea how hard it is to not kill myself some nights? How far and mentally ill you have to be to accept it as a feasible answer? Do you have any fucking idea?
Suicide is hard. So is getting help.
Also.. Funny that you’re making light of suicide… Or didn’t you realize that you absolutely cannot mix vicodin with alcohol?
thatdeafchick:
isecretlycaresomuch:
thatdeafchick:
laboratoryequipment:
Device Could Improve Cochlear Implants
Cochlear implants have restored basic hearing to some 220,000 deaf people, yet a microphone and related electronics must be worn outside the head, raising reliability issues, preventing patients from swimming and creating social stigma. Now, a Univ. of Utah engineer and colleagues in Ohio have developed a tiny prototype microphone that can be implanted in the middle ear to avoid such problems.
The proof-of-concept device has been successfully tested in the ear canals of four cadavers, the researchers report in a study just published online in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers journal Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-Device-Could-Improve-Cochlear-Implants-043012.aspx
i really hate the idea that science must continue to improve to make hearing aids and implants almost invisible.
yeah, there are lots of people who are uncomfortable about the visibility of hearing aids and or cochlear implants, HELL, I insisted on getting In The Ear hearing aids despite my audiologist telling me no ITE would be powerful enough for me, i went against his advice and 2 weeks later had to send them back.
but thats becuse i thought it was somehow shameful to have hearing aids, i must keep them hidden. my father always tried to hide his hearing aids, and that was my model. i didnt know any better, because society teaches us that having a hearing loss is shameful, it means we are old or weak.
technology like this is facinating, but what sort of message does it send? society needs to stop reinforcing the idea that having a hearing loss = bad, shamful, weak, old. that it must be cured and hidden on all accounts. basically erased so that you can function just like anyone else.
just sayin…
Okay, I understand what you are saying (thatdeafchick) but what about the other benefits (and issues) the article snippet addressed (other than just social stigma - which for many is a very real issue), such as reliability and that they say if you have a traditional cochlear you are unable to go swimming?
And wouldn’t a Deaf/HOH person still internally have the same Deaf identity and feeling of connection to the Deaf community no matter if they had visible hearing aids, cochlear implant/s or other visible hearing enhancing hardware?
Also, please do not get me wrong I think society as a whole will do whatever they can to make people change and feel uncomfortable with who they are wether that by how much they can or cannot hear, what they wear, what music genre they like, where they grew up, what kind of accent they have/what their voice sounds like, how much they weigh, who they prefer to date, fall in love with or have sex with, and just a trillion other things there is pretty much NO ONE that society deams as perfect… at least not for long.
in regards to the waterproofness here are 3 new technologies with IP ratings of 68:
#1. Siemens’ new Aquarius hearing aid. fully water proof. submergable in 3 feet of water for 30 min.
#2. Cochlear America’s new Neucleus cochlear implant sound processor. water resistant. submergable in 3 feet of water for 30 min.
#3. Advanced Bionics’ new Neptune cochlear implant sound processor. fully water proof. submergable in 3 feet of water for 30 min.
_____
in regards to the social construct of visible hearing devices, i refer you to ghosthustler’s response, because it is perfect:
Exactly how I felt about my hearing loss. I was too poor for any hearing aids besides a pair of giant, over-the-ear analogues in my youth, so I actually ended up just not wearing them through most of high school, and ducking out on the school district’s hearing tests. I kind of wish I’d relented otherwise now, but I was so ashamed, I’d rather just struggle through conversations and pretend I didn’t have an issue than acknowledge what was going on, because I felt like it’d just make me socially unacceptable somehow (especially with how I was conditioned from middle school and elementary school).
Modern, mad respect though for companies like Phonak who not only encourage the over-the-ears, but are doing their best to make them look stylish and authentically something I’d want to wear. No more of the bulky, beige blocks that chafe and make it impossible to wear a pair of glasses with thick frames. By now, I’d rather be proud of my hearing loss and deafness, and defiant to anybody who would take an issue with it. At least with a visible identifier, I’d usually know where people stand, instead of having to awkwardly confess why only a third of any of the conversation is making sense and getting the face of either condescension, or confused doubt.
The way to fix social stigma on assistive hearing devices is not to hide them away, but to ask “Why is there a stigma in the first place?” and make people address and resolve their ableist notions that people with hearing loss are infirm or dumb, and not simply another person living in their identity as much as anybody else does.
Also, p.s. I’m hoh and I wear hearing aids… What exactly can you hear underwater??
I’m gonna make this into a poster for college.
Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation.
Depression is humiliating.
If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.
It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too.
Depression is humiliating.
No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.
“
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Pearl (via sherunsfromdarkness)
This. I can’t even.
My teachers: Why didn’t you do your homework?
Me: *Scrambling for socially acceptable excuse* “The dishes were sick and I had babysitting. Fuck.”
In my head: Sorry, too busy trying not to kill myself.
Do you have any idea how much energy that takes? How long I stay awake, because I absolutely cannot fall asleep mid-panic attack? How much it physically hurts? Do you?
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thatdeafchick:
You wonder why I’m frustrated and angry. You have me sat in the back of the car by myself while the two of you are up front and I’m cut off from communication with you. It wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t trying to get me to give you directions. And then you start yelling at me. I don’t…
THIS^^^^
Fuck the backseat.
Hey, y’all. I’m alive, and (pretty) well. I won’t really be on here at all, but message me all the same, and I might get back to you in twenty years.
<3
