Great guest post on Gael Hannan’s blog.
Upholding the Family Hearing Aid Tradition, by David Drake.

If you don’t have time for the whole post (but I do recommend reading it in full), here’s an excerpt:

“David,” she said, “You think your hearing loss is your disability to endure, right? It’s your cross to bear, right?” It was a pretty direct question, there was no getting around it. Not seeing exactly where she was going with this, I cautiously agreed with what seemed to be obvious.

“Well,” she continued, “let me tell you that the way you handle your hearing loss is affecting everyone around you. You’re making it everyone else’s disability too, because you don’t do anything about it. We can’t whisper to you, you make everyone repeat everything, you misunderstand a lot of things, and basically you’re projecting your disability onto everyone who values your ideas and cares about your opinion.”