My experience

There was a time in 2025 when my family and I were going on an overseas trip to England so my brothers and dad could go see Oasis, and so that we could travel and explore new countries. I remember going into Canberra airport to catch a plane to Sydney, I remembered a time from when I was young that I had to go through security, and because I have implants in my head, the alarm went off and that we tried ro explain that I was Deaf and had metal in my head, they didn’t care and shrill wanted to usr the wand on me and pat me down, I felt so embarrassed as I was young, since then I have always had a fear of going through airport security because of that one experience. But now days technology has developed, but I still get nervous to go through because I need ro remove the implants and I cannot hear a single thing, so I ALWAYS make my brother or mum go through before me so they can help communicate with someone if something goes wrong, and I always dont know what is going on because they are to the side and youre not allowed to look which makes it hard to know when you can go through and so on. I had to do that so many times on that trip, and I am still nervous to go through them by myself. 

 

Also, there were so many places in the UK that I went to tour attractions, and most of them have audio devices, but instead of over-ear headphones, they are in the ear headphones, so then I could not listen to any of the information that was being given to me, and mt parents had to explain what it was saying to me, which for me was not exactly ideal. There was only one place that had a phone that had BSL, which I didn’t understand as I am not from the UK, but it did have written information, which was good for me, because I could read about the place. A lot of the tourist attractions did have information written down on large panels, but a lot of them were not deaf accessibl,e and I just found it a bit upsetting. I felt like I could not learn and experience the experience everyone else was having because I have a hearing impairment. I felt left out, excluded from activities, and not thought of, which was just upsetting to me.