1/8 I was debating whether to post this or not, but then I realised it's an issue that not only affects me, but also many others. I woke up this morning in good spirits, jaunty and ready to face the day. By mid-morning, I was in tears, heartbroken and deflated. I felt awful. Why?

2/8 I'll explain. While I was having breakfast and scrolling through Twitter, I came across a video done by someone I follow and admire. There were no captions. Normally, when I come across non-captioned videos, I just feel a twinge of hurt and frustration.

3/8 But today, for some reason, It really hit me. Hard. The last thing I want is sympathy. I don't want people to feel sorry for me because I'm deaf (believe it or not, I'm happy how I am, and there are many good things about being deaf).

4/8 And I don't want people to see deafness as a bad or frustrating thing. What I would love is more access. Making access happen is a two-way street. It's up to us to politely request/demand access, and it's up to others - and ourselves - to provide it.

5/8 When access is provided, we are so appreciative and grateful. I like to make a point of thanking people for providing captions. And if you ever get frustrated with having the extra job of making captions, think how frustrating it is for us.

6/8 It is frustrating to want to watch a certain online content, but we can't due to no accessibility. It is frustrating to have to keep asking people to caption their content, over & over again. It is frustrating trying to decipher auto-generated captions. It is beyond painful.

7/8 Yep, auto-generated captions are in no way accessible to us. It's difficult to decipher, and never, ever gets anything right. These days, there is a lot of free and easy technology to add captions to content. Even via apps, such as Kapwing.

8/8 To conclude, please, please, please caption your videos. And remember: deafness is NOT disabling. Inaccessibility is.

I really hope I had an impact on some people with this post, and if you read all the way to the end, thank you

@insideoutsox here it is! Thank you so much for your support, lovely xx