Abigail Heringer Shares Insight Into How 'The Bachelor' Is the 'Bes and Worst' Environment for Someone With Hearing Loss

Transcript

00:00Obviously, The Bachelor gets a few chapters in this book.

00:03You talk a little bit about group dates and kind of how that was a little difficult to

00:07film.

00:08Can you tell me a little bit about that being on The Bachelor with your cochlear implant

00:13and trying to navigate the crazy world of The Bachelor while also just trying to be

00:17like, how do I do this in the best way for me?

00:20Right.

00:21I would say it was the best and worst environments for dating with a hearing loss.

00:25It was the best way possible.

00:28How we're sitting, that's how Matt and I would be sitting on the couch or Noah and I on Paradise.

00:32It's so quiet.

00:33You're on set.

00:34There's no background noise.

00:35It's not like a bar or a Topgolf or anything like that.

00:38It was very easy to hear and have a conversation until you get to the group dates.

00:43The running joke was, I was on every single group date on Matt Damon's season.

00:48Never had a one-on-one.

00:49A lot of those group dates, we had so many girls on our season.

00:53Our first group date, we had 18 girls.

00:56It felt like a field trip and everyone's cracking jokes and talking to Matt in that

01:00group setting and I just could not follow.

01:03I didn't really say anything on that date.

01:06There was another one where we had to rope pumpkins across the water.

01:09I didn't have my Aqua Plus, so I had to take it off for 30 minutes and Matt is a part of

01:15that date.

01:16It felt very uncomfortable to not be able to hear anything, but then also not participate

01:22while those girls are getting that time.

01:24It was really hard in that way to navigate the group dates and also just the living conditions.

01:31It was really fun at first.

01:32I felt college all over again.

01:33You get really close with the girls, but for me, with my cochlear implant, the sound, silence,

01:40that's my natural state of being.

01:42I enjoy that time.

01:43That's my favorite self-care and I never really got that on the show.

01:47You're up until four in the morning filming, then you're up at eight in the morning the

01:51next day, so I was very cranky at the end.

01:54I was just over-stimulated, just maxed out with my listening.

01:58On both seasons, I would say at the end, you just saw me breaking and breaking.

02:03I feel like everyone's breaking, so you have an extra reason to be like, I'm really done.

02:08That's what I was going to say, is I didn't realize that until reading the book, because

02:12I thought the whole show, everybody's all just kind of going through it.

02:16I literally never crossed my mind that part of the reason it wasn't going too well.

02:19You were like, why is she shutting down Paradise?