Keeping it real.

Bachelor Nation fans first met Abigail Heringer Erb on Season 25 of “The Bachelor,” and she went on to find love with Noah Erb on Season 7 of “Bachelor in Paradise.”

During her time on the Bachelor Nation shows, Abigail opened up about her hearing loss and how she wears a cochlear implant.

And since then, she’s continued to share her experience with her followers on social media and loves answering fan questions. 

This past week, the Bachelor Nation star took to her Instagram Story and opened up about navigating hearing loss in her daily life, including some of the challenges she’s faced. 

Abigail shared one of the hardest parts of having hearing loss. She said, “I think something that has always been consistently hard is meeting new people. Meeting new people typically happens in loud environments, I haven’t learned their speech cadence yet, so it can be hard to follow along what they’re saying and overall just exhausting trying to keep up with the convo.”

Abigail went on, admitting, “I’m not as extroverted as I wish I could be sometimes. I think it’s just one of those moments where I do get reminded that I have a disability and sometimes I do have to work a bit harder and not to get frustrated with myself!” 

The Bachelor Nation star also shared what she wished people better understood about being deaf, especially hearing parents who have children with hearing loss. 

She said, “I think having a sister who was in almost the exact same situation as me really helped me understand this, but every kid is going to handle their hearing loss so differently! My sister and I had so many similarities, but also a lot of differences when it came to our progress and even our acceptance of being deaf.”

Abigail continued, “Hearing loss really does look different on everyone, so I think a big part of it is giving your child room to have their own experience and trying not to compare their progress to what you thought it would look like or what it looks like for someone else.” 

Abigail also shared that she loves being deaf and it has “enriched [her] life in so many ways.” She said, “It’s given me an incredible community and experiences I probably never would’ve had otherwise, and it’s made me really appreciative of the life I have.”