in my experience <am 43 and I became aware of changes in my hearing maybe about 7 years ago now and consider myself hoh...there are many others on here who have a lot more hoh experience than me> sometimes hearing will not understand no matter what you say or how your explain. And sometimes being nice doesn't work.
On another note, I do know there are hoh/deaf simulations online you can look up and have people listen to how it seems to them to try to hear at different levels of "loss"
I -do- have a lifetime of experience as a person with learning disabilities and can tell you that people just aren't always gonna get it and people will be mean. The people who want to learn and really see who you are the ones to focus on being with.
I was in an abusive work environment and that's really hard....I just had to keep going and try to focus on people who were kind.
I couldn't change the other people, I could only work on keeping myself healthy.