Well, this is me!
I don't like to be seen as different so most of my life I've kept my hearing loss a relative secret. It's not nice to stand out in that way and I figured most people wouldn't understand. It leads to awkward dinner party conversations, tactless and often hurtful teasing, and many strained smiles as you have to deal with the ignorance. I've gotten a lot more tolerant as I got older but it hasn't been easy.
So you know by now that I have hearing loss in both ears. Technically my right ear is worse than my left, and my left ear can hear higher frequencies better than my right but it's all words on a page really. Here's the deal, without my aids in, I can't operate in a hearing world. So how do I explain it? Well, imagine that you are listening to the radio in your car. Suddenly someone turns that volume control right down, not all the way, you can still hear some sound, but enough that you are straining to hear what song it is or what the DJ is saying. That's me without my aids in. I can still hear sound, some better than others, but it's a strain to figure out what's being said. I also lose all the 'soft' sounds in life. Such as the waves at the beach, or the trees rustling, or the car engine noise. Those completely disappear. Now imagine someone came and turned the radio back up but they adjusted the frequencies. The bass is too strong, you can hear the music but not the lyrics, you go under a bridge and it crackles. That's kinda my life with my aids. They are AWESOME devices but I don't magically hear the same as my hearing peers. I can't listen to live concerts as they distort and amplify sound and I get migraines. When there is just too much background noise they can't pick out the main sound and amplify EVERYTHING so I just get white noise. It sucks, but I don't want pity. Just to explain that it's not easy in a world that is so auditory. Phoning people is an absolute nightmare, but often necessary as most companies won't reply to emails.
Still, I work as a drama teacher (the noisiest job I could have chosen!) at a hearing school and love every moment. I've mentioned before that I can lipread. Well, it really is my superpower. The upside is, I can tell immediately if someone is talking about me, even if it's across the room. The only downside is that sometimes I find myself eavesdropping on conversations I'm clearly not part of! Whoops! The thing is, people love testing this out on me. I literally have adults who will block their lips and ask me if I can hear them. REALLY? Everyone thinks it is hilarious. That is, everyone except the person who has to deal with this struggle on a daily basis. Or when people mouth rubbish to me. When you talk, the air that rushes through your lips create a type of movement. Remove that and it's a lot harder to read lips. Accents, lisps and lazy lips also make lip reading harder so it is definitely NOT an exact science.
I also don't SOUND deaf. Now this is actually a legitimate thing. My husband and I call it 'the Deaf accent'. Basically if you can't hear yourself speak, you tend to talk with a bit of a lisp or an 'accent'. If you don't know any better it can even sound foreign! I don't have one. I probably only lost my hearing after I had already acquired speech. That and the MANY speech and drama lessons I attended from age 9. So I speak clearly and articulately which is probably why people tell me I 'look normal' (can't express enough how INSULTING that is!)
So that's me. I'll post another update soon so keep reading! Promise more funny stories to follow...
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