Pardon? Sorry, one more time? I’m not catching what you’re saying, it’s so noisy in here. Are you asking me if I want a bag, have a membership card, or something else to which the answer is no?
I had been inching my way forward to the cashier in a big box store, and now I was holding up the line. What embarrassed me was not so much that I couldn’t hear the mumble-mouth staff person, but that everyone else could!
In similar situations, a kindly shopper has helped by leaning in to tell me what was being asked. Or a new (and ill-advised) tactic of mine: if I don’t hear it the first time, just say no. That has its own dangers, especially if I was asked credit or debit, and when I say no, we just look at each other for a long nano-second.
These small indignities of hearing loss, the small embarrassing moments of communication gone wrong, can wear you down if you let them. They can accumulate into a full-blown Bad Hearing Day, putting you in a full-blown Bad Mood.
I lose things more than the average person. If it’s my cellphone, I can locate it with my watch but I tend to walk fast and am a bit sloppy about where I place things. For example, when I shove my reading glasses into my pockets, I may not push them all the way in, so it’s easy for them to fall out and – here’s the thing – I don’t hear them fall.
I thought this problem would improve when I got my cochlear implant and it has to some degree. I can hear keys hitting the ground, but not my gloves that fall off my lap when I get out of the car; I neither hear nor see them, making them officially lost. I thought about attaching steel studs to the glove fingertips, but then I would have heavy, noisy hands. So, it’s cheap winter gloves for me.
One of the most embarrassing aspects of the hearing loss life is the pitfalls of group conversations, especially over-talking. You sense an opening and jump in only to be shushed because someone else istalking. Or, you jump into the convo with a funny-smart-relevant comment, only to see people’s eyes flickering between each other and someone says, oh, now we’re talking about blah blah blah. You hope your face isn’t as red as it feels, and you kick yourself for not using your best communication practices.
If the conversation changes, I should notice it. If I don’t, it’s because I have, sometimes without realizing it, been bluffing. If I’m at all unsure, I should ask what are we talking about now? My family and close friends are used to this question from me, and I’m grateful for their bringing me up to speed, but also annoyed that they didn’t notice I’d fallen off the conversation cliff.
But I mean, SERIOUSLY, why didn’t they?! It’s very easy to blame other people for these moments of disconnection. They know we have hearing loss! They know it’s easy for us to lose track of what’s being said! They know that if they turn their head, we’re going to miss what they say!
Yes, they do, and so do we! In their defence, if we don’t remind them, they will assume we are following the conversation, because we look interested. And in our defence, it’s tiring to keep reminding people. But trying different strategies – changing the seating, or location, or lighting, or noise level, can make a huge difference. We think that people will be annoyed by our expressed needs, but if we ask with grace, they will respond likewise. Most of the time.
All these small indignities are examples of the turbulence in our lives with hearing loss. But if we accept that there will always be embarrassing moments, it’s easier to laugh at our communication boo-boos. It’s on us to adapt – and it’s on other people to communicate with us.
And for the mumbly-mouth people of the world, the best strategy is the straightforward one; say I have hearing loss, and this is what I need to do. Thank you very much.
Then carry on with your life.
