Having a sense of humor is apparently an important key to living well with hearing loss, say them that knows.
But I say, but what if you don’t have one?
‘They’ say, you can learn to laugh at yourself!
I yell, what if you don’t WANT to, or CAN’T, or don’t know HOW? What if hearing loss has amputated your funny bone?
I’ve never met a person who laughed at their hearing loss diagnosis. Or giggled every time they misheard something. Or kept a straight face when asking for something to be repeated, possibly for the third time. Or guffawed when their hearing device failed.
Hearing loss is the opposite of funny; it’s serious. It drains us physically, emotionally and often financially.
Oh c’mon…aren’t some hearing-related things funny?
Like when a goofy mutt stood by my bed with bits of my well-chewed hearing aid hanging from his chin? Or the time I accepted a date only to find that’s not what was asked? Or when I delivered one of my famous non-sequiturs: “Mom, can you help me with an essay?” “That’s great, say hi to him for me.”
These things are funny – in hindsight. Although the ‘hearing’ people involved often see the humor right away. But if they dare to laugh, I give them a look that can freeze the smile right off their face. When I’m ready to laugh about my mis-hears or the many other embarrassments that come with hearing loss, then they can laugh too.
Mind you, it’s hard to enforce that rule within your immediate family, especially if it was small like mine – just my parents, sister and me. It was easy to understand dinner conversations because everybody’s lips were just two dinner plates away. Even so, I’d give apparently goofy answers to something I thought I heard, which always amused my family. We laughed a lot, en famille, because my father said the Lord loves a cheerful idiot and he felt we all qualified.
We do laugh, though, when someone offers up a hearing loss joke because it would be impolite not to. But oh, the agony! The jokes are almost always a variation on two old corny jokes, which the average person with hearing loss is condemned to hear a thousand times or when they die, whichever comes first. “What day is it?” “Thursday.” “Me too, let’s get a drink.” Or the extremely un-original and un-hilarious: “Would you mind speaking up, I have hearing loss,” and the answer shoots back, “Pardon?”
We’re expected to laugh at all this?
Yes. Because it helps. It helps in almost every aspect of our hearing loss lives which, for most of us, also lasts as long as we do. If we don’t find a way to laugh, all we’ve got left are frustration and tears. Comedian Bob Hope said, “I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful.”
It is possible to hone the hearing loss sense of humor. Hearing loss isn’t funny – until you find the power to tell the joke on yourself. If someone else tells a joke on you and your hearing loss, you have permission to use my I’m-gonna-freeze-that-smile-right-offa-yer-face look.
We can laugh at our hearing loss. Just give us some time.
- Bonus: Want a laugh? Tune into my This Week in Hearing podcast with my guest, comedian D.J. Demers.
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