You don't just loose your hearing

Something you may not know about me is that I have had a hearing impediment for most of my life. For the majority I didn’t need to rely on help with this problem, it was just something that was there and every couple of years I would need to go to a hospital appointment.

Since I can remember I have had operations and hearing aid fittings but I never took it too seriously, I decided not to wear my hearing aids, mainly because I didn’t need them but also for fear of being ridiculed. If you’ve read my previous blog post ‘The back story…’ you’ll know I had a tough enough time with bullies and I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire to be completely honest with you.

After years of just getting on with life and never really noticing any problems my hearing started to decline. I don’t know if something triggered it, maybe an ear infection, or if it was an ongoing problem that would have reared its head at some point anyway but my hearing began to rapidly diminish.

It wasn’t till I started working again that I noticed things like taking a customer’s order or listening to the chefs in the kitchen was a struggle, I found it hard to separate background sounds and someone talking to me which made it difficult to have a conversation with someone just 3 feet away from me, it made my job difficult, it made the time I spent with my family very isolating and I just wanted to be on my own, at least that way I could hear my thoughts clearly and didn’t have to try and concentrate so hard to just talking to someone.

So I finally gave up on the thoughts that my hearing would return to normal and that I would magically be able to hear and went to the doctors and asked to be referred to an ENT. But while waiting I just became more withdrawn, I didn’t want to go out and socialise. I don’t get much chance to socialise anyway but I found it difficult to talk to anyone, even my family. It got to a really dark place, I won’t lie I still find myself there some days, I would struggle to get out of bed. I would try my best not to speak to people. I didn’t want to go to work. I didn’t want to do anything other than hibernate in bed.

I would say that I’m probably quite good at hiding those feelings and it’s very rare that anyone would notice that I was feeling down or withdrawn because I knew how to put up a good front. My hearing became a kind of joke at work which I didn’t mind, I’m all for taking the piss out of yourself and not taking life to seriously and I appreciated that my colleagues had the patience they did with me but it was still a struggle to stand with my friends and watch them have fun, making jokes, laughing and having a good time when I couldn’t hear any of this and I was stood in the middle of it. It made me feel invisible.

The day I got my hearing aids is the day a lot changed for me. I still struggle to decipher between background noise and people talking, I still sometimes struggle to have conversations and my hearing aids drive me mad with their whistling and crackling and how much they make my ears itch. But I cried when she put them in, I’ve never been so happy, I could hear without asking someone to repeat themselves! That hadn’t happened in months. I could hear people talking at a completely different table to me in a restaurant. I felt a freedom that I hadn't felt in a long time and I am so happy that I was lucky enough to get these hearing aids for free on the NHS. They have changed my life, it means I can continue to work in a job where I have to talk to people every day. It means I can sit in the living room at Christmas and watch tele with my family while having trivial conversation with them and not loose what’s going on in the programme.

But I still struggle with the social anxiety that comes with having to take my hearing aids out. I recently went to the hair dressers, it was the first time since I’ve had my hearing aids and it was really difficult. After I had taken out my hearing aids the social anxiety crept up, I couldn’t really communicate with the hairdresser, I felt bad for her and she probably felt super awkward. It’s hard to understand when you haven’t been in that position but I couldn’t have that normal stylist/client conversation that I see my mum having with her hair dresser. The whole time I was thinking ‘omg what does she think of me’ ‘she must think I’m so weird because I’m not talking to her’ ‘do I speak to her and then just pretend to listen?’

It’s something that I’ve had to deal with for a long time and I don’t think my social anxiety will go away but I think it is getting easier, like when I go to a restaurant I can order and speak to the waiter or when I have my nails done I can have a chat with the nail tech. I am lucky to have the hearing I do have and be able to wear hearing aids to help me because some people aren’t so lucky! I am now working to push past my social anxieties and stop isolating myself so that I can become a more confident person with my disability.

Hearing Link is a charity that helps to support people with hearing loss and their friends and family. So many people who suffer with hearing loss become isolated and withdraw from their friends and family just like I had so if you can please donate to help people get support they need to live a good life full of friends and family and happiness while living with a hearing impediment.

https://www.hearinglink.org/