I get asked this question all the time! And it is a difficult one to answer.
When you have hearing loss, it impacts everything in your life. Yet, others may become aware of it before you do. I first noticed I was have trouble hearing in my mid-20s at business school. If it were not for the fact that I had grown up watching my father struggle with hearing loss, I may not have even realized it. Mine started off mild, but worsened over time. Today I wear my hearing aids every day to stay connected to the people and activities that give me joy.
Having Hearing Loss Impacts All Aspects of Life
Each of us experience hearing loss in our own way, yet there are similarities in how we may feel about it. In Hear & Beyond we identified five stages of the hearing loss journey, but often the stages are most visible only when looking backwards over time. As we pass through each phase, we experience emotions—lots of them! Some, like the frustration of poor communication can bring us down, but there is also joy when we learn new skills that make conversation easier.
So, what is it like to have hearing loss? Here’s my take.
It may lower confidence
Hearing loss changes the way that we see ourselves, especially if we developed it later in life. We may lose confidence, feel less competent or not as worthy of love or the extra work it takes to communicate with us. When we don’t hear things properly or answer a question that wasn’t asked, we feel foolish. The stigma we feel makes it harder to ask for the assistance we need to communicate better. And that just compounds the problem.
We may find conversation exhausting
Hearing loss is like playing a game of Wheel of Fortune. Some of the letters are filled in while others are blank. We must combine the bit we heard with context clues and lipreading cues to make sense of the sounds and put them into words or phrases that make sense in the context of the conversation. It takes a lot of mental energy, especially in noisy environments. This can be very tiring especially when we don’t take the proper steps to ease communication.
It can be isolating
Hearing loss makes it more difficult to create and sustain relationships. We may avoid friends that are hard to hear or decline group outings because we know it will be difficult to participate. Romantic and family relationships are tougher because communicating takes extra work—from both sides. Frustration and resentment can result if communication best practices are not used regularly.
Communication gets more complicated
People often expect hearing aids to work like glasses, snapping our hearing back into focus. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Hearing aids do help us understand speech better in a quiet environment, but they do not return our hearing to normal. In noise, hearing aids have an additional challenge. Since they are not mind readers they amplify all sounds, meaning the buzz of other people’s conversations or the clinking of cutlery on plates can make it even harder to hear. When our conversation partners don’t understand what hearing aids can and can’t do, they can get frustrated with us. And us with them.
There Are Silver Linings
Hearing loss does have silver linings. For example, the wonderful community of other people with hearing loss that I would never have met otherwise. Each of you has taught me so much.
Despite the challenges, it is possible to live well with hearing loss. But it does take effort. In Hear & Beyond, we detail a three-legged stool of skills that can help anyone live better with it. These include technology (hearing aids & cochlear implants but also a wide range of other devices), an improved mental attitude about hearing loss, and behavioral changes like picking the best seat and other communication best practices. Learn more at HearAndBeyond.com.
Readers, how do you describe what it is like to have hearing loss?
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Hearing loss is exhausting! For Speech & Hearing Month in Canada I spent a day wearing solid silicone earplugs simulate hearing loss and went about my day making notes to write a blog article about it. It was a long frustrating day that ended in mental exhaustion and a feeling of mild defeat. I suggest anyone who wants to know what it’s like to deal with hearing impairment, try it. It gave me a new understanding – which is a good part of what the whole Speech & Hearing Month was about. Great article BTW. I have been following for a while now.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and how it made you feel. So glad the article resonated with you.
Hearing loss is like walking on cluttered rocks because all the little gaps in between the stones is what we miss feeling. In that same rationale, we miss bits and pieces of conversation and still are not sure what we did or thought we heard was concrete. Each waking hour of the day we scramble and wonder if we missed anything. Believe me no doubt about it, I have missed a great deal. We are blessed with so many improvements and types of technology, I can say I still am unable to catch it all. Hearing loss is not only about acceptance, perseverance, and the “Just Do It” motivation, but a striving challenge.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the subject.
I describe it by saying that hearing aids help me to hear sound but I can’t make sense of the sound or that I hear it unreliably and have to rely on lipreading, body language and context of conversation to fill in the blanks which as you say is tiring. Even then I may still need people to face me, repeat something they’ve said, speak clearly and slightly reduce the pace and there are some situations which are harder than others – such as when in a group, when in a place with lots of background noise or when trying to communicate with someone whose voice I find harder to hear whether that be because they speak quickly, quietly or they have an accent. So it’s not a case of hearing or not hearing, as the hearing aids (mostly) fill in the blanks, it’s a case of understanding and interpreting what I hear all the time.
Good description. Thank you for sharing it.
I’d also add that it has the potential to be isolating, especially socially, unfortunately, for the reason you’ve given in the article.
True, but there are ways to combat it. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.