Hearing: The Struggle is Real.

I am hearing impaired and have been since childhood. In my young adult life, enlisted in the USN, I was fitted with hearing aides that were big and bulky and took up my whole ear. Being 21 years old and gazing at white-haired senior citizens smiling at me in the brochure, I opted not to wear them. Years later, the VA issued me top-of-the-line technology with outside volume control that could stream blue tooth through an antennae around my neck, allowing me to talk on the phone or listen to music right in my hearing aide. Sounds cool, right?  I wore them for a few years but in the situations where I needed them the most, they didn't seem to help.  

Hearing aides aren't like eyeglasses: once you put glasses on, your sight may correct to 20/20, perfect vision. To say that wearing hearing aides gives you perfect hearing is far from reality. A hearing aide amplifies everything: the sounds you want to hear and the background noise that most people can usually ignore. In class at University, I would turn up my hearing aides to hear the professor (yes Dad, I was sitting in the front row) and I can hear every shift, rustle, tap and Doritos bag within a mile. Not only can I hear it, but the sound of the person behind me ripping out a piece of notebook paper would reverberate down my spine: very hard to ignore.

From my experience and talking with my mom and her experience with hearing loss, I've come up with a list of things that are helpful in communicating with someone who is hearing impaired. 

First: If I have the courage in our conversation to tell you that I am hearing impaired, don't cup your ear and reply with "what?" like you can't hear me. You may think you're being funny and that only shows me that you have no compassion (or tact) and it makes me rethink speaking to you at all. I realized in my early 20's that if you're being a jerk and covering your tracks with a pat on the back and "Oh, I'm just kidding..." you're still a jerk: don't be that guy.

Second: Respectfully get my attention before starting a conversation. Please don't talk to my back especially if my attention is given to another task. I say respectfully as in don't kick me, throw things at me or shout at me. Even if you kick me to "get my attention", you're still kicking me. Sound is more than what you hear, it is a vibration and an energy. Energy is consciousness directed. By the sixth time that you have tried and failed to communicate with me, check your emotions and intentions. If you've reached a place of frustration, you can be sure you are about to impart these energies on me. 

Third: If you are continuously repeating the same word and I am not understanding the word, use a synonym or a different grouping of words to stand in for the word I am not hearing. Here is an example: this morning Dustin said to me, "look at Andres's squat" (Dustin believes you can add years to your life by squatting verses bending over, squatting is a one of our "things"). For whatever reason, no matter how many times he said the word squat, I could not receive it. A good replacement would've been "look at the way  he's sitting, his posture", etc. 

In my experience, I have found that people do one of two things when I can't hear them and they're asked to repeat themselves. One, they repeat their sentence without changing the tone or the volume of their voice which doesn't do much for our communication. And two, they raise their voice and enunciate sharply in a way that makes me feel belittled and dumb (especially as people repeat themselves for the fourth and fifth time). Now, I know that I am the only one who allows myself to feel this way, those feelings are indeed born within me. One of my favorite quotes comes from an interpretation of a Buddhist text called Compassion Conquers All: "If someone is doing something that disturbs you, it's not them. The fact that it disturbs you shows you that you are disturbed". This may show you how inexplicably linked my ego is to my ability (or inability) to hear (as I would assume it to be with many people who are navigating this world with a disability). I am working with and around my emotional reactions to my hearing every single day; it's a long road and I appreciate you repeating yourself. 

Lastly, please don't start a conversation with me from another room, across the room or across the table in a bustling environment. These loud, lively social situations are some of the most challenging situations for me to navigate and hearing aides don't help at all. I've found myself in a similar situation in the yoga room as you might imagine. In quiet spaces, people don't usually speak louder than a whisper and I often miss what a student has asked or don't hear them at all.  I shudder to imagine that they think they are being ignored. I have come to realize that active conversations are limited to people within an arm's reach of me. Communication with anyone outside of that arm's reach will receive a smile and a nod. This pointer has even been tough for me: at home, I'll be in another room and think of something to say/ask and begin to belt out a conversation that I can't even actively take part in. It's a matter of mindfulness for everyone involved. 

I sleep great. Dogs can bark the entire night and it won't stir me once. Owls can hoot all night while we're camping and I am none the wiser. I can read a book in the same room that an entire family of normal hearing people watch a movie. I'm loud. I'm loud because I want to be the person that I want to communicate with. I want to be heard and I want to hear you. After a childhood and adolescence of getting angry and offended when kids looked at me and said "are you deaf?", I am finally moving into a space where I can admit to my hearing loss and begin to ask for what I need in communication. When someone speaks to me and I can't hear them, this moment arises and thoughts and emotions start flooding in.. I've begun to breathe through these moments and not grasp my thoughts, but allow them pass. It's one of the most empowering ways I've been able to take yoga with me off of the mat. 

Love&Light