Like most people, I’d had a preconceived notion of who or what a “deaf” person was. So, when I was 15 and a mysterious woman came into my school, pulled me from a lesson and told me I’d been mishearing things my entire life, I was confused to say the least. She was an assigned “teacher of the deaf” from South Tyneside council – the seaside area where I grew up just outside Newcastle – and my GP had informed her that I had substantial hearing loss.
I have deaf people in my family – my grandmother’s brother and his children are deaf – but, like many people, I had just thought you were either deaf or you weren’t. It was a very ignorant mindset.
The woman explained that I couldn’t hear certain high-frequency pitches and that I would find it difficult to hear others in rooms with high ceilings or with lots of background noise. I couldn’t hear “f”, “s” or “ph” sounds, and I often confused words, like Ireland with Thailand for example, because they sound phonetically similar. Suddenly a lot of my experiences of talking to people in my life made sense. I mumble, I speak in a low register and I tilt my head to the left when listening (my right ear is marginally better than the left).
A test during which she covered her mouth and repeated sentences confirmed her suspicions that I was (and probably had always been) lip-reading. She concluded that without lip reading I missed about 15% of every sentence. For people who have hearing loss, lip-reading is subconscious: the mind fills in the gaps using context and knowledge of the person’s facial movements. That’s why it becomes easier to “hear” what someone has said the longer you’ve known them.
To this day, the doctors don’t know whether I was born this way or if there was an accident of some kind that caused it. The news added a confusing dimension to my perspective on the world: I began to diligently analyse how I listened and spoke to friends, to try to understand my hearing loss better. I combed through childhood memories, unsuccessfully trying to pinpoint a moment in time when the loss was apparent. It left me careful, paranoid and inquisitive. I would self-monitor constantly, and began to judge myself harshly when I missed something.
I was given hearing aids by the doctors and I wore them on and off over the next two years. But gradually I decided to quit wearing them. My reasons for that were multiple, and they remain fluid today.
First and foremost, from a practical point of view, I found myself distracted by the sounds that my hearing aids picked up. Rather than enhancing my life, they took me out of the moment: all I could focus on was the sound of the grass beneath my feet or the electronic beep of the fridge when I left the door open too long. Mundane sounds, I’m told. But when I heard them I just found them annoying.
I also wanted to prove that I could succeed in life without them. Largely I have: I have a wife, a house and a stable income. At the time, though, nothing was guaranteed. I had managed to get through school without needing additional support, and my university experience was on the horizon.
Of course, as an adolescent I was embarrassed, too. That’s not to say that wearing hearing aids is embarrassing by any means – but at 15, it was to me. Now I know that’s an antiquated view. The technical marvel of hearing aids and what they can do to transform people’s lives is not lost on me.
My embarrassment was so severe, however, that despite almost getting viciously attacked because of my hearing, I still didn’t want to wear them. I had misheard someone in a late-night altercation, and he took my genuine puzzled response as a sarcastic challenge, resulting in an attack before police came. Growing up with my hearing issues caused a lot of anxiety in nightclubs, parties and social settings. My natural tendency to lip read was confused with me “staring people out”.
My hearing loss isn’t as severe as others’. In a normal one-on-one conversation, in a quiet setting, I can hear fairly well (with some lip-reading involved). Some people wouldn’t even think I have hearing loss. But I’ve been masking it my whole life. And if you catch me in a crowded room, with a high ceiling and lots of background noise, you would be able to tell.
Today I don’t wear my hearing aids because I’ve never known life with them. I still get asked, “Why don’t you wear your hearing aids?”, especially when my wife is sick of asking me the same thing twice, but that’s about it. I get a yearly hearing test to make sure it isn’t deteriorating further. Every time the doctor will ask me about wearing my hearing aids; every time I explain why I won’t.
Giving up my hearing aids showed me that I could still be successful without assistance. It shows that sometimes the best fit is the one that works for you, despite what people say. But, above all, it gave me an appreciation of the nuances of disability – and not just in hearing loss.
