© 2007
by Paul Schneider
I just received my fall 2007 edition of the ALDA News. In addition to several wonderful articles by our very own SWCers, there's a teaser for the winter edition where the theme will be "denial." What a theme for me, as I'm slowly realizing the depth of impact my hearing loss has on my life, and the lives of those close to me.
Being in an "active" stage of bilateral Meniere's, where my "hearing weather" ranges from "fair" to "monsoon" (no comprehension) on different days, it's pretty easy for me to "act normal" on the fair days I get blessed with, and try to shove my worsening situation under the rug.
You see, it turns out as I've been tracking and logging my "weather" for several months (in the hope of finding patterns of lifestyle/behavior/diet that may influence my condition), I've recently noticed that my judgment has been slipping a bit into the denial range. Seems that what I call "fair" today, a subjective measurement, isn't quite as fair as it was when I started logging. In other words, I'm finding myself saying "what?" pretty regularly now on days I've judged as "fair" -- and I'm having to face the fact that my overall speech discernment is trending downward (as expected in the typical Meniere's pattern).
Of course, this speaks to the fact that nothing beats a hearing/discernment test by a professional audiologist for determining my actual performance overall. I've had several of these in the past, and the only rub for me is that my hearing has been so wildly variable that the tests given on my "fair" days can't reflect the full spectrum of my struggles to hear and understand. The professionals I've seen understand this, and so the mode we're in right now is regular HTs, and as many "rule-out" diagnostics (for causes other than Meniere's) as we can do in the meantime, with the expectation that if it really is Meniere's, it'll probably "settle down" (whatever that means -- not necessarily "good") eventually.
Back on the "denial" topic, it's a very subtle and sneaky business. It isn't all mine, either. I've found that when I'm having difficulty understanding someone, I really do need to be assertive in letting them know because -- as all of us late-deafened folks must learn -- we can look, act, and even sound like a person with normal hearing. Denial and/or ignorance of our difficulty by others is therefore almost automatic. And as a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, I get a double-whammy on that one. I get "tired" of socializing fast (not that I don't love it, I just get tired), so the more work it is, the sooner I'll just "give up" and let the (mis)communication cards fall where they may. Could this be a form of intentional denial, perhaps?
The title of this article mentions "the Human Condition and Grief", and that is my real point here. Denial is not a "problem" that just some folks are saddled with -- it's a part of being human. It's the ignorance/dismissal of things we'd rather not deal with head on, and I believe we all do it, all the time. I believe it's based on a real survival skill (the psychology term is "avoiding cognitive dissonance"). Of course it can cause serious problems when we don't deal with reality adequately, but if we had to face every issue we encounter in our daily lives head-on, we'd probably all be emotional wrecks, all the time.
Denial (the big, ugly one) is about trying our best to avoid dealing with grief, a real feeling that happens any time we suffer a loss of something important. Hearing is pretty damn important (if you've ever had it). Losing it, fast, slow, intermittent, however it happens, is a deeply tragic personal experience. It affects your whole life, in ways that no one can fully understand unless and until it happens to them.
So what's the answer to the "problem" of denial? One word, for me, anyway -- balance. Balance is a learned behavior, and it means being committed to knowing reality, but also committed to knowing the limitations of my personal responsibility when something is beyond my control. Balance, really, is the active process of understanding my limitations -- what I can and can't do without help, and likewise what I can and can't be responsible for.
I'm not in control of the quality of my speech comprehension on any given day. Dealing with reality effectively means I have to become assertive about my limitation in real-time, whether I like it or not, and whether I'm tired or not. It also means granting myself the alternative of bowing gracefully out of a conversation I simply can't handle today (with a suggestion of "later" or perhaps "by some other means" -- thankfully, these days, there are many). Balance is sort of like growing up, and being an adult. Age 48 -- 'bout time?