For What I’m Worth

by Amy Saxon Bosworth

 In day-to-day life you do what it takes, put one foot in front of the other, but there is a dark side of hearing loss that is seldom talked about.  There are wounds that go deeper than the depths of faulty ear canals. We rightly focus on being positively proactive, developing coping skills, finding a circle of support, seeking advice from competent professionals and keeping up to date on the latest technology, but the pain is still there, pain I try to hide from myself, ducking behind an optimist’s denial, pain I want to shield my children from.  If we acknowledge the negative then we can move through it, help ourselves and each other. You get rid of the monster in the closet by turning on a light. Hearing loss may not be physically painful but it injures the psyche. It sometimes hurts who we are as people. 

 As our hearing gets more tenuous, our skin must grow thicker. Even in 2008, insensitivity and ignorance are everyday obstacles for most of us. When I had to give up my amplified phone for voice carry over, becoming dependent on relay service, my heart broke daily, hurt over friends and family who could not overcome their own discomfort and learn how to communicate with me. The excuses stung – “It takes too much time,” “I can’t remember the number,” “It feels awkward,” “I feel self-conscious with the operator listening.” What I heard was, “You are not worth a little extra time,” “You are not worth the effort to look up a phone number,” “Talking to you is not worth my own awkwardness and discomfort.” Trying to order pizza and getting hung up on would leave me in tears. When I phoned a friend’s home, her husband answered and, not realizing the agent would type everything he said, asked if he should tell me she was not home. “It’s one of those stupid relay calls, you don’t want to mess with it do you?” In a way it turned out to be a positive experience. Unsupportive friends and family soon became evident, falling away rapidly, leaving people who loved me even though my hearing loss was inconvenient.

 Around the same time, struggling financially and fighting to keep up with duties at work, I sought assistance from our state’s vocational rehabilitation commission. The caseworker assigned to help me refused to take my relay calls, saying that she didn’t have time to waste. Instead she suggested that I drive into the office to make an appointment or to ask a question. Was her time so much more valuable than mine? The distance I was expected to drive was forty-six miles, but the gash she left in my spirit was much longer than the drive into town.

 Recently a hearing-aid company began running commercials on our local television station. Their tag line appears in large black print. “Do you suffer from hearing loss?” Then they pan to shiny, happy people with hearing aids, frolicking in the park, playing the piano, whispering secrets. The ad really bothered me because it furthered the false assumption that you can pop a hearing aid in and fix everything, but it did make me stop and think. I have suffered from hearing loss. I’ve suffered from isolation and depression, grieving over the sounds I have lost. I have suffered from insensitivity and ignorance. My ears don’t hurt but sometimes I ache inside.  

Dwelling on the negatives is admittedly not productive but the balm of knowing you are not alone soothes. What brings us together is our hearing loss. Our desire to rise above the obstacles we face unites us. By exposing our wounds to the light, holding them up, examining and sharing we can ease the burden and isolation of others. We may feel lost at times but we are never alone.