Hearing with Help
And a Sensory Prompt for Your Ears
All my life I’ve had what my family referred to as bad ears. I learned to think of them that way too. This is a form of ableism and created a feeling in me of shame. A feeling of this is something to hide. A feeling I tried to ignore that led to ignoring the fact that I have a hearing impairment. Most of you don’t know this about me. It’s not a fun fact I share in warm-up circles. But I have never been able to hear well.
Ignoring this since I was young has meant that I forget that I don’t hear well. By living with the absence of hearing and ignoring this absence, I stopped being aware of missing anything. I stopped noticing I was missing many sounds.
And the weird thing about hearing impairment is that it’s not quiet. Sound often feels too loud, and I often wear ear defenders to keep things quieter. But those sounds (trains, cars, electronics) aren’t the sounds I want to but don’t often hear well (your voice).
There are also inner sounds, tinnitus, that I live with, that drown out sound I’d like to hear (your voice). And because I am aware of this issue, I have learned to listen well. I have studied listening and made a career out of it. And now, for the first time in my life, it is easier to actually hear (which is different from listening but an important part of being able to listen).
I got hearing aids! Not because my hearing is suddenly declining with age. Nothing has changed there. I had several sets of tubes put into my ears as a child until my mid-20s (when my insurance didn’t allow for them anymore). I missed most of kindergarten and always had to sit in the first row. I was moved to a private school with smaller classes. In high school I had to memorize every line in the school play to know when to speak my own (through timing and visual cues) because I couldn’t hear the other actors.
When doctors look in my ears, they often express surprise at the scar tissue, but none have ever offered support. And I didn’t complain or speak up. I was taught and conditioned not to. I try to read lips and get by. I mostly fail and seem strange.
When my son was born I trained him (and often begged him) to speak to my face so that I could see what he was saying. He has complained for years about my ears, but I didn’t try to do anything about it. Most doctors do not listen to anything I’ve ever told them.
I’m one of the many who suffered with endometriosis for over 15 years before a doctor actually diagnosed me and showed me proof, from surgery, of this incredibly painful disease. But sometimes timing works in my favor - if there had been OxyContin back then, I would have OD’d on it.
Moving my life online to Zoom (starting Brave Space in 2019 when I had to teach each person individually how to use it) has been amazing! Everyone faces me! Everyone speaks at a volume I set! It has allowed me to take classes and learn and I’ve been able to work as a coach! It has made every single thing easier.
But I failed another hearing test at a yearly checkup, and this time the doctor sent me to the audiologist. Apparently not hearing can lead to isolation (check). I live beside a 200 acre forest on a salt marsh full of birds and woodland creatures.
My neighbors walk their dogs each morning. When I was first diagnosed with autism, I stopped spending time with them. It was exhausting to try to manage the group while walking through the forest. I couldn’t see anyone’s faces, and I had no idea how to respond to language I couldn’t hear. But I wasn’t aware of this as a hearing problem. I was only aware of how tired I felt coming home from these walks. Same tired I felt running in-person 29th Street and WriteNow meetings. I thought autism was the whole reason, and I let myself stop trying so hard. Now I know more!
Why does my life continue to reveal itself to me this way, and will there be more? Is this what everyone else is going through? Is this happening because I live during a particularly ableist time in a culture that systemically denies reality, help, validation and even language for those of us who are having a different physical experience?
Tuesday was my first day with a hearing aid. An adjustment. I can hear my fabric rustle and my footsteps pound. (They say this will get better.) But the amazing thing is that I took my dog for a walk, and passing some of the dog-walkers, I heard one of them ask me how I was. I never would have heard this without help.
In high school when we got our yearbooks signed, one student wrote that she had always wanted to be my friend. I had a really hard time making friends. So hard, it became something I just decided I couldn’t do, so I stopped trying.
Her comment struck me, and I would turn it around in my head for years wondering how I didn’t notice or what was in the way. When I got my autism diagnosis, I forgave myself - obviously this made it hard to make friends. But there is more to it than autism (and a history of trauma). Suddenly these tiny wires make it very loud and very clear. I have been missing so much!
The Prompt:
What do you or your characters think should make sound? What is the sound of fur? The sound of skin? The sound of aliveness? What is the sound of a city or a farm or a suburb or a playground or a pond or a mountain or a forest?
Where are you or your characters and what are your surrounding sounds? Where would you rather be and what would it sound like there?
Pick a grave and write the sounds that you or your characters can imagine come from it.
Besides dialogue, what sounds do your characters make? What sounds are they used to in their lives?
What if pursed lips could speak? What if we say the quiet part out loud? What if we miss what is being said? What if we don’t hear the answers to our questions?
What sort of sounds do we tune out that might have something to say to us?
What sort of sounds should we get to know?
What was/is a person or character full of, sound-wise?
How do we hold up the ruin or the triumph of a life, how do we say, here and hear?
Make a Sound List of your own for a character or a scene or as part of the setting/scenery. Find the sounds of the world you are creating. Bring in what you need, and also bring in some mystery. Bring in something unexplainable. Let what you are creating be larger than you think it is, because it is.
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artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on instagram
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I have been so happy with my Starkey hearing aids after audiologist tested me last year. I learned ASL once but need a refresher course but what I like about my Starkeys is that I can adjust them on their App on my phone.
This makes me so sad because I think to myself, how could those parents miss so much that was going on with their child? How out of touch, distracted or self absorbed were they to not notice these things? Did they just expect the child to "grow out of it." Sorry but as a mother who had to chase down so many things that were interfering with my child's learning, it's very hard to hear.