CHAPTER ONE
The Emotions of Losing Hearing
and the Bridge To Healing
Richard E. Carmen, Au.D.

Much has changed in hearing aid technology since the second edition of this book (in 2004). Hearing aids have become less obtrusive and they offer superior performance than even a few years ago. With the advent of telecommunication devices such as Bluetooth cell phone receivers, wearing anything in the ear these days is at best passé, and maybe even fashionable. For some, I’ve noticed that it even seems to be a statement of moving with social change as people talk into thin air presumably using their Bluetooth devices. And yet, if you’re like me, sometimes there’s that one moment you have to look twice to confirm that you’re not observing someone on the street simply talking to himself. Then you find yourself saying, “Oh yeah! Oh yeah, he’s fine.”

What we’re seeing here is a sweeping shift in acceptance of “things” worn in or about our ears. You really can no longer tell the difference between telecommunication devices and some state-of-the-art ear-level hearing aids. Some hearing aids are so elegantly designed that they no longer even look like hearing aids, perhaps more closely resembling a piece of jewelry. The results have been profound social change, a shift in thinking by both wearers and observers whereby the stigma of wearing these devices that don’t look like hearing aids is essentially gone. At the time of writing of the first and second editions of this book, such a thing was only imagined! While we have virtually transformed social change in less than five years through design, this is not to say all is well on the frontier.

The initial reaction to learning you have hearing loss and must wear hearing aids can still hit you like a brick. By the time a practitioner determines you have hearing loss, you’ve already been living with it most likely for years, so you’re just getting confirmation of what you’ve already suspected. Even so, for many it’s a hard pill to swallow. For some, it rattles them to the core. As Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame said in his dying breath as he lay in the arms of the beautiful gypsy girl La Esmeralda, a tear rolling off his cheek, “Why could I not have been made of stone?” His torment reflects that of many of us—the pain of feeling. But feel we must, as this is what characterizes us as human.
Emotional experiences may be wonderful, painful, or sometimes perplexing. Yet, more than our physical body, feelings are the substance of our identity. Each of us reacts differently toward the varied experiences of our lives. For centuries, fields of study have been devoted to exploring this fascinating phenomenon, but the search seems to have yielded as much controversy as knowledge. From more than three decades of clinical practice, I’ve observed some compelling emotions and feelings in my patients. These observations extend into my own family members with loss of hearing, so the feelings we’ll be talking about touch home. . .

Our ego is quite attached to our overall health. Most of us like to think of ourselves as being in shape with a good heart, strong bones, acceptable vision, and good hearing. For some of us, admission of poor hearing is like admitting we’ve given in to old age. It’s like a forced resignation we never invited. The realization of hearing loss places you at a crossroads, offering two quite opposing paths. The first is to admit the hearing loss; the second is to deny it. The former decision (admitting it) allows you to reassess and seek solutions to enhance and maximize your quality of life. The latter decision (denial) negatively impacts every aspect of your life, destroys relationships and decreases your quality of life.

To resist the reality of having hearing loss perpetuates miscommunication and the turmoil that goes with it. If we try to ignore loss of hearing, or stop thinking about it, the problem persists. For some people, the crossroads for acknowledging hearing difficulty but doing nothing about it is where they get stuck for years. In fact, the odds are very high that prior to reading this book you’ve known of your hearing loss for more than five years, during which time frustration, communication problems and hearing difficulties have significantly increased.