A Hearing House client talks about their experiences for Mental Health Awareness Week, an annual campaign that aims to help Kiwis understand what boosts their wellbeing and improves mental health. It’s running across the motu this week.
“I think for me looking at mental health, the biggest thing that affects those with hearing loss is the perception that it’s an intellectual handicap and the lack of value that society credits us with.
We also live in a society revolving around instant gratification and the slower approach to communicating with those who are hard of hearing doesn’t give that spontaneity -- so we tend to get ignored. People make decisions for us in what they perceive to be our own best interests and thus we disappear as a person and become controlled.
I’m currently listening to music as well as the soothing waves of the lake. I really appreciate the distraction that sounds give from being trapped in my own head with memories and problems. I used to think Huka Falls were silent, yet now I hear the hiss and sigh as waves recede on the beach. I enjoy getting outside my own head and listening to other people’s experiences. Listening is so much richer than reading.
I still enjoy learning that words are not always pronounced in the way I’ve read them, and listening to the way different people stress certain letters when they speak.
I continue to regularly meet people who are worried that their audiologist has told them that their hearing is at the end of the road, and they feel able to ask me what’s next.
And I amuse many people with my love of engaging in witty repartee and banter. You really need good hearing to engage in such a simple sheer delight.
Recently, I forgot to change my CI batteries and I went deaf again while driving. I had to pause to reset and wondered how I ever did this so competently before.
Four years in the hearing world and already I’m becoming hearing oriented -- I listen for everyday things to happen instead of watching -- simple things like feeling the washing machine and wobbling of the kettle to know if they’re finished. I still do it occasionally as I’m forgetting those old skills.
Sometimes I find the world of hearing and relationship-building overwhelming and have to retreat to being deaf and alone to lick my wounds. Perhaps that’s my ‘damage baggage’, but after a rest it’s always marvellous to be able to reconnect in happy spaces again.”
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