The other side of the dialogue - Relationships

Can you help?

Many people with progressive hearing loss may at first try to ignore it. For their hearing partner, family and others in these circumstances, repeating conversation, having louder sound on the television, helping with telephone calls or social situations may become an increasingly unwelcome, irritating, intrusion. They may think the person is being awkward or not listening when hearing is made difficult by background noise. Misunderstandings may arise, remarks such as, "He/she understands when he/she wants to" may be made and then regretted and even worse, tempers may erupt.

Denying personal loss is a normal first reaction. You may need help from family and friends to accept your hearing loss but try to do that because, as with many things in life, discussion and understanding prevent difficulties becoming bigger problems.

If you become deafened suddenly you may feel a terrible sense of loss as though you are bereaved. You may experience a great assortment of emotional responses: shock, disbelief, fear, anger, resentment, anxiety, guilt, depression, frustration and hopelessness. You need to be able to talk about your feelings before you can work through them. With the right kind of help and encouragement you can do that but the period of adjustment may be slow and difficult for all concerned - not just for you yourself.

Other people have to adjust as well

It is important to realise that husbands, wives, partners, family, colleagues and friends will all be affected by your loss of hearing, or rather their inability to communicate and relate to you as they did before. It may be hard for them to accept that they can no longer share jokes, exchange intimacies or easily engage in trivial conversation. In the family group and social settings you are unlikely to be the heart and soul of the gathering - rather you will be looking to someone else to relay the gist of the conversation to you. It is hard for them to accept that communication will generally be on a one to one basis. Even then it may not be easy, especially in the beginning before you have learnt new communication skills. They too need help.

Children – can be surprisingly helpful

Children may be particularly difficult to communicate with, especially if they are not familiar with you - their high voices are not easy for hearing aid and cochlear implant users to cope with. The toddler may not speak very clearly, the older children may prefer to take the easy way out and communicate with the hearing people, the adolescent may be embarrassed to go out in company with their deafened parent. All is not lost - the toddler does not have a large vocabulary and if a friend relays what they say and how they say it, including all the mispronunciations, you can respond appropriately. Children, once they understand the problem and are given the right leads, can be the world of understanding and support. So much so that some deaf parents have to be careful not to become too dependent on them!

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