Our Members Speak

As a member of a local Hearing Loss Association of America chapter, you will receive a newsletter designed for hard of hearing people.

The following are a few selected articles from recent editions of chapter newsletters. We hope you find them useful.

"At Hearing Loss Association of Oregon no one is left out. We encourage everyone to speak up. Everybody has different hearing and speaking abilities and we get people to try things out where it is safe" Karin Smith

But in my own life as a hearing impaired person, and for most of the hard of hearing people I have known (both personally, and as a professional counseling psychologist) there are still times when hearing loss hurts. The need to communicate is so constant, the situations and environments so varied, people are so uneven in their cooperativeness, and technology-alas!-can often break down. Thus, our hopes and expectations can be frustrated, and we experience a myriad of emotions.

How do we deal with those times, and those feelings? Unfortunately, just as the behavioral skills for coping with hearing loss are not automatic, so the skills for dealing with these emotions are not instinctive, and need to be learned. I've come to think of the process of dealing with our lost hearing as one of "going through" the natural stages of grieving. I believe that mourning constitutes a deliberate set of behaviors and thought by which we can better move through those feelings of grief toward a will to adjust to the challenges of life.

Denial is the first stage of grief, and is the result of the deep fear that hearing loss evokes in us. The mourning that we must do here is to work toward acknowledging that fear, and know that all human life fears the loss of health and happiness. We are not alone as we think.

Anger is the second state, when we burst through the fear and demand of life that somehow, anyhow, we deserve happiness. I think the great Beethoven, in his response to his growing deafness, showed us to do the mourning that moves us through anger: He presented his anger to the whole world, but he did it in beautiful ways. We can't all be geniuses, but we can all find constructive ways to assertively voice our commitment to life.

Bargaining is the stage in which we acknowledge our disability in a half hearted way, really still hiding, still in fear. We may, for example, buy and wear a hearing aid, but we hide it and we don't really help others communicate with us. Here we need to intelligently analyze our situation, and see that we aren't doing ourselves a disservice, moving a step backward for every step forward.

Depression happens when we finally stop hiding, and allow ourselves to experience the sadness of our loss. Sadness is natural, and is a healthy response. Mourning nurtures, even cherishes this sadness-when you don't fight it. It will gradually lessen on its own, allowing you to begin acting effectively again.

Acceptance and adjustment come when we consciously work to minimize the handicapping effects of hearing impairment, and go forward doing what we must. After all, everyone is flawed, everyone is mortal, but life goes on.

Get Away From Saying "What?"

Some of our members were talking about how to encourage people to speak so we can understand them. Some of Dr. Sam Trychin's ideas include: Try to get away from saying "What?" and other similar questions.

There is usually a slight delay while the brain processes sounds and tries to make sense of them. Often we automatically ask "What?" a fraction of a second before we've made sense of what has just been said. It's hard, but try to wait a bit for the brain to do it's processing.

More importantly, "What?" doesn't tell the speaker what you didn't understand. Try to help out by repeating that part of the conversation you DID understand, e.g. "Susie graduated from college when?" "Where did Jeff go?" "Who is coming to dinner?" Otherwise, "What" becomes very repetitive (as you've likely discovered already) and the speaker doesn't have a clue what you missed.

It Works For Me

Recently I attended a memorial service for a friend. I called ahead to see if there were Assistive Listening Devices available at the church where the service was to be held. Without them I wouldn't be able to follow the service. "No we don't have any." I was told.

So I took along my own FM system and planned to tape my microphone to the PA microphone at the church. The problem with this plan was that there was going to be more than one microphone in use. So I would miss a good part of what was being said. My solution to this dilemma was to lay my FM transmitter on top of the loudspeaker so the microphone could hang down in front of it. The microphone picked up everything that came through the speaker. I didn't miss a thing!

Hear It Is! Oregon

To receive the statewide newsletter "Hear It Is! Oregon" send a note (and a contribution if you can) to Karen Swezey, Hearing Loss Association of Oregon , PO Box 22501, Eugene, OR 97402. Please note that this newsletter is separate and different from local and national Hearing Loss Association of America memberships.

There is no subscription or membership fee required to receive the "Hear It Is Oregon!" newsletter. We would like all hard of hearing people to receive it regardless of ability to pay. Therefore we are publishing this newsletter from donations we receive from our readers and friends of Hearing Loss Association of Oregon. All contributions are recognized in the newsletter, unless the donor requests anonymity.