In conversation with friends, you like to be polite. You want your customers, co-workers, and boss to see that you’re totally engaged when you’re at work. With family, you may find it less difficult to just tune out the conversation and ask the person near you to repeat what you missed, just a bit louder, please.
You have to lean in a little closer when you’re on zoom calls. You look closely at body language and facial cues and listen for verbal inflections. You try to read people’s lips. And if everything else fails – you fake it.
Don’t fool yourself. You missed a lot of what was said, and you’re straining to keep up. Life at home and projects at work have become unjustifiably difficult and you are feeling aggravated and isolated due to years of progressive hearing loss.
According to some studies, situational factors such as room acoustics, background noise, contending signals, and environmental awareness have a major influence on how a person hears. These factors are always in play, but they can be much worse for people who suffer from hearing loss.
Look out for these behaviors
Here are some habits to help you figure out whether you are, in fact, convincing yourself that your hearing impairment isn’t affecting your social and professional relationships, or whether it’s simply the acoustics in the environment:
- Missing important parts of phone conversations
- Cupping your hands over your ear or leaning in close to the person who is speaking without realizing it
- Constantly needing to ask people to repeat what they said
- Having a difficult time hearing what people behind you are saying
- Asking others what was said after pretending to hear what they were saying
- Thinking others aren’t speaking clearly when all you can hear is mumbling
Hearing loss probably didn’t occur overnight even though it might feel that way. The majority of people wait an average of 7 years before acknowledging the problem and seeking help.
So if you’re noticing symptoms of hearing loss, you can be sure that it’s been going on for some time unnoticed. Hearing loss is no joke so stop kidding yourself and make an appointment right away.