How to deal with hearing loss on the job

One of the workshops that I went to during the HLAA convention last month was called, "The Art of Telling: How to Tell Your Date/Boss/Friend That You Have Hearing Loss." The gist of the presentation was that it's important to not shy away from revealing your hearing loss because it helps you facilitate communication, which is foundational to any relationship.

When I have more time, I hope to blog more about this particular workshop because it was fantastic, but for now, I wanted to talk about how to deal with your hearing loss at work. The speaker made some excellent points, including:

1) Those of us with hearing loss should focus on our assets rather than be distracted by what we can't do.

2) If we are comfortable with our hearing loss, others will be comfortable with it as well.

3) It's our responsibility to tell our employers what we need in the workplace.

Here's what that means in my head:

1) When you're in an interview, never portray your hearing loss in negative terms. Don't give any indication that it will hold your back or hinder your ability to do your job well. Your hearing loss will only limit you if you let it. While it's true that your hearing loss may make you unavailable for certain types of jobs (for instance, I will probably never be a receptionist because that's just too much with the phones or a server in a restaurant because I would not be able to hear everyone's orders in a bustling environment), there are so many more that you are well-equipped for. If you're organized or detail-oriented or have an aptitude for technology, say so. If you need to work on your time-management skills or find it difficult to relate to customers, tell your prospective employer that you're working on them. Focus on your job-related strengths and be honest about your weaknesses - but just know that hearing loss is not one of those weaknesses! If you think your hearing loss will be a problem on the job, your prospective employer will think so, too... and probably won't make an offer.

2) When I was interviewing for my current position, I had a phone interview with the manager of the department. I was using a CapTel phone and, for those not familiar with the technology, there is a two or three second delay while the captions catch up. Because of that, I made the decision to tell the manager about my hearing loss and explain briefly how the phone worked. Then I moved on with the conversation. It was important to me that I was honest with him about who I was so that there were no surprises when we met in person. I didn't spend too much time on the subject of hearing loss because I wanted to show him that it would not affect my success on the job and I wanted to have plenty of time to share about my time on the campus newspaper, my English degree and the leadership roles I'd taken on in college, things that had far more to do with the position than what kind of phone I was going to need to do the job. I didn't make my hearing loss an issue and as a result, neither did they.

3) Generally speaking, if you need any kind of accommodations on the job, it's your responsibility to identify what you need in order to do your job well and then ask for it. I don't remember if my needing a Captel phone came up in my interview or not, but it was a point of discussion within the first few days of working there. I had to explain how the CapTel was different than a TTY and why a CapTel was a better fit, not just for me, but for the position (in this case, my clients needed to be able to call me directly so a TTY was not a viable option). Employers need to be educated about hearing loss just like anyone else. Be patient, explain (nicely!) what you need  and work with them to find solutions. Advocating for yourself at work by knowing what kind of accommodations you need and asking nicely for them will also help fulfill the other two points - it will show your boss(es) and co-workers that you are comfortable with your hearing loss and that you're not allowing it to deter you from doing your job well.

What else would you add? What issues come up when you're looking for a job? How do you deal with hearing loss in the workplace after you've landed the job?

Superpowers

WARNING: NERD ALERT IN EFFECT FOR THE REMAINDER OF THIS POST. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

I shared two meals today with two separate groups of people. And I realized that good Lord Almighty, my eyes never rested. Ever. I was looking at my food, glancing around the table to see if anyone was speaking, double-, triple- and quadruple-checking to make sure no one was talking and that it was okay to say something; visually roaming the table to figure out who was talking and what they were talking about and checking, re-checking and re-re-checking to see if anyone was talking to me and if I needed to react to anything (laugh when everyone else laughed, etc).

I've heard that when you lose one sense, the others overcompensate. I've always been more sensitive to smell than the rest of my family and I'm pretty particular about being touched. Whether that has anything to do with hearing loss or my own personal quirks remains to be seen, of course, but come jump to conclusions with me, will you?

As it turns out, there could actually be a parallel between hearing loss and enhanced visual perception. One of my Facebook friends posted this article about how deaf and hard of hearing people actually see differently than hearing people - not better, just differently.

"And for people who are deaf, it's been discovered that visual attention is heightened in their peripheral vision. A hearing person has 360 degrees of perception, since your brain can locate objects based on sounds. But those who are deaf, Allen says, lose 180 degrees of that perception.

So researchers think the deprived auditory areas of the brain reorganize to better process visual information. As a result, people are more sensitive to moving stimuli in their periphery, like a car speeding toward them in the street."

Do you know what this sounds like to me? SUPERPOWERS, awww yeah! How did I get from visual perception to superpowers, you might be asking. That would be an excellent question but unless you, too, have grown up on a media diet of X-Men (That last movie really spoke to me. And by "movie," I mean James McAvoy) and Heroes, I'm afraid my reasoning would be lost on you anyway.

I need to know what's going on around me at all times, so I am constantly looking and scanning and glancing and gazing and searching... these powers can be used for both good and evil. You definitely want me on your team if we're playing hide-and-seek but I'm also easily distracted when the smallest motion enters my peripheral vision. I'm always aware of my surroundings but when I'm talking to someone, I tend to look around them but not at them. I need to be more disciplined about that - with great power comes great responsibility, you know.

So there we are. I'm not just hard of hearing... I'm visually-enhanced! ;) Think there's room for one more at Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters?

(Obligatory James McAvoy picture from the Google. Just because. You're welcome.)

Post-convention withdrawals

Getting on the plane to come back home after the HLAA Convention was hard. Not because I couldn't understand the airline employee. Not because I was worried about traveling alone or trying to avoid the reality of going back to a routine come Monday. Not even because I loved DC so much that my inner history nerd could probably pack up and move there if given the chance.

No, coming home was hard because it meant leaving behind 1,200 people who get hearing loss. No, I didn't get to know each and every one of them. But for a few brief days, I didn't have to explain myself to anyone. When I asked someone to repeat themselves, no one rolled their eyes or sighed or looked startled - repeating is a natural part of the conversation among the deaf and hard of hearing. Communicating was comfortable and I never felt excluded from the conversation.

Don't get me wrong. Many of my friends and all of my family can hear. I love them dearly and I know the feeling is mutual. I appreciate it when they are sensitive to my hearing loss and work to include me in their activities. They are thoughtful and understand that sometimes I need a sensory break. They know to sit where I can see them and to speak clearly but not over-enunciate. I treasure these labors of love, though I know many of my friends and family would take issue with me calling it a "labor." "It's really not," they'll insist, and for that, I am grateful.

But as well-meaning and kind as my hearing friends and family are, there is just something that clicks more when I am with other deaf and hard of hearing people. It was a welcome break to be with other people who knew exactly what I meant and how I felt when I relayed the story of that one time my audiologist turned his back to me while he talked. We laughed together at the irony that even among other deaf and hard of hearing people, we still had to ask what was going on and who said what. We discussed hearing aid brands the way other people might discuss their favorite cars. We have our own vocabulary - audiogram, cochlear implants, CapTel and looping are probably not part of a typical lexicon.

Sometimes, when I am in a group of hearing people, who are all talking and my eyes are darting around the room, trying to figure out who is talking and what they are talking about and then trying to track that conversation as it flies from mouth to mouth... sometimes, I feel incapable. Like I am not smart. Like I don't have anything to contribute. I understand that may be my own faulty perception. Yes, there are strategies I can employ to maximize my group experience. No, I don't use them as often as I should. Yes, this is an exhausting lifestyle sometimes!

I came home to a Facebook message from one of my new friends that I had met at the convention."I eavesdropped a little on a conversation you were having," he explained. "I liked what you had to say." And I realized why leaving DC was so hard. Because I felt smart and capable, like I had something to say and to contribute. For lack of a better term, I felt more like a person.

Being hard of hearing in a hearing world is not the worst thing to happen to me. Not by a long shot. But I do often struggle with feeling like I live on the outside of things, always on the edge of everyone else's experiences. Helen Keller said, "Blindness separates us from things but deafness separates us from people." That separation is hard to bear sometimes, and that's why being around other deaf and hard of hearing people is a relief: I don't have to work so hard to understand and be understood. We know how to communicate so that everyone is included.

I'm glad I have a growing community of deaf and hard of hearing friends here at home, but I'm excited to make new friends across the country, too!

Next year in Rhode Island - who's with me?!

Big Teeth and Clouds

You know that little blog stalking problem I have?

It really does pay off sometimes. I don't even remember how I stumbled upon Joey's blog, but I can almost guarantee there were stalking hijinks involved.

Joey's daughter, Julia, has mild/moderate hearing loss and I've loved learning about hearing loss from the parents' perspective. I've only ever approached my hearing loss from my experience, but it's something that affects the whole family.

Every month, Joey features a deaf or hard of hearing adult and this month was my turn! Head on over to her blog and read the (very. long. (oops)) post I wrote. Thanks for featuring me, Joey!

Happy Monday, friends!

Love language

Sometimes I wonder (er, worry, if we're really being honest here) if my hearing aids are a turnoff to prospective suitors. How do relationships work if one person is deaf or hard of hearing and the other isn't? I know people do it and I'm curious how they manage. Does it get tiring for the hearing person to have to repeat themselves? Does it get tiring for the deaf/hard of hearing person to explain themselves?

Am I thinking too much again?

Don't answer that.

Just watch this video that I stole from Speak Up Librarian. It made me smile. And helped me stop thinking.



And I confess I teared up a little, too. I'm a girl. It's what I do. Just go with it.

Happy Weekend-ing!

Defining Disability - Part 1

I have a lofty goal this week, my friends. I've been thinking a lot about hearing loss and disability and how the church can come alongside of people who live with disabilities. I had so many thoughts (um, what else is new?) that I wound up with what would have been a freakishly long post, so I decided to break it up a little. So far I have four parts. Okay, three and a half, but let's just round it up. I'm planning to make it a five-parter, which means I might actually post every. single. day. this week. Which has only been a goal for the last, oh, five months. Procrastinator Extraordinaire, at your service! Also, I don't really have a fancy name for this series, so put your thinking caps on. Ideas. Need. Brain. Hurts. Thanks.

Anyway, here's part 1. It's short, but it's Monday. I didn't want to have to think too much on Monday.

I mentioned some time ago that I tend to view my hearing loss as a disability. I'm hesitant to share that because I have deaf and hard of hearing friends who probably cringe at the term and I certainly don't want to cause a division between us. And I'm hesitant to use the word disability because I feel like there are so many people who have more challenges than I do that claiming a disability, I worry, makes light of their situations.

It is not my intention to divide or belittle with the word "disability." I just take the definition literally. Dis-ability. Which basically means un-ability. And I do not have the ability to hear without assistance. I'm lacking a very specific ability that most people have and it interferes with my life in the sense that I need to work a little harder and utilize outside resources to accomplish regular tasks. In our culture of "everybody is unique," we are slow to use words like "normal," (because how could there possibly be such thing as "normal" if everyone is "special?") but the truth is that wearing hearing aids is not normal. That does not mean that it is unacceptable or weird or gross. It simply means that the vast majority of people do not have to wear hearing aids and I am different for doing so.

So that's what I mean if or when I ever reference hearing loss as a disability. I could also write a whole other post, or series of posts, on how, for me, hearing loss is also more than a disability; it's become part of me. But that's for another day. Or week. What I'm just trying to establish right now are my thoughts on the word "disability." Capisce?

Off.

I have been feeling off lately. Probably because it is 70 degrees. In October. In case I wasn't clear about that earlier. But really. Off.

After a conversation with someone and reading (e's post about how people respond to hearing loss, I feel compelled to chime in.

I spent most of my life blaming other people for the fact that I was hard of hearing, basically. If I was left out, it was all their fault. Or if I couldn't keep up with the conversation, not my responsibility. Feeling lonely was their doing, not mine.

But in the last few months especially, I really feel the Lord has given me a different perspective on things, including how I relate to people about my hearing loss. I realized that it was unfair of me to hold them accountable if I had not spoken up and shared that part of my life with them. How can I get mad about being excluded if I never told someone that I felt that way? How is it anyone else's responsibility to assuage my loneliness if I didn't tell them I could use a friend? And how can I blame everyone else for talking at lightning speed if I never asked them to slow down?

Yes, sometimes people respond to hearing loss rudely. Other times, they are just silly. But all of the time, they just don't know any better. Is it their fault for not knowing? Or my fault for not teaching?

Hearing loss is my world, but it is not everyone else's world. Most people that I interact with regularly do not deal with it the same way I do. They don't wear hearing aids. They aren't on a first-name basis with their audiologist. They probably don't even have an audiologist. Their sign language is rudimentary and they are shocked! stunned! amazed! at the idea of speech reading. Captions and subtitles are optional for them, not mandatory. Hearing loss is not their world, so how can I hold it against them if they don't respond the way I wish they would?

But that's not to say that I'm on board with giving everyone a free pass. Just because hearing loss may not be a part of someone's world doesn't mean that they can ignore it. And it's hard not to feel like maybe the hearing aids scare people off sometimes. But something else that the last few months have taught me is that people's unwillingness is not always related to my hearing loss. Sometimes it is them. They are shy. Or they build walls. Or they are just busy. Or sometimes, even, the problems is me, doing the exact same things. So I understand now that my hearing aids aren't always the things keeping me from building the relationships that I'd like to build.

Maybe I need to examine myself first and see where I've gone wrong before I go around casting blame and breeding frustration.

Medley

I babysit some Monday nights. One of the kids is 6 and wears hearing aids, like I do. But after talking to her and her mom, I discovered that her hearing loss is mild. She can go without her hearing aids and responds fairly well when I give her instructions - even when she is not facing me to read lips. I have a friend who lost her hearing after her daughter went to college. She's tried learning sign language and to speech read, but it's been a struggle.

Hearing loss isn't a one-size-fits-all kind of deal. The level of hearing loss (mild, moderate or profound), how old someone was when they lost their hearing, whether they were the only deaf/hard of hearing person in their family or not, how much support they've had in their hearing loss journey, - there are so many factors that make hearing loss unique for each person who lives with it. Some wear cochlear implants, some wear hearing aids and still others find neither of those to be viable options. Some people prefer to sign, others to voice for themselves. Some are good speech readers and others not so much.

I always appreciate it when someone asks me how they can best communicate with me. For reasons I've never understood myself, I get uncomfortable when someone I don't know tries to sign to me. I guess I don't like the assumption that just because I wear hearing aids, I must not be capable of speech. I'm not sure every single person I run into really thinks that and hello, we've established that I am She Who Thinks Too Much, so it's entirely possible that I over analyze it when someone shows me that they know the phrase "thank you" in sign language. Buuuuut still. I'd rather someone ask me how I prefer to communicate rather than offer a solution that might not fit my needs or personality.

And now I'm finding the road goes both ways. For a long time, I was the only hard of hearing person I knew. But now that I'm spending more time with other deaf and hard of hearing people, I'm convicted about my own need to accommodate others. Isn't that funny? All these years, I've been thinking about what I need other people to do in order to accommodate me that I forget there are things that I can do to make communication easier for others. For example, I want to be a more natural and comfortable signer just because there are now some people in my life for whom signing is their primary mode of communication. I also need to do a better job of remembering the simplest things like turning so that someone can see my face or not obstructing their view of whoever is speaking. Things I want to educate people to do but fail to remember myself (Oh hey, hypocrisy, how are you?). Guess I still have a lot to learn myself! ;)

Understanding

So often people will ask me if I "heard" something. Did you hear that noise? Can you hear the TV? I used to say yes, because I could, in fact, literally "hear" what they were talking about. The sound traveled to my hearing aids and somehow to the part of my brain that understands there was a noise.

But hearing is not the same as understanding. I can hear that noise, but I can't identify its origin. I can hear the TV playing, but I cannot attach words and phrases to the din. My hearing aids help me hear, but I need more than a hearing aid (lipreading, an interpreter, captioning, etc) to help me understand.

I have pretty poor speech recognition; that is, I cannot really understand much unless I am facing the speaker and lipreading or listening to something or someone (like a song or someone reading from a book) and reading along with it. I can't understand something by hearing alone, I need some kind of visual cue to go along with it.

So while I'm flattered when people are impressed that I "do so well" communicating, I'm also a little frustrated because what they don't see is how hard I work to do so well - and they don't know all the times I am faking it! And I wonder sometimes if they think I must not need very much help because I "do so well."

I feel like I'm constantly walking a fine line with hearing loss. On one hand, I feel like I have to prove that it really does disrupt my life and change experiences for me; on the other hand, I have to prove that I am still capable of doing things, like carrying on a conversation in a crowded restaurant, for example, even if it means I have to work a little harder. I'm both more and less capable than I let on.

Have you ever felt like that? What was it like?

Welcome to the 60s, oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhhh

Random fact of the day: Favorite movie - Hairspray. Movie I used to watch over and over again - That Thing You Do. Movie that once combined my two interests in space and history - Apollo 13. My current obsession - Mad Men. Friends, I was clearly born in the wrong decade.

Hearing aids: I've been thinking about the differences between people who lose their hearing later in life and those who are either born with hearing loss or lose it at a really young age and grow up with it. I've noticed that people who have lost their hearing later in life seem more eager to educate others about hearing loss while those of us who have lived with it our whole lives are more likely to shrug it off. Like if we're in a checkout line and we didn't hear the cashier say something, later deafened people will be quicker to explain their hearing loss and ask for a repetition while those who have lived with hearing loss forever just ask the cashier to repeat themselves without explaining why they didn't hear them.

I wonder if it's maybe because the people who are late deafened have had experience at some point in their lives being a hearing person. They know how hearing people think and they know how unaware they themselves once were about hearing loss. They know that a little education can go a long way. On the other hand, those of us who grew up with hearing loss have spent a lifetime navigating those kinds of situations and bluffing our way through. It's just not worth our time to explain something to someone we probably won't see again. Just thought that was an interesting difference. Not a matter of right or wrong or anything - just another reminder that hearing loss affects everyone so differently. The spectrum of human experience never ceases to amaze me!

In other news: I sat down to make my grocery list yesterday. I whipped out those fliers we all get in the mail and pored over the sale items. I realized I had three - THREE - grocery stores to choose from! Four if you count Aldi's. (I don't go there very often - I really should take advantage of their prices more. I just can never get everything there I need and I hate going grocery shopping at more than one place a week.) But basically, yeah, FOUR places to choose from for my home cooking needs. Add to that the overwhelming number of varieties - like bread. Wonder Bread, Mrs. Baird's, Orowheat, Sara Lee? White, wheat, seven grain, honey? INSANITY. Throw in about 100 dining out choices and HOLY COW. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by our abundance. And a little guilty. Gotta clean my plate because there are children starving in Africa, y'know. All I do know is that I can never, never, never complain about not having enough. Ever. We're freaking rich here, even in the middle of a recession.

Don't forget to set your clocks forward! Not excited about losing an hour of sleep, but definitely looking forward to longer days - it means spring is coming! I'm aquiver with anticipation!

If I could hear, would I...?

Note: I decided to go back to the old format for now. The reason I include Random Facts and In Other News is to show that I think, feel and do things just like everyone else. (The Hearing Aids part, obviously, is where it gets different.) Losing my hearing didn't mean losing me.

Random fact of the day: I love Hot Pockets (okay, Lean Pockets). My freezer is full of them. They were $1.79 at Target yesterday and I'm going back tomorrow to see if the sale price is still in effect. Nomnomnomnomnomnom. Oddly, though, I usually only have them for lunch. I feel like it would be taboo to have them for any other meal.

Hearing Aids: I think it's natural to wonder sometimes what it's like to be hearing. How does it feel to not have to look at someone to understand what they're saying? What does it sound like? How is it possible? But mostly, I wonder what I would be like if I was hearing. Would my personality be the same? Does hearing loss shape who I am as a person or does it not have any influence whatsoever?

I think it's somewhere in between. I can be kind of a ham. When I was in college, I got the normal jitters of having to give a speech or presentation in class but I got over it pretty quickly because I didn't mind talking in front of people. I won't say I looooove doing it, but I don't dread it like a lot of people seem to. And I could even have fun doing it - I like making people laugh and I always had a captive (eh, as captive as college students could be) audience. But I'm not always like that day to day. I stay quiet more than I'd like to because in a group, there's always that chance that the topic isn't what I think it is and chiming in with an opinion on Fox News when everyone else is talking about Team Coco is pretty embarrassing. I also don't speak up because, depending on the size of the group, I'm not sure if someone else is talking and I might be interrupting. So I'd rather just not say as much. Now sometimes I do have good days. I don't know what makes them "good." Maybe I slept really well the night before and have more energy to focus on what's going around me. Maybe new hearing aid batteries make more of a difference than I realize. Maybe everyone is just talking extra clearly. I don't know. But I do have good days where I can keep up, I can contribute, I can participate and ham it up. Some days are a mixture of both... silence and joining in.

When I'm in a group of people, I always assume there's information I'm not getting, which is what keeps me from speaking up. Did someone change the subject? Who just said what? Did they say "is" or "isn't"? Little nuances like that can drastically change my level of understanding of what's going on. And because I pretty much live in a constant state of assuming there's something I'm missing, I think this spills over into other, non-hearing-related issues. For instance, I like to think I'm quicker to give people the benefit of the doubt. If someone snaps at me for no reason, I assume there is information I don't have about why they are acting like that and that are other things going on in their life. On the other hand, I am pretty quick to assume that people are out to get me (in the sense of be rude to me, not out to get me, Jack Bauer-style) more often than not. Is that my regular personality (to take something personally) and losing my hearing has influenced that and made me a little more patient than I would normally be?

On the flip side, I have a hard time trusting people, precisely because I always assume there's information I'm not getting. Even when people pay me compliments or are nice to me or encourage me, I think a little part of me is just waiting for the other shoe to drop, to grasp that one piece of information I didn't have in the first place.

I really love to help people but sometimes I feel like that's a stifled desire. I remember when two (of three) of my college roommates were running around like crazy trying to pack up before graduation. I had finished most of my packing and, empathizing with the task before them, asked if there was anything I could do. They both said no, packing's really only of those things only the packer can do. Totally understandable. But then I felt frustrated when the third roommate was able to jump in and help them because she could hear them muttering, "Where's my brush?" or asking each other "Have you seen my shoes?" But I couldn't pick up on that, so I couldn't help. And I felt like I couldn't be part of their final time at college. I couldn't have those last few minutes with them as roommates. And I think sometimes it's not so much that I want to help as it is that I want to be part of people's lives and helping is a natural way to do that. Now I'm hesitant (though not for lack of desire) to pitch in because, once again, I worry that there's something I don't know. When I was in high school, I was in a play and part of the requirement was to participate in set construction. So I was helping these girls paint a piece of the set. Without warning, they left, but no one told me anything so I just kept painting. One of them came back and incredulously asked, "What are you doing?!" Looking back, I have no idea what happened or what I was doing wrong. I just remember feeling like I was doing something I was not supposed to be doing. So anyway, would I be more willing to help people if I didn't wear hearing aids?

I am one of the laziest people I know, even though I note that I feel much better when I keep active. I'd much rather go home after work and not move from the couch all evening. I don't make a lot of effort to seek other people out. I'm exhausted, man. I've spent all day trying to keep up with my co-workers, ignore the buzz of the office (confession: sometimes I just turn off my hearing aids altogether), constantly on edge when someone walks by and wondering if I'll be engaged in conversation. So by the time I get home, I don't want to do anything. I don't want to go to the grocery store and wonder about announcements. I don't want to go shopping and worry about the cashier with the accent. I don't want to try and meet someone for coffee because the cafe will be loud. Would I have more get-up-and-go if I could hear?

Finally, when I read back through these anecdotes, I see one thing in common: fear. I'm afraid of doing the wrong thing. I'm afraid of being embarrassed. I'm afraid I will (unintentionally) hurt someone's feelings by saying the wrong thing. And so on. I don't know that those fears will ever completely go away but I have to decide not to let them rule my life. Taking risks - now that's a good lesson to learn from hearing loss. Sometimes you just have to step out there and do things you're not sure are okay.

In other news: I finally took my ornaments off of my Christmas tree!! Now I just have to put the Christmas tree away. Baby steps. It's not that I've had a hard time letting go of Christmas... I'm just lazy like that. ;) Now, onto Valentine cheer!