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March 2009
Owning One’s Hearing Loss
By Claire Blatchford, M.A.
In a previous column, I wrote about the roots of courage and “owning”
one’s hearing loss. Soon after the newsletter appeared, my husband, Ed, and
John Anderson, a colleague, commented on my use of the word “ownership.”
“Ownership implies an object, a thing, something you usually want,” said
my husband.
John, who has a hearing loss, spoke in a similar vein, yet even more to the
point: “How can you own something you can’t see? I’m not sure I own my
hearing loss. It’s a part of me whether I like it or not.”
I welcome the challenge to follow a thought further, so let’s see where this
will go.
My husband suggested “responsibility” was what I meant. Yes, I believe
owning one’s hearing loss means being responsible for it. I see responsibility
as the first step on the road to ownership. And I see four areas where
responsibility needs to be forthcoming:
1) Being able to advocate for oneself.
2) Knowing one’s limits and taking care of one’s bodily needs.
3) Being in touch with one’s feelings and, from that, recognizing one
has the ability to choose how one responds to a situation.
4) Maintaining a sense of balance and of humor.
I’ll go into these in a minute. First to explain why I’m pushing for the word
ownership: I found three definitions to the word “own” in Merriam
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary: 1) to have or hold as property 2) to have
power over 3) to acknowledge to be true, valid, or as claimed. The first
definition supports what people generally associate with the word
“ownership,” it’s what my husband and John were talking about. It’s the
second and third definitions I’m thinking about here. Let’s try applying them
to the areas given above.
1) Much emphasis is put on educating children with hearing loss to
advocate for themselves. First a child has to realize she’s missing
something. On the lowest level of being responsible, she’ll respond
when she doesn’t hear you. A baffled shrug or “What?” will do.
©2009 Clarke Mainstream Services
With encouragement and practice she’ll learn to speak up, and not only when she doesn’t
hear but when she doesn’t understand what she’s heard. On the higher levels of advocating
for oneself –and there are many levels to this process – responsibility evolves into
ownership as a person begins to look, think and plan ahead. For example, she asks, “Will the
film have closed captioning? If not, what can I do about it?”
2.) Does a child with hearing loss know when she’s exhausted and needs a break? At age six I
knew. I didn’t say, “I’m pooped!” That came years later. I knew when I had to get out of the
“watching everything/listening to everything” mode. I’d retreat to my bedroom or hide out
in order to find new energy to advance. The responsible person not only knows this, but
acknowledges it. Such ownership includes awareness of one’s particular types of stress.
Poor lighting makes it hard for me to read lips; I do what I can to remedy that. I’m aware too
that people who are hard to understand can, literally, be a pain in the neck. And I, myself,
may be a pain in the neck for people who have trouble following my speech. That, in turn,
can stress me out further. In short, the person who owns their deafness knows how it
affects their body and health and how to protect both.
3.) As a deaf child I was often explosive when frustrated. My father actually poured water on
me a few times to help me cool off and come to my senses. I believe this is the hardest area
of all in which to gain responsibility – and ownership – of one’s hearing loss. When you’re in
the grip of a powerful emotion – frustration, anger, discouragement, fear – can you choose
to be otherwise? I believe a sympathetic adult can help a child distance themselves from
their feelings so they can hear what their feelings are ‘saying.’ I learned with time to probe
for the cause of my frustrations. Was it something out there in the world, like a callous
person? Or was it caused by something within, such as discouragement over my inability to
get every word in a sentence? When you own your hearing loss you become aware of these
distinctions and your ability to choose how you respond.
4.) Maintaining a sense of balance and having a sense of humor are essential. Choosing how one
responds is serious business. And sometimes the best response is just letting something go
on by. Take the callous person mentioned above: sure, I can attempt to educate him about
deafness, or I can punch him (don’t worry, I haven’t, yet, gone that far) or I can decide he’s
not worth my time and energy. The same can be said for every word in a sentence. Do I
really have to get every single word to make sense of what you’re saying? No, I don’t. And
when it comes to misunderstanding, like the time a guy asked, “Do ya wanta bag a ice?” and
I heard, “Ya gotta fat ass!” well, one just has to laugh!
For now I hope I’ve made my case for the use of the word “ownership.” In closing, I must add
there are stretches of time when I don’t think about any of this at all, the way I don’t think, “We own
the house we live in”—I simply live with and in my deafness. At the other end of the spectrum there
are days when I’d rather I didn’t have to live with it. Sometimes I think it would be neat to overhear
conversations in classrooms, to recognize every sound my granddaughter makes, listen to birds,
talk in the dark, and to sing beautifully and in tune. Maybe another time.
©2009 Clarke Mainstream Services