You want to be polite when you are talking to friends. At work, you want to look involved, even enthralled with what your supervisor/peers/clients are saying. You regularly find yourself asking family to repeat themselves because it was less difficult to tune out parts of the conversation that you couldn’t hear very well.
You have to move in a little closer when you’re on zoom calls. You look for facial hints, listen for inflection, pay close attention to body language. You read lips. And if everything else fails – you fake it.
Maybe your in denial. You missed lots of the conversation, and you’re struggling to keep up. Life at home and tasks at work have become unjustifiably overwhelming and you are feeling frustrated and isolated due to years of progressive hearing loss.
According to some studies, situational factors including room acoustics, background noise, competing signals, and situational awareness have a major influence on how we hear. These factors are relevant, but it can be a lot worse for people who are suffering from hearing loss.
There are some tell-tale behaviors that will raise your awareness of whether you’re in denial about how your hearing impairment is impacting your professional life:
- Cupping your hands over your ear or leaning in close to the person who is speaking without noticing it
- Thinking people aren’t speaking clearly when all you can hear is mumbling
- Not able to hear people talking behind you
- Asking others what was said after pretending to hear what someone was saying
- Finding it harder to hear phone conversations
- Requesting that people repeat themselves again and again… and again
Hearing loss most likely didn’t happen overnight even though it may feel as if it did. The majority of people wait 7 years on average before acknowledging the problem and seeking help.
So if you’re detecting 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 now.