parsnipsandpaisley

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you for that. I’m not sure why but your validation made me tear up. I look forward to being a part of the community.

First off, I just want to say thank you for spreading awareness. People like you make me a lot less terrified about where I may be headed and I’m sure it helps a lot of other people as well. (Sorry this is so long)

A few years ago, I started having very loud bilateral tinnitus (ringing in the ears). They say it was from sound damage but I’ve always been cautious about how loud things are around me, so I’m not sure. Because of the tinnitus, I had a few hearing tests done and another test that was supposed to determine the pitch of the tinnitus (I guess). It turns out, I have upper register hearing loss and my ears ring in two different pitches. I also experience a bit of muffling in most cases but especially with deeper voices and the tinnitus makes it so sounds have to be quite loud for me to hear them over it. Like, I still hear the sounds, there’s just a high pitched squeal on top of them so I can’t interpret them. Idk. I haven’t been technically diagnosed as hard of hearing but I watch all television with captions and I often have to look to friends and family when someone in public is trying to speak with me because I didn’t understand what was said. I don’t often hear the oven timer and I usually can’t hear ambulance sirens until they’re right next to me. I also do a sort of lip-reading where I can hear some sounds and make out some of the sounds from lip movements and then I put it all together. I tend to get annoyed when people talk with their hands in front of their mouth. I never understood how frustrating it could be until I starting having hearing difficulty. I know I still have a lot of hearing though as I can usually make it through a drive through with no issue and I participate in conference calls at work with only a few issues.

My initial hearing test was about six years ago and I haven’t been back since, although I know things have been worsening. I know I can’t afford the specialist bills and I don’t want to pay several hundred dollars for someone to tell my my hearing sucks and not be able to do anything. I’m waiting until I’m financially better off or my hearing drastically decreases.

I guess my question is, would it be wrong for me to tell people in some situations that I’m hard of hearing since I have no actual diagnosis? Like, would that be considered taboo in the Deaf community? I want to be respectful to the community but I want to get my point across to people in less words when I need them to speak up or face me when they talk. “Hey, I’m hard of hearing. Can you speak up?” Is a lot quicker than some of the other explanations I’ve tried.