To Tell Or Not To Tell...

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Ezdozit

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folks! :wave:

I have a severe-to-profound hearing loss, wear a set of Naida UP hearing aids, and just got hired as a director of a nonprofit organization. As always, I get nervous telling folks that I am hearing impaired, wear hearing aids, and will ask them to repeat when my hearing is not working right. Some of you know that feeling surely!

So, to tell or not to tell ~ I am curious how did some of you handled that to keep you at ease in your working environment. I am starting there this Wednesday...

Any suggestions are greatly apprectiated...!! :D
STeven
 
Just tell them the truth if they don't understand.

There's nothing wrong with asking them to repeat or requesting an interpreter if you use one.
 
Just let them know that you are HH and use HAs. This will benefit you in the long run as its inevitable that your HA batteries may go flat in the middle of an appointment and depending on the severity of your loss you may have to reschedule the meeting for later or you may have to resort to writing messages back and forth. If you let them know up front they'll be less taken back with it when an issue arises.
 
It's best to just get over it and have an unabashed way of telling people that you're hard of hearing and telling them how they may help you. For example, whenever I start a new class I give a quick talk to the whole class that goes roughly something like;

"Hi I'm Mockingbird I'm hard of hearing but I wear hearing aids. They help but they don't fix the problem entirely so I use lipreading, you need to face me and keep stuff out of your mouth gum pencil thumb et cetera and may occasionally need you to write stuff down. If you have any questions you can go ahead and ask"

I've found that asking people to speak up when they talk to me in my "opening speech" is just inviting audtards (wow did I just coin a new word?) to yell at me. Works better to ask them one on one when I need it.
 
With a severe/profound loss, how did you get the job without anyone noticing?
 
Great responses thus far...!! Thanks so much.

I became hearing-impaired after getting chicken pox back in my infancy days and had been wearing aids forever. Thank goodness today I can actually adjust my Naida on the fly with my PC and Phonak's iCube to meet with my daily demanding collaboration way of life!

Bottesini: I speak well enough to pass (well, almost always!) and am very attentive in carrying on conversations as well as facilitating meetings ~ exhausting tho'! But I admit that some are aware enough but the majority not so of the world of deaf & hh population.

I've always had this difficulty in being open with public with my hearing-impairment but in time, I noticed that I've become more open and direct about it ~ including getting a much shorter haircut for a change!

Also, right now I am learning - for the first time! - to figuring out how this FM technology work as I've been using bluetooth and found its limitation with respect to it lacking BT microphone end for facilitating meetings (still haven't found the right working one tho'.)

Thanks again and take care folks!
STeven
 
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