Even now you’re missing calls. On occasion, it’s that you can’t hear the phone ring. In other cases coping with the garbled voice at the other end is just too much of a hassle.
But you’re shunning more than just phone calls. You skipped last week’s pickleball game, too. More and more frequently, this sort of thing has been taking place. Your beginning to feel a little isolated.
Your hearing loss is, of course, the real cause. You haven’t quite figured out how to assimilate your diminishing ability to hear into your everyday life, and it’s triggering something that’s all too common: social isolation. Escaping isolation and getting back to being social can be challenging. But we have a number of things you can try to achieve it.
Acknowledging Your Hearing Loss is The First Step
In a good number of cases, social isolation first occurs when you aren’t quite certain what the root cause is. So, recognizing your hearing loss is an important first step. That may mean making an appointment with a hearing specialist, getting fitted for hearing aids, and making it a point to keep those hearing aids maintained.
Acknowledgment could also take the form of alerting people in your life about your loss of hearing. Hearing loss is, in many ways, an unseen health condition. Someone who has hearing loss doesn’t have a particular “look”.
So it’s not something people will likely pick up on just by looking at you. To your friends and co-workers, your turn towards isolation could feel anti-social. If you tell people that you are having a tough time hearing, your reactions will be easier to understand.
Hearing Loss Shouldn’t Be a Secret
Accepting your hearing loss–and informing the people around you about it–is an essential first step. Making sure your hearing stays consistent by getting regular hearing checks is also important. And it might help curb some of the initial isolationist tendencies you may feel. But there are several more steps you can take to tackle isolation.
Make Your Hearing Aids Visible
The majority of people feel like a smaller more invisible hearing aid is a more ideal choice. But if others could see your hearing aid they would have a better recognition of the difficulty you are going through. Some individuals even personalize their hearing aids with custom artwork. You will motivate people to be more courteous when conversing with you by making it more obvious that you have hearing loss.
Get Professional Help
If you’re not effectively treating your hearing condition it will be much harder to deal with your hearing loss or tinnitus. Management could be very different depending on the situation. But usually, it means using hearing aids (or ensuring that your hearing aids are correctly calibrated). And your day-to-day life can be greatly affected by something even this basic.
Be Clear About What You Need
It’s never fun to get shouted at. But there are some individuals who assume that’s the best way to communicate with somebody who suffers from hearing loss. So telling people how to best communicate with you is important. Perhaps instead of calling you via the phone, your friends can text you to arrange the next get together. If everybody is in the loop, you’re less likely to feel the need to isolate yourself.
Put Yourself in Social Situations
It’s easy to avoid everyone in the age of the internet. That’s the reason why you can steer clear of isolation by purposely putting yourself in situations where there will be people. Go to your local supermarket rather than ordering groceries from Amazon. Meet up for a weekly card game. Social activities should be arranged on your calendar. There are so many straight forward ways to see people such as walking around your neighborhood. Besides helping you feel less isolated, this will also help you to discern words precisely and to keep processing sound cues.
Isolation Can Be Harmful
Your doing more than curtailing your social life by isolating yourself because of untreated hearing loss. Isolation of this type has been linked to cognitive decline, depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns.
So the best path to keep your social life going and keep yourself happy and healthy at the same time is to be realistic about your hearing condition, be realistic about your situation, and do whatever you can to guarantee you’re making those regular card games.