Only hearing one side is difficult enough day to day but add in some 3 year olds in tap shoes, loud music, fatigue, a 40+ hour week and a confined space and you end up with sensory overload! I had read that having SSD can result in tiredness but shrugged it off with the excuse of having such a busy job. Over the last 6 months I've felt things slowly creeping up on top of me and was finding it harder and harder to get out of bed. I was exhausted every day and sleeping every spare minute, including lunch breaks and all through my only day off a week and so decided to seek some advice from the doctor. When he wanted to sign me off there and then I cried.....I felt weak... isolated and that this thing had finally beaten me. I'm not the sort of person who gives in easily, everyone gets tired right? But this was different, the stress, the anxiety of familiar day to day chores was too much. There comes a point when warning signs start to show and a lifestyle change is needed.
I started to research the links between SSD and fatigue and my findings were shocking, how did I not know that this was an actual thing? And more importantly I definitely wasn't alone. Maybe if I hadn't have been so stubborn...
Hearing-loss exhaustion occurs because of the extra mental work that hard-of-hearing people must exercise to get through their day. From keeping up with conversations at work to processing the sounds on the street, the body expends much of its energy to struggle to hear. If you are hard of hearing, chances are you have likely experienced exhaustion because of the physical and emotional side effects of the sound deficit.
I have 17 days left before starting my new job at a letting agents. A quiet office and regular hours along with evenings and weekends off to spend more time with loved ones. I've been extremely lucky to work my dream job for 10+ years and I'm truly grateful to each and every student/teacher/parent/friend who has made that happen. Will I still tap dance my way around the supermarket? probably... Will I still want to choreograph to every song I hear on the radio? of course!
Until next time...
I like your blog, although I wish you didn't have to go through these experiences! The fatigue is totally a real thing. I've been SSD since I was 11 (it went the same way yours did, pretty much). I felt pretty well adjusted when I was younger and more energetic, but now I'm 44 and I'm wiped out by noisy days. I can't imagine working as a Tap Dance teacher. That seems tragically ironic.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if my wife and kids think I'm using my listening fatigue as an excuse to be cranky or leave places I don't want to be, but it's real! More and more often, at the end of a long day, I do not want to have to listen to anything or anybody. I hate that. When I'm well rested, and it's a quiet environment, I love to be social. So I know I'm not innately anti-social. So, it's important for us to have strategies about dealing with the listening fatigue or else we start to question how we really are. I'm also now trying to get approved for a Cochlear Implant.
Thank you for your comment Justin, always feels so comforting to know I'm not alone in this! I'm exactly the same after a noisy day, i find myself sitting in silence and wanting to be alone. Having to listen carefully to things when I'm tired is exhausting and so frustrating.
ReplyDeleteI too am very social but find it difficult after a long week, especially if I have been teaching a lot.
Good luck with your journey and thanks again :)