Dear Dr. Harvey,

I am 55 years old and lost almost all of my hearing several years ago. My husband and friends tell me I need to accept being deaf and move on. I know they’re right, but I still feel like I am a hearing person but with broken ears -– like a square peg in a round hole.

I feel defective, inadequate and scared about the uncertainty of my life. For the past year, I’ve been going to counseling, and I’m a member of SHHH and ALDA (Association of Late Deafened Adults. I would appreciate any insights you may have.

LD
Abington, Pennsylvania

Dear LD,

Coming to terms with any major loss, including hearing loss, involves a process of grieving, often accompanied by depression and feelings of inadequacy. Going through the grieving process will help you emotionally let go of your hearing self and shift identities to a new, evolving deaf self. But it is easy only from a distance. Be kind to yourself and self-affirming along the way. Peer support from SHHH, ALDA, and counseling should serve you well.

Believe it or not, a Buddhist parable about how to catch a monkey offers additional insights. You take a coconut and make a hole in it, just large enough that a monkey can squeeze its hand in. Next, you tie the coconut down, and put a piece of candy inside. The monkey smells the candy, puts its hand into the coconut, grabs the candy and finds that the hole is too small for its fist to get out. The last thing a monkey would consider is to let go of the candy. Often they only let go when they fall asleep or become unconscious because of exhaustion. Ultimately the monkey's unwillingness to let go of its attachment to the candy is the cause of its suffering.

Although I agree with you that it would be helpful to let go of your familiar hearing self (the candy), you’re not yet attached to what will eventually become familiar – your hard of hearing self; psychologically, you’re no longer hearing, but not yet deaf. This limbo, in-between state is inevitable and is part of the “mechanics” of how one shifts identities. But it is quite understandable why you feel uncertain, scared and anxious! These are all normal reactions.

Let me suggest a framework for understanding this state that I call “no longer who I was but not yet who I will be.” In most cultures, there is a myth that has a common storyline:

A hero grows up in comfort and security -— with enough food, shelter, safety, enough fun -— enough of everything. But at some point the hero leaves all of this or is taken from it and becomes perhaps lost in the forest or in another strange terrain. There is danger at every turn, along with hunger and deprivation. The hero becomes consumed with loneliness, fear, depression, anger and despair. A long time passes. But at some point, the hero is transformed and safely returns home. Although everyone and everything in the environment are the same, the hero has adopted a new identity, has attained wisdom. Joseph Campbell, a scholar of mythology, referred to this theme as the hero’s journey.

By virtue of being in this “strange terrain,” limbo state of no longer hearing but not yet deaf, you’re on a hero’s journey. But this journey doesn’t have set departure and arrival times. And it’s not something we do just once and move on. In fact, we continually cycle back and forth between who we were and who we are.

For example, a man suddenly lost his hearing on Christmas morning several years ago; and since then, has relived that trauma every year on that fateful day. He couldn’t, as you said in your letter, simply “accept being deaf and move on.” The more he tried to “move on” and find happiness in his new deaf self, the more his old hearing self would intrude. He became more and more frustrated which led to despair.

What he agreed to do was the following. On the next Christmas day, he would continue his family traditions, but he would also reserve a short time to be by himself and feel sad, to grieve -— to revisit his old hearing self. He would announce this to his family and request that he not be disturbed. An amazing, but not surprising, thing happened: after he allowed himself this ritual, after he acknowledged and even honored his painful past, he was able to enjoy the present with his new self with his loved ones. Every Christmas, he would be sure to repeat this hero’s journey: taking a short leave of his deaf self and revisiting his earlier loss.

In my opinion, accepting your hearing loss does not mean never cycling back and forth to revisit your hearing self. I believe one continually relishes new gains and acknowledges old losses. The grieving process is not black and white and viewing it as such will set you up for failure and frustration. Facing your fears head on, and getting support along the way, constitutes your own hero’s journey and will lead to healing and wisdom. There is an instructive quotation by Eleanor Roosevelt:

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Michael A. Harvey, Ph.D., is a noted author and psychologist whose specialty is psychotherapy for persons with hearing loss. He regularly lectures both nationally and internationally, including at several HLAA Conventions. In addition to a private practice in Framingham, Massachusetts, he holds adjunct faculty positions at Boston University; Pennsylvania College of Optometry, School of Audiology; and previously at Gallaudet University.