Additional recommendations about: Family and Friends - 2/3

Continued recommendations list related to Family and Friends (and others) when hyperacusis and tinnitus arise:

7. Conversations must also be addressed. When adults and children talk, they frequently raise their voices to be heard. The problem starts when one person begins talking before the other one has finished. The only way to accomplish this is by raising your voice over the volume of the other person, which is a technique used when someone wants attention and insists on being heard. I call this "overtalking", and we are in trouble when this happens. Be very sensitive to this.

8. It shocks me how doctors, audiologists, and adults who treat and care for sound sensitive patients raise their voice or laugh at an unbearable volume while we are in their presence. Many times we have to be very assertive and remind these individuals to "be quiet." This is the only way these people become convinced that we have a problem.

Sometimes you need to ask them, "Why is it so hard for you to talk softly and be sensitive to the problem I have with my ears? You have no idea what I am going through as evident by the way you conduct yourself when you are with me."

At this point in time, the world is very sympathetic to the deaf or hearing impaired (as they should be) but no consideration is made for those of us who are sound sensitive. It is time doctors get off their pedestals and patients get off their knees. Remember that they are working for you and getting paid very well for it. Loud conversation is the reason why we find it very difficult to be part of family gatherings. We feel bad that others become constantly guarded when we are in their presence and yet we depend on their sensitivity to our condition.

9. Sometimes you may notice we are talking softer, sound hoarse, or even whisper. This can be for three reasons:

1. We may talk softly or become hoarse if our ears are particularly bad and we have incurred a recent noise injury. Sometimes it is even difficult for us to hear our own voice if our ears are having a bad time.

2. As mentioned before, our ears are most sensitive in the early morning and late evening. This has an effect on the volume of our voice.

3. We tend to talk softly because it often evokes a soft, low volume response from whomever we are speaking to.

10. Women and children's voices are usually an octave higher than men's.

(to be continued on the next posts)

Texts extracted from The Hyperacusis Network web page (Supplement section), with the permission of its editor. (see “related links” in this blog)