When I was four and did the first hearing test it was stated that I can't hear anything with my left ear, but they didn't know why, so nothing could be done about it. And they didn't seem to care either. "It's just the way it is, live with it" - kind of attitude. An important note is that the level of hearing I have is normal. I don't really know how that works though.
I mostly just live my life like any other hearing person, and most people are surprised when they find out about it. I'm not sure to exactly to what extent I'm impaired, cause I can't really compare (what should I compare with?) But the most significant difference is that I can't filter out sounds. For example, if I hear a buzzing sound and a slamming one at the same time, I won't be able to tell if both those sounds came from the same thing, or two different. It's exhausting trying to keep up with conversations in a group of people talking at the same time, cause everything becomes a blur and I can't tell what is said or who said what. Every sound goes into the same channel and overlaps completely. I've been told that it somehow is otherwise for people in general, and I've tried to imagine what that sounds like. How is it hearing in different channels? Sounds like fiction to me!
The other thing is that I can't locale sounds. For example, if I cross a street and hear a car I can tell how far away it is, but not if it's coming from the left or the right. So I have to rely on my eyes for that. This is very annoying when I'm meeting up with someone and I can't find them, and they're yelling "I'm here!" It makes me feel like an idiot running around everywhere trying to find them, at the same time as I think that person is an idiot who thinks that would help me in anyway what so ever just by yelling.
High and low pitches are also a little messed up. When I was sixteen I had another hearing test and found out that I hear about 10% on my left ear, and no bass sounds at all. It's some sort of unspecific nerve damage I've had since birth, and there's nothing that can be done about it. So I can basically not hear anything on my left, except for really high noises. So whenever there are any of those, really high sounds it sort of escalates sevenfold in my head, while the bass tones are kind of weak. Maybe that's why I always up the bass to maximum when listening to music and still think it isn't enough. And why I generally prefer male singers before female. And darker brands of music with a lot of bass like goth, dark electro, darkwave and so on. So... me being goth is a medical condition?
Another thing is that I can't hear in stereo. It does actually make a tiny, tiny difference if I wear only one or both head phones when I listen to music, but only if it's really loud, and that's not even close to stereo anyway. It's very annoying when I find a really good song when I listen to it without head phones, and then realise that they cut the song in different layers so it sounds completely different in each ear. That means, I can only hear half the song when wearing head phones. A great example if you want to know what I mean: search for the song "Eternal" by Evanescence and put on only one head phone at a time. Two different songs! I've looked for mono head phones for an eternity, but this media world doesn't care about the hearing impaired and only stereo head phones exists on the market. Unless I'm really lucky and find an antique pair from the 50's. I've even gone so far as trying to shove in both ear phones in my right ear. Didn't work.
For last, but not least, is that sounds seem to clutter a bit. It's hard to hear what people say if they mumble. Well okay, most people find it hard to make sense of spluttered words, but it's really difficult for me. It's seems the most common thing I say in conversations is "va?" (or "what? I didn't catch that" in English). I usually get annoyed when the person I talked to repeats the word or sentence in the exact same way, or just louder. I'm not deaf, speak clearer! But I don't want to start a fight everytime, so I mostly just repeat my "va?" three times and if I still don't get it I just discard it. Obviously repeating it didn't work, for either of us.
Oh, one more thing! (This list is getting a lot longer than thought it would...) Since all sounds I pick up goes through my right ear, even though sounds from the left finds it's way around my head, it's hard to hear what a person standing or sitting on my left is saying. I tell them to remember being on my right side instead, but no one remembers it. Not even my parents. How hard can it be to keep a track on which way is right or left!? Seems to be pretty common problem, take traffic for example. So I end up running around myself instead, sighing when people confusingly wonder what the fuck I'm doing that for.
Consequenses and stuff:
I tend to get quiet in social gatherings because of all this, cause my jaded brain can't sort out all the different sounds and voices and the murmur gives me headaches. So I just zone out instead, until someone notices and suddenly wants my opinion about something someone said that I couldn't catch in the middle of it all that (white) noise.
But over all I usually pass as a normally hearing person, and most of the time I don't even think about it. Embarrasingly enough, I sometimes even forget which ear of mine that is not working as intended. As a reminder, both for myself and others: it's the pierced ear that works fine.
I once met a person who basically had the same problem as I, but with her vision. She said she couldn't see depths, that everything sort of looked two dimensional. That got me thinking and we had some really interesting discussions! I who never have been able to hear in stereo and can't imagine what that sounds like - and she who had no depth perception and couldn't imagine what that was like. Her description of that made me realise a lot, and I think she realised a lot of what I described to her. So much in common but so different. I never saw her again though, and I don't even know her name. But that conversation will probably never leave my memory!
I sometimes envy those that aren't hearing impaired and what I miss out on (music in stereo for fucks sake!!!), other times I feel like it's a gift. Because despite all of these things that makes it a small piece of hell, it isn't all bad. For instance: if you're in a class room listening to something boring the teacher says and they ask you to at least take one of the ear phones out so you can hear what they say while still listening to music - I'll gladly take out the one in my left ear! Same if it's something I don't want to listen to at all, I just put a finger in my right ear and put the rest of my hand in a resting pose on my chin. No one would even notice that I'm blocking out all sounds! Long hair also helps this a lot of course. Also if I'm trying to sleep and there's a lot of noise, I just simply lie down on my right side with my right ear buried in the pillow. Problem solved :)
And it's a perfect excuse when I'm not paying attention and the talking person annoyingly tells me to listen up: "Oh, I'm sorry! I'm hearing impaired, can you repeat that?"
It's just the way I am!
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