Hearing Loss LIVE! Talks #IdentityCrisis and #HearingLoss with Gloria Pelletier

Who are we now that we are #HardofHearing. We explore how feel our changes and not make #hearingloss our #identity this month.

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Transcript

Hearing Loss LIVE! Talks Identity crisis with hearing loss with Gloria Pelletier. 

Julia: Good morning, and welcome to Hearing Loss LIVE! We want to remind you, if you are enjoying our YouTube or Buzzsprout audio with transcript or our blogs, please remember to like, share and subscribe. That way we know you like us, and you also are getting others in the know about hearing loss. This month's workshop series has been about identity crisis. We hope you joined us for our Tuesday, Let's Talk Tuesday where we did this one live and free with human live captioning. Interestingly enough, I'm gonna say it again, I think I've said this, I don't know every podcast for the last three or four months, Shelley and I pull things out randomly. And then all of a sudden we realize it is actually turning into a very process making sense. Starting, you know, started with grief and continue through limits and communication boundaries. Last month, we talked-- well, now why did I just blank on what we talked about? holy crud. Somebody can help me, hearing versus understanding was that last month? That was last month. [laughter] Okay, I'm like all the sudden, well, hearing versus understanding led us to ableism. I hope you guys were able to catch that blog, because it's really a great blog. Kudos to Chelle, I didn't have to add very much to it, because she really covered it well. I find that's one that should be shared even with your employers. Anyways, as we were sifting through what to do this month, identity crisis came up. And how does that play a role and it was oh, my gosh, it plays a role from the very beginning, right? Especially if you've had a later in life hearing loss, you've been on this journey, whatever it is, now, you've got to make huge changes to your life. I don't know very many people who actually made small changes and did okay. I mean, there are some and it does happen, right. But not only that, you're hearing partners have to make changes, right. So are they having an identity crisis? Which is a question of course, I wrote all over our documents, because I always have more questions than answers. But this might be a journey, some of it you do together some of it, you have to do separate, and you have to come up with new ways to understand each other, and that around you. So, of course, our first thought was let's bring Gloria in. So we have Gloria Pelletier with us to talk about this subject this month, super excited, because she has some great insight as a person with hearing loss as well as from a social worker standpoint. On what that might look like, when we have the identity crisis, and we are, we're in that stage of re-- I'm going to call it recuperating. I don't know that. That's right. But Gloria helped walk us through some things that can go right.

Gloria: Thank you, Julia. I think what you said I it really hit home to me is when you're talking about this, the significant other whomever they may be a spouse, a child, whatever, grandchild is that everybody needs to be compassionate. Because we're really good at focusing on what's not working. We're not really good at focusing on how can it work and what is working. And that self compassion is probably the basis that I think is most important in learning new identities. Because I can be real critical of myself. Why did you say that then? Why didn't you say this? Why did you say that? Or why didn't you do this? And I think what I've learned, as I've gotten older, is that none of us do it right. There is not a right way to learn about yourself. There isn't a way to say, oh, now I'm going to be Gloria, the deaf social worker. That did not happen for me. And I really had to use a lot of compassion and I think also I want to give kudos to you guys for also being patient with me. So it goes both ways for for us. We need the patience of our family, the patience of society and our patience to figure out where are we going next when we no longer have receptive language, or we have very little receptive language, or we can't do what we've done before. And I know that this is sort of like the last stage that some people think, but I really wanted to just start it as this is where I'd like to see us be, because I think makes the stages easier. And if we can give ourself compassion, we can give it to other people. And so I think in order to do that, we have to have a sense of that it's okay not to be okay. It's okay not to be where we were. It's okay. Not to have a good communication style anymore that we used to have, like, I used to be really good verbally, and then I lost that ability. And I think once I calmed down, and said, Okay, I can, I can figure this out. It's okay not to be Gloria, who was there, you know, 20 years ago, but the Gloria who's now deaf, I started finding ways to be Gloria, who's today. So I wanted to start with the positive, it is possible, and we can and we will find ourselves. And your path is not going to be my path. So I can't I don't feel like I can give you specifics if you go 1234, it'll all be okay, because I think most people are creative. And I've learned a lot from other people, too. So that's the first thing I wanted to talk about was compassion for ourselves. So what do you think?

Chelle: I-- this is Chelle. This is bringing about a whole bunch of thoughts for me, I did have to have self compassion for myself. And I look back when I went through my identity crisis, it was a delay. My hearing Dre was actually in 2007. But I didn't get the identity crisis with-- yeah, it was an identity crisis until 2009. And while we were exploring this prior, it was because I was in a very protected environment. In Arizona, all my co workers would help me with phone calls and conversation. My family was there and everything. And when I moved to Utah, I lost all that. And I did not have compassionate or understanding coworkers. So I couldn't do what I was doing before with the same hearing loss. So I withdrew. I looked for help. I isolated. Everybody so angry about that word, don't isolate with hearing loss. But you know, what, I isolated for two years except for exploring the local Hearing Loss Association of America group. And going back to the SayWhatClub Those were the only two things I did. I somehow I was wise enough to give myself the compassion to check out for two years, if that makes sense. Because I can look back now and see that that two years was absolutely needed to heal and learn new ways to cope without rushing back into society and social events and all that. So it self compassion is a must and and I was wise enough to set that boundary. Because it bothered my husband and everybody wants to fix it. Just get out there and go out there again. But it doesn't work that way. I had to learn how to do it all over again before I can get back out there and be social.

Julia: Isolation is such a big word in our community right now right with the isolation, dementia, hearing aids. I would like to say that's not isolation, Chelle, I want to add. [laughter] Here we go again, right, we want to rename the word liberating. Because I don't see that as isolation, you actively looked for the environment you needed to heal. And that's one, I hope everybody looks at. The difference between a true isolation versus I've got to get time to learn my new me. And this is where a hearing partner can, can learn better strategies it's why we like couples to come to our lipreading concepts, right? We do want to fix you guys. We want to fix it for you. We want to take the burden off. But oftentimes, I think we end up putting more of a burden on you, or causing unnecessary grief or shame or ableism, whatever you want to call it. So I don't -- you know, I, I agree, you may have cut back. And this is coming from somebody who knows Chelle very well on how social she is. So yeah, I bet you that was a huge cutback for you. But at the same time, I want you to know you didn't isolate yourself, you didn't turn off all the community, you didn't stop looking for answers. You changed how your social worked to fit what you needed to go through that healing and grief period.

Gloria: You know, that kind of reminds me Julia of something we're going to talk about. But it's perfect right here self reflection. In order for us to have that intuitive knowing of ourselves, we have to take some time off, we have to have. And like you, Julia, when they change the word isolation, how about if we, if we take some time off to just be reflective. And sometimes that means that we're not out there doing all the stuff that we're used to doing. But we just take time and in our society that isn't a plus, you know. We're very much we got to do it, we have to take care of it. But sometimes I think we need to withdraw and then we can rejuvenate. And we can come back as a more solid person and have more ways of doing it better than we did before. And I, I really liked that, Julia, when you said that, you know, isolation isn't necessarily a negative, it can be a very positive time to reset what we want to do, how we want to be where we want to be and how we want to communicate with people. Because it's up to us to decide. It's our life. We get to make that decision. And in doing so, I found for myself, I found people like Chelle and you Julia, and other people in my life that were helping guide me. So that I had the tools to make a decision if I didn't have any tools, I don't have a decision to make. And but it took me time to to set myself back. I couldn't be a social worker, I couldn't be a mom, I couldn't be a sister, I couldn't be any of the roles that I had, because I didn't know how to do that. How do you do that when you're deaf? You know, how do you do that? When you can't hear anybody when you can't hear the baby cry?

Some people will say, Oh, use technology. We'll I didn't even know what that meant. I, you know, I'm still calling Chelle. My, my, my computer is not working. So we need that time for self reflection. What what do we want, and this is what, maybe it's a positive, we get to reset our life.

And maybe we wouldn't have been able to do that if we didn't have a hearing loss. We get to change the trajectory of our life. And I think I'm more compassionate. I've always been compassionate, but I think I'm more compassionate now with people who have a disability, whatever it is. And that struggle is real for me for everybody. And I think I have a better understanding of how to support that person going through it. So thanks, Julia. I really liked that. I'm gonna put that in my notes. Let's use this time to self reflect and make those changes we want to make and reset our life the way we want to reset it. Not the way society says. Because we're not going to be able to do that. We're going to have to do it the way we want to reset it. That's--

Chelle: Nice and quiet. Those moments where Julia and I just looked back and forth at each other, and think, who wants to talk next? That's for those of you who are watching the podcast, because if you are, you'll see our eyes darting back and forth. Yeah, it was a time of healing. And it was a time of learning new tools and strategies. I learned about technology. And all of that helped me be more confident with my hearing loss, which is a whole nother thing. Like Julia says, we keep building on things here. All that helped my confidence and get back out there. I am a social person. I have learned that hearing loss is not who I am. It felt like it for a very, very long time. But now it's not who I am. It's how I communicate. And I have the tools with lipreading and technology and various strategies to help me get through almost any communication. What do we call it a communication disaster? [laughter] Now I'm like no big deal. I think I can find another way to do this. But that wasn't me. Like 10, 12, 13 years ago, this is me through a process. And it's not overnight, it takes us time to figure out who we are with this hearing loss.

Gloria: You know, this is kind of fun, because that kind of brings us into the next section we want to talk about, and who is our authentic self. And Chelle just kind of said it, my hearing loss is not myself, it is part of myself. It's something I have to deal with. But who is my authentic self. And that was something I had to learn. Because I felt like I lost my authentic self, when I no longer could communicate when I no longer understood what you were saying. When I responded incorrectly. I didn't know what it was. Itwas a crisis. For me, I had to think I used to pride myself in my honesty, my being authentic. And all of a sudden, I couldn't even be that. So I really had to look at and do a lot of self reflection. If I'm authentic, then I'm gonna have to incorporate my hearing loss. Because without doing that, I am not authentic because it is now part of me, regardless of what I want it to be. It is part of how I communicate. If I don't wear these little babies, things don't happen. And so to be authentic, I have to put on my hearing aids. To be authentic, I have to tell people, I may not hear you. I may need some assistance. And that's the hardest part. I may need some assistance from you, so that I can communicate with you. And I think that's a hard thing for a lot of us to do. So to be authentic, was to be realistic, and also to be willing to say, Okay, I see you look puzzled. I probably answered that wrong. And then I like to do it with laughter. You know, I like to say, Oh, you would be real surprised about what I think I thought I heard, you know. And that brings brings the communication back to what we first talked about, about being compassionate towards yourself. Because when we can acknowledge our own communication errors with laughter, we are accepting ourselves. We are accepting what's happening to us. And actually, I think for me, it has become part of my personality, to laugh at some of the stuff that happens to me. And it actually helps me to adjust to having very little receptive language. And that is being authentic. Authentically. I no longer can be the Gloria of 10 years ago. I can no longer be that go get social worker who was really, you know, walk the floor 10 hours a day, and, and because that's just too much work for me with my hearing loss. So I couldn't be authentinc. It gave me a chance to change my trajectory of my life into a more thoughtful person than I was before. I like that, thanks. Thank you, Chelle.

Chelle: I've got to build on this because that was just put so perfectly. You know, I am not the same person I was in 2009, 2010 when I thought everything had ended. And I think I had become more authentic also, because of my hearing loss and using humor, and one of my favorite tools. But you know what, I can honestly say, I'm happier now with my hearing loss and who I am than I was back then, or even prior to that point of identity crisis. I think I am more authentic now.

Gloria: I like something Julia said earlier, before we started the broadcast. Probably, we weren't even aware of how much our hearing loss was affecting us.

And once we become aware of it, we now have control. We're now choosing. Where before, we were just kind of stumbling along, hoping we would get it right and not knowing why we weren't getting it right. And, you know,

there's something freeing about being able to say to people, I'm probably not going to get it right. But I will continue to try until I do. There's something freeing about that.

Julia: That's a good, that's a good thought. And that's something that, you know, I don't know. This is more of an American custom than anything, sometimes. Being free is poo-pooed on. So, you know, being able to get there is, I'll think sometimes a little harder for us than others. You know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. All of those things went through my head when we were talking earlier in the podcast, but if anybody doesn't know, it's Julia speaking, I always forget to do that. Sorry, Chelle. She's always very good about it. And I'm terrible. Y'all have to pull up the transcript we put out and then you'll know. So. All right, I'm done being silly. But I do like that. And I do, I do want varying partners, whatever they look like, including those who don't even know they're hearing partners, and work on your compassion. You got to work on your compassion. I know it's hard sometimes. Because I've been there, right? I've told over and over the stories with grandma, where I've gotten upset, because she bluffed or she didn't hear me, right. And we were having a you know, intense conversation, whatever. But but you've got to have compassion. Yeah, you might be struggling with them. But they're struggling with everybody. They have to find their identity, and your identity is going to maybe change. Did you do everything social together before the hearing loss? You're going to have to come to terms with that's going to change. And it's okay. And what does that look like. You know, are they a homebody where they weren't before? I'm gonna say it again. If it's serious, and you're concerned, you need to look for help. But if it's because they're still trying to figure out their hearing loss, you need to give them that leeway to do that and be comfortable in your own skin and where you can help and what you can help with. And I'm gonna say again, this is what our lipreading concept class is all about, and why we like to see couples come because they just don't even know what they don't know. Which we say quite often as well. Okay, we're rounding it up. Any last thoughts before we close out? Either party. All right. Well, we hope you're enjoying this month's topic. And it turned into a two week blog, like a part one and part two, because it's so dense material. And hopefully you joined us for our workshop. And watch for our five minute shorts will be coming out pretty soon in the next couple of months. That'll be super cool. It'll be both on Buzzsprout and and any other stations you might stream from and our YouTube page. And thank you, Gloria, for joining us and helping us with this subject because it's deep and you really do help walk us through the healing portion of it, which is awesome. All right. Thank you so much for joining us.

Bye!

Gloria: Bye!