Deaf Anxiety

 Hmmm where to start, firstly it may seem that this is not at all related to caring but it is and we will get to that in a bit. 

What is deaf anxiety?

Anxiety is when you struggle to control negative thoughts around something...this can be anything and everything.  DEAF anxiety is when you know what triggers the negative thoughts and what fills you with panic.  It's directly linked to being D/deaf.

In my case the trigger is phone calls and not being able to lipread.  I've lipread all my life it's the only method of communication I know and have.  Masks since the pandemic have made this increasingly difficult and a lot of people have and continue to ignore the request for accesible masks.  There are now medical grade clear masks yet nobody can be bothered.  Why would they what does it matter if a deaf person is upset? If a deaf person feels useless, stupid and like life isn't worth living? 

Statistics show that those with hearing loss are twice as likely to experience mental health issues, are more likley to be physically and sexually assaulted, are less likely to report those assaults because of communication problems.  

A study in 2018 showed that 30% of people with hearing loss experience anxiety compared to 18% of the hearing population.  

There's a few things you can do to help with deaf anxiety and a lot of people advocate for hearing aids.  The truth is hearing aids won't magically recover your hearing, they won't mean you can hear when someone wears a mask, they won't mean you can hear on the phone any better than you can already.  If you miss a word without you will miss the word with a hearing aid.  A hearing aid simply amplifies what you already hear.  Basically it won't solve the problem and I'm not able to have hearing aids because of a couple of medical conditions: Bilateral preauricular sinuses and recurrent ear canal infections.

Other things include exercise; yes I'm getting regular exercise and yes it does help.

Avoid attending or leave early from social events: I'm a carer there are no social events 

Mindfulness...I've never been fond of sitting there and focusing on a wall or photo or something to achieve mindfulness I need to be doing something.  Whether that's craft or photography doesn't matter but both help me achieve the same sense of peaceful mindfullness.  Presumably as a carer and because I've always been busy it's the sitting and doing nothing part that I struggle with.

Read a book: Oh I'm good at this one...I love reading and read a lot.

Create an appropriate home environment:  Yes done at mine and at my carees.  

Create an appropriate work environment: Yes that comes under my carees at the moment

Breathing exercises.  I struggle with this, I've tried meditation audios and I can't hear them, I can't quite work out what my breathing should be like as an exercise it's really frustrating.

Put headphones in: I don't ever wear headphones it excarbates the infections but I do wear special moulds when I am in a nosey place and that helps.

Finally advocate for yourself.  I do I always say email, I wear a giant sign saying lipreader and I request accessible masks.  It's just so frurstrating that whilst I can advocate until I've no voice left I cannot force the person I am advocating too to actually communicate in an appropriate manner.

This brings me neatly to how this ties in with caring:  A care agency attempted to make contact with me and of course despite all requests to make it by email they phoned me.  The phone call wasn't expected so taking it was okay it was only after I realised I hadn't heard all the details.  At the time I couldn't do anything about it, so I spent an entire night panicking and worrying about what I had missed. 

I calmed down as soon as I got someone to call them back and find out what was needed.  It took a lot of persuading to get them to email, and then I got the classic I didn't have that information to hand or I wasn't made aware...there is always a pass the buck which is incredibly frustrating yet out of my control.

The really annoying and worrying factor is I can't force someone to communicate in an appropriate manner, I can't control the fact that others can't be bothered or don't want to make the effort to communicate in a deaf friendly manner.  I've done everything possible from my end it's just in a world that is strongly anti deaf when it comes to communication I've hit a a wall the size of the grand canyon.  Other than perseveering and constantly requesting accessible communication I just have to find ways of dealing with the anxiety a phone call will bring.  

One of the predominate ways of managing this is through art journaling, something which allows me to express what I'm feeling with or with out words.  I'm trying to factor in more time for this but as a carer it's not easy.  

Getting enough sleep is another and I'm working hard on this because it also affects my balance and thus minor or even major injuries.  

Quiet time helps too so I have a set period of 12 hours where my phone is set to do not disturb for all but emergency numbers e.g. my dad and my caree.

I also need to work on my confidence.  At the moment I'm unsure on how, in deaf friendly environments I'm confident but anywhere else and I lose it entirely.  Unless communication in the areas that are not deaf friendly improves I can't see how I can feel more confident about them.

Basically it all comes down to not being able to control other people and their lack of willingness to communicate.  As much as I want to I can't say there is ignorance invoved because in this case it was explained twice, that I can't hear on the phone and information has to be in written format and even with that knowledge and information they still chose to use a phone call.  

All that's left is for me to work on just not answering those calls, ignoring them and making complaints where I can that they aren't meeting the legal requirements of reasonable adjustments, to removing situations that put me in a position where I am forced into taking phone calls and finding alternative situations instead.