Little rant: Mum refuses to wear hearing aids driving me MAD. Coping strategies pls

[TheWildZebra]

Need a gentle rant about my mother who refuses to wear her hearing aids…

visiting her this weekend. She doesn’t get out that much and has poor hearing. She lost her hearing aids a few months ago (“accidentally” flushed them down the loo), replaced them a few weeks ago and has now “lost” them again.

the whole weekend has just been her asking us to repeat ourselves ; interrupting conversations mid flow because she doesn’t realise other people are talking / what they’re talking about ; changing a topic of conversation mid flow by mis-hearing and going off on a tangent.

it’s just so irritating?? Aspects were funny at first but now it just really grinds my gears because it’s preventable!!

It was a massive battle to get her hearing aids in the first place, and spending time with her was an actual pleasure while she was using them. Now she’s not worn them for several months she’s persuaded herself she doesn’t need them anymore and is really defensive when we point out that it’s really frustrating for other people, and wouldn’t she like to engage normally in conversation.

any tips apart from taking deep breaths and finishing the weekend then letting her get on with it?

All due respect for your situation - your post is very reflective of the judgemental attitudes of professionals towards unpaid carers who sacrifice & shelve their own needs 24/7 and are often simply frustrated with a person's refusal for help. As a professional, you would clock in clock out of the situation whereas they live with it all the time. Carers need practical and emotional support, not a lecture about empathy - if they didn't have that they wouldn't have put themselves in the role in the first place. You have said you were a carer yourself but perhaps given your professional background you were better prepared.

"I understand the frustrations" is always a prerequisite to judgement and is frankly call centre speak for invalidating the carer's point of view

I hear you (🤣) and I feel your pain. My mother will not accept her hearing is an issue, it ruins family occasions because she sits there , cannot join in because she can’t hear what’s going on, interrupts, gets the wrong tangent … it’s really sad. However she WILL NOT accept she needs hearing aids. Nothing I can do !

I’m seriously unimpressed by some of the attitudes on here. I am hearing impaired and it’s naive to assume hearing aids always help with conversation as it’s frequencies which are lost and volume doesn’t make a difference to that.

Op has literally said that wearing them shows a marked improvement in this case. Did you read the post?

My mother wouldn’t wear hers much -turns out the standard NHS ones are too big and really hurt or fall out ( because they are too big to fit in properly)

suspect it’s the male default at play

she wears them now but it cost her a couple of k to get ones that fit well

Then perhaps my experience of both sides of the table can give some insight.
I was a carer to my father, which predated my nursing qualification, then later for my aunt for about 15 years.
I now help my elderly in-laws.
I don’t underestimate the difficulty of caring having walked the walk myself.

Sorry just replying to yours though my response applies to many other posts.

the difference is that when my mum did use her hearing aids - for a year or so- the transformation was massive. She agreed how nice it was to actually engage in the conversation, go to a theatre or concert and hear properly, and hear the doorbell go.

She did also mention that they were fiddly to put in, and that when you’re in very busy places the noise filter didn’t work super well. But I don’t see these as reasons to full stop abandon wearing hearing aids.

Other posters have highlighted the huge difference hearing aids have made to their family members’ well being and sociability. the dementia links are well known.

maybe I’ll understand in 40 y time but I don’t understand why one would choose isolation and frustration when there is a fix that a significant proportion of the population manage to get on with quite easily.

no advice. Just solidarity as going through exactly the same thing.

You are missing this point and implying that those of us who point out the lack of empathy in these posts are failing to have empathy for family carers.

Nobody is attacking carers here. I have cared 24/7 for both parents.

The OP talks about visiting her mother at the weekend. She is not dropping from the exhaustion of caring 24/7.

Joining in with this. My dad is terrible for wearing his too. Won’t listen to me about them. So i’ve given up. I’ve sent him the dementia recent articles. still nothing. He is 75 it’s his choice.

Yes this is exactly it! I wear hearing aids but they amplify the people behind as much as you do so I’m overwhelmed and irritated. People who refuse to speak more clearly so I can lip read, or look at me, or generally try and be helpful are baffling! It is nothing like normal hearing

I'm sorry OP but you are still not really understanding the issues.

I am aware I will in the next few years need a hearing aid. I am dreading it because I hate having things in my ears, I can’t use earplugs or in-ear headphones. And as many PPs have said a hearing aid does not restore your normal hearing. It is not like wearing glasses and you can suddenly see clearly again. (At the moment I can hear most people, some voices are easier than others, and I do some lipreading. I do not turn the volume up on the TV and annoy everyonelse, I use the subtitles.)

Hearing aids are not a magic wand and there are reasons your mother doesn’t want to wear them. The downsides for her must outweigh the benefits, otherwise she'd wear them.

How old is your mother? Her refusal to wear hearing aids is understandable (see above) but her behaviour really isn’t. If she does have cognitive issues, there is little chance of getting her to wear her hearing aids.

So your mum had a period of time in which her hearing aids enabled her to engage wonderfully with the world but chose to lose them anyway even though it is impossible to do so?

Proof for your theory is that you’ve never lost your glasses - ok then. Your mother is wilfully losing her hearing aid to frustrate you after your arduous attempts to visit her.

Like others here have suggested you can feel free to discontinue your visits as she clearly does not want to engage with you.

You explained this perfectly but I am afraid there some people who are determined not to understand.

I'm not criticising the OP at all, was responding to another poster who I felt was reflecting views of professionals and not unpaid carers who struggle x

Just to clarify OP my post was to another user, not yourself, I fully empathise with your situation having been there myself 🙈

Not sure why you’re being so sarcastic tbh…🙄

It may be hard to believe since I come across as such a callous and cruel individual that I’m obviously torturing my mother by asking her to put plastic in her ears, but I do actually want to spend quality time with her; I do want her to feel included and involved in social situation; and most vitally, I would really like for her to stave off diseases such as dementia as she reaches her twilight years.

there are solutions to all off the issues others on this thread mention. My point in this thread is that, given that these solutions are at my mothers fingertips (she’s very well versed with the internet and navigating the NHS), she still doesn’t engage with these solutions.

No sarcasm from me. Plenty from you here.

Your post did imply she was wilfully losing her hearing aids. I was following your logic.

I did not describe you the way you say above.

She's called smilingears.jords

deaf awareness

Incidentally, OP, the whole point of the phrase 'deaf spectrum' is that it includes those with hearing loss. I wasn't suggesting signing as a way to help with your Mum, but as something positive to counter the negativity I felt from some of the posts. I apologise, as you had specifically asked for coping strategies.

I am sympathetic to your sense of frustration and that your mum is letting you down by not upholding her 'side of the bargain'. And of course I have no idea what your relationship with your mum is like generally.

But I hope what will make it easier is knowing just a little more about hearing loss. It really isn't just a question of popping in her hearing aids and all will be fine. In fact, wearing hearing aids sporadically often worsens the situation. Hearing is a complex process and not just to do with your ears!

Your Mum, even with mild to moderate hearing loss, has experienced auditory deprivation and thus her auditory memory will have faded. When she puts the aids in, her brain suddenly goes from essentially sound starvation to complete overload, and it is completely exhausting. She'll have to learn how to 'hear' again (filtering out background noises etc) I've been wearing my aids for a year now, and I'm still exhausted by anything other than 1 to 1 conversations in a quiet room. She may well feel that the aids make things worse.

Other posters have given great advice about getting her more info from professionals, but I appreciate it must be difficult if you live 3 hours away.

In the meantime, all I can offer is things that help me - don't repeat, try to rephrase what you're saying (it may be just one word that is giving her trouble) speak clearly and don't shout. Make sure you're sitting somewhere she can clearly see your face (I really struggle with people sitting with the window behind them so their face is shadowed). She'll be lipreading even if she's not aware she's doing it. Accept that she's on the deafness spectrum and that right now the aids don't work for her. Maybe if you accept it and make adjustments, she'll find it easier to?

Heads in the sand can work both ways.

Then if this is your non sarcastic way of communicating may I kindly suggest you consider how to communicate in a friendly and polite manner?

telling someone they have permission to not visit their parents, when they’ve not asked for this particular kind of input, is both an exaggerated and unhelpful response to the thread.

Op is not asking her mother to wear her hearing aids all the time, just when they have driven a long time to take her out. If you are in a restaurant or cafe you just can’t shout for the sake of the other customers.
It can also be worth while if you are deaf, telling people where to sit/stand. My daughter had a deaf ( from birth) ballet teacher who wore hearing aids. They all soon learned not to stand behind her because the noise in her aids wasn’t good.

Thank you, this is really helpful advice and I do appreciate you sharing your perspective and experience of hearing loss. You have mentioned things that I hadn’t known - such as “re learning” to hear or the adjustment that comes with the sudden overwhelm of hearing many sounds again.

it has made me think that there must be ways to make it a more comfortable experience for her, but it’s frustrating when someone puts up a brick wall and disregards it being an issue. It’s the lack of willingness to engage that I find frustrating. I suppose it’s a give and take, empathy and support only stretches as far as the person is willing to engage on it, I suppose!

My dad is the same. He has had poor hearing since he was in his 50s (80s now) and he does now wear hearing aids (mostly). But he's also zero percent gracious about his hearing loss and does nothing to help himself, or other people. He thinks everyone should cater to him and gets incredibly grumpy and sullen without making any effort himself, even when others turn themselves inside out. If he didn't have my mum around I doubt he'd still have friends (but that's also for other reasons...).

I'm now mid 30s and have mild/moderate hearing loss in one ear and moderate/severe in the other. I have promised myself to never, ever be like my dad. So I've taken all the precautions and responsibility I can for my situation. Hearing aids, being the one to book events/restaurants (subtitles, quiet places, or quieter corners), sitting on the right side of the table to hear better, sitting so I can see other people talk, and I've even taken lip reading classes. None of these strategies are perfect but together they're pretty good. I started a new job six months ago and people were so surprised when I told them about my hearing loss a week or so ago.

It's about meeting people halfway. Yes I'm frustrated and sad to be in this position (and I know it will get worse), but I find that if I make an effort, other people do too.

Edit: I feel I should also recognise that to some degree I have the 'benefit' of learning these strategies while younger. But my dad would also have been highly capable of doing the same (and his hearing was better in his 50s than mine is now) and he still refused to.

I think I understand your frustration, but what you've written indicates that you still don't really get what hearing loss is like.

Your DM may well have done well with aids in the past but it's still true that when frequencies are lost, more volume can't possibly help. And as you get older, more and more frequencies gradually disappear. So her aids will not be able to help her as much now as they could then. Also bear in mind that hearing loss usually develops over time and you gradually forget what it was like to have normal hearing. Just because your DM said she could hear properly with her aids, doesn't mean that she could hear as well as a normal hearing person. It means she could hear better with her aids than without them, that's all.

It's very dismissive of the complexities and difficulties of wearing aids to say that 'a significant proportion of the population manage to get on with them quite easily'. You have no idea of the behind the scenes struggles that people have, even those who look as if they don't have any. The mental exhaustion, the constant alertness to positioning yourself in the room, the choices you make to change your behaviour and stop doing some of the things you loved because your aids can't cope in those situations - people doing all this all the time probably look as if they're getting on quite easily, either because the difficulties don't show or because we've rearranged our lives to avoid the most difficult situations. We're not coping easily at all.

People think that having to rely on hearing aids is like having glasses, just wear them and everything's fixed. In reality it's much more like having an artificial limb. It may not even be obvious to others but that doesn't mean it's easy or that it's restored normal function. I accept that it's difficult to understand all this but you don't actually need to understand it, you just need to accept that it's true.

My dad was very deaf and refused to wear his hearing aids. We reached the point where we just couldn’t communicate with him apart from writing it down.

We did manage to arrive at a compromise by getting him a personal amplifier which we called his hearing radio.

When we visited we would locate his hearing radio which worked with a pair of wired earbuds or small headphones if preferred and ask him to wear it just while we were talking to him. He was able to cope with this arrangement as it was quick and easy to put on and off and when we went out for lunch it looked like he was just listening to the radio (this was also important to him).

He would take it off quite frequently when he felt he didn’t need to hear us (or all the other noises he wasn’t used to hearing) but it was so quick and easy to put on again that we could all manage the compromise.

You can search personal amplifiers if you think it might be worth a try.