Can shouting cause stress?
My mom's hearing aides are no longer working properly; they have a tendency to shut off for no reason and of course since she is usually lying down they will squeal when they ARE actually on. When I took them in to be fixed a couple of years ago I was told they were much too old to be repaired (apparently 5 years is considered too old) As a result I find myself SHOUTING, constantly, and often repeatedly shouting the same thing over and over. Mom complains that I am yelling at her, but it's the only way she can hear me unless I am literally within 1 foot of her. I am finding that at the end of one of these shouting matches I feel just as stressed as if I were actually shouting in anger, the longer the "conversation" the more apt I am to feel this stress. Add in the fact that sometimes she just chooses to be uncommunicative, so I'm not sure if she doesn't hear me or she is ignoring me. Any advice on how to deal with this?
Emotions can change the voice a lot. The speed of speech can also contribute to being able to understand what is being said.
He’s bought two different sets of hearing aids and still can’t hear. I notice he can’t hear higher voices (the kind women seem to have), so that makes it worse.
The amplifier earphones work better than anything else!
Amazing what people will say when they think you can't hear them (or understand their language). I get that a lot living in Mexico. They will be cussing away and it's hard not to blush. I try not to make eye contact, so they don't suspect I know what they're saying. But sometimes I'll answer in Spanish and then they are the ones with the red faces! 😮
An elderly gentleman finally decided to have his hearing checked and get a set of aids. His hearing improved tremendously.
Aa few weeks later he ran into the audiologist who ask how his hearing was.
He replied that he can now hear nearly everything around himself just fine.
The audiologist replied that his family must be very happy.
He then said he hasn't told them about the news aids but he has changed his will three time since getting them
next to my mom, she still can't hear him.
He'll start talking and I'll say, "She can't hear you."
It's just against his nature to raise his voice to an elder. I'll usually restate, in a louder voice, what he just said. We do this multiple times a day!!!!!
At least it takes my frustration off of mom and puts it on hubby. 😠
Take a deep breath.....
Are hearing aids still running around $1000.?
But I hate to put her through the testing (94 yrs old, stage 6 Alzheimer's with very poor stability) this late in the game. I'm not even sure she could mentally get through the testing.
I guess we'll just keep screaming.
My mother's hearing is getting worse, but the ENT said that it is as good as it is going to get. He said her hearing is typical for her age. I am having to speak louder and louder now. It makes me feel so aggressive inside when I yell at her, even if I'm just trying to get her to hear me and not feeling angry at all... until I keep having to yell.
My stress level, when he is in town, is about a 90 out of 100. When he is gone, I revert back to being pretty calm. The kids (all married and gone) ask me all the time why I talk so loudly. Duh.
Anything I do, such as writing notes or reminders, or heaven forbid--a white board, just makes him mad. I, on the other hand, have great hearing and hear EVERYTHING. It's nuts. I can't even sleep next to him when he sleeps with his Bluetooth earphones...he has them cranked up so loud I can hear the music too. I just make sure I am in the same room with him, he can see my mouth moving and I have him sort of repeat back to me what I just said. That helps, but it's time consuming and annoying..,,and no, he doesn't get to babysit the "smalls" as he doesn't HEAR them and their mamas worry. The 8 and over crowd are super loud, so we don't have that problem.
I understand cwillie's original statement about shouting being disruptive to the peace in the home and our inner selves. Shouting just to be heard by the hearing impaired is difficult and doesn't always work.
Ladies, here's a simple tip for getting the men to hear you: very often men lose hearing in the range of feminine voices. If you lower your voice and talk in that lower range, your husband may actually hear you better.
Add soft consonants like the "ch" in "choose" and you have another example of what my hubby has difficulty hearing. So why does he decide to not wear his hearing aides, not tell me, and keep asking me to repeat and blame me if he can't hear??
Yes, you guessed it.
If a person enunciates their words well I have no problem but there aren't too many people who do that. The worst is the younger generation ... I can't explain it very well but they seem to gurgle their speech with a low, monotone. No pitches in their voice, nothing to let me know if what they're saying is good or bad. Hearing impaired people rely a lot on pitches in speech, enunciation, clarity and acceptable volume (not extremely loud, screaming). Personally, I also rely on lip reading. I hate it when someone says something to me and half way through it they turn away from me and walk away.
The screaming, to me, tends to make me back away both physically and mentally. It's as though my internal mental hearing aid (and my physical one) shuts down due to the screaming sort of in an effort to get away from it. When you think of Marilyn Monroe and Jacqueline Kennedy who were very soft spoken; people with normal hearing would bend close to them in order to hear them but if you think of people who speak loudly normally ... you just back away from them, right?
My husband is also hearing impaired and when he can't hear me I don't raise my voice I enunciate the words better, this seems to work very well. I find myself getting frustrated, perhaps this is a form of stress. If so then I'm stressed both from not being able to hear everything and also from having to deal with someone who is hearing impaired.
Oh, I KNOW there are options. Hubby is just completely oblivious to the fact that his choices DO affect others. He always says "this is your problem, not mine, it doesn't bother me" but when we're driving down the freeway and he can't hear the fire engine behind us--it's NOT just MY problem.
He'll never get his hearing checked, I've asked, begged, pleaded and he always says he doesn't have a problem. Yet in the same breath he complains about his own mother who can't hear a thing. If this were me and he was asking me to get help, I would listen and be grateful for the attention. He thinks I am trying to minimize him--but it's quit the opposite. He's missing half of life by not hearing what's going on. I don't know what it will take to get him to take this seriously.
You can get hearing aids that are inserted completely in the ear canal and are virtually invisible, but even larger ones are not like those clunky big ones from years ago. And there are exciting advances with surgical options and implants as well. My mom opted for larger H.A.'s because of it was easier to insert them with arthritic fingers and easier to change the battery with her limited eyesight. She has been wearing them for many years and this was her third or fourth upgrade, they were supposed to be her last! Our problem is that it would be impossible to get my mom in to the audiologist to take new moulds of her ears and make new ones. Plus she is 95 and seems to get along fine without them, I'M the one doing the shouting and stressing!
Can shouting cause stress? Well I have seen my BP go from 120/86 to 147/94 and since she lets her battery run down, I guess my BP will be spiking from now on... Cardiologist thinking about putting me on BP meds, but he said that it will make me even more tired than I already am..... sigh.
I think if on of the our kids he respects says something, he'd listen. I'm the naggy sound of a wife who is repetitious. Maybe my SIL or DIL who are both DRS say something to him, he'd deal with it. We currently have our daughter visiting with her 2 small children. She commented that dad's hearing was much worse than 7 months agp when she was here. She won't leave the 2 yo in his care b/c dad doesn't hear the sneaky 2 yo getting into stuff. And don't get me started on how loud music or the TV has to be!!! Luckily, he did get Bluetooth headphones, so I am not assaulted with incredibly loud TV. Daughter is sleeping in the bedrrom below us and EVERY night she has come up to ask dad to turn down the TV and he always does it--but complains that it's "barely on".