I haven’t had a chance to talk about Chloe, my retired service dog, much lately. The sweet ol’ lady has been retired full-time since May 2015. Chloe has not had a good year. Being together 9 1/2 years, means she was pretty set in her ways as to being with Denise 24/7. So if you take a loyal, hard-working hound dog who has done the same thing for almost a decade, retire her, bring a new dog into the pack who is now Denise’s partner, move to a new house, and have only a few things to do around the house for hearing alerts, a dog can just go a little nuts… which is what Chloe has done. Chloe is on arthritis medicine, which helps her arthritis a great deal. Being able to get around more comfortably means she is looking for stuff to do around the house. Chloe has developed an anxiety disorder, which could be the result of a number of things including age. She obsesses over things she decides is her job and continues until collapse.

We moved into a wonderful, older home, with NO STEPS! I fall once a week now instead of 2-3 times a day. Even for our two older dogs, Chloe and family dog, Tyco, the fact that we have no stairs is a plus as well! Our older home makes noises that our other home did not. We have an older HVAC system, gas heat and stove, a wood-pellet stove, and older wood floors. Chloe, retired hearing dog, believes every new sound she hears now is her JOB. So she will stand over heating vents and guard because there are strange noises coming from them. (We have checked for critter invasion, had the home inspected, etc., and this is truly just mechanical noises. The other dogs ignore the sounds completely). Chloe will stand “working” until her legs shake and she collapses. We were having trouble getting her to eat. A major vet appointment that included blood-work, scans, and over-all senior check-up, revealed nothing that would make us worry that this is anything other than an anxiety disorder. Chloe is OCD. She misinterprets what she is hearing and together with her other keen senses (like smell), seeks out the origin of the strange sound and does a perfect hunting dog “point”,  standing guard until she collapses.

Chloe is on meds and is doing better. She still guards shadows and obsesses over household noises. We are making it a priority for her to get out of the house more and “do things for mom and dad”. My husband and I discuss hound dog a great deal. She really means a lot to both of us. We know and understand the difficult changes she has had to shoulder, but also understand that she is hearing things well (she is a DOG and was trained as a hearing assistance dog)… only Chloe is misinterpreting what she hears.

The sounds are not important – but Chloe is escalating the sounds as a priority.

The sounds are harmless – but Chloe considers some of them a threat.

The sounds are minor “blips on the radar” – but Chloe equates them with cardiac arrest.

Misinterpreting

Have you ever completely misunderstood what someone said or misunderstood the behavior of someone?

WHAT? You mean you always assume correctly? Ok. Well you can quit reading. The rest of you feel free to continue…

As a person with hearing loss, I often misunderstand what people say. I work hard to consider the context, facial expression, and body language of someone speaking and I still BLOW IT sometimes.

Someone can yawn and cover their mouth and I will completely lose track of what they were saying.

My cochlear implant can pick up some random, ambient noise and I will miss what someone said.

I’ve even stood in the sunshine with someone while they squinted and wrinkled their eyebrows at the bright light, and missed that they were being sarcastic about something because their face looked MEAN.

I use email a great deal. If I have my phone out, it is to TEXT, not to talk earlobe to earlobe with someone. Because I do a great deal of writing, when I am misunderstood or misinterpreted in an email, it really hurts. I work hard at making what I write sound like what I SAY. That’s why y’all have to muddle through my exclamations and grammatical errors that emphasize how I would SPEAK something. (So thanks for that – <wink>).

Basically in misinterpreting… there are two scenarios. Either WE are being misinterpreted, or we are the one over-reacting and obsessing over unimportant cues. So what’s a person to do?

1. You are being misinterpreted.

If you are being constantly misinterpreted, is it your problem or their problem? Really the responsibility goes both ways. If you are constantly being misunderstood, however, take a good hard look at the who, what, when and where.

Who: Do the same people always misunderstand? Maybe they are extra sensitive. Maybe they haven’t learned to see past the obvious to what you really meant. Are you sarcastic? Do you know some people just don’t GET sarcasm? They don’t appreciate it, don’t use it, and are constantly hurt by it.

My husband, son, and daughter speak fluent sarcasm. As a person with hearing loss, I had come to count on what I SAW when communicating. I finally had to explain, “Look y’all! Give me a smirk, eye roll, or something! If you don’t, you are gonna get smacked up ‘side the head!” I just don’t connect with sarcasm.

What is being misunderstood? Is it a subject others are passionate about? Is it a subject that is highly debated? (Is it an election year? <groan>) Are you being clear?

When are you being misunderstood? Is everyone tired? Are you being misinterpreted when everyone is rushed? Late?

Where are you being misunderstood? A friend told me once that she has learned not to talk about serious things during happy hour at a local bar. <grin>

Figuring these things out can be helpful and allow you to determine how you can be misinterpreted LESS.

2. You misinterpret others.

Especially because one of my “differently-abled” quirks is hearing loss, if I misunderstand someone I become rude. Not rude-rude, but interrupting rude. I stop whomever is speaking and ask for clarification. I may say:

A) I’m sorry, could you repeat that?

B) Excuse me… I thought I heard you say…     …  could you repeat that part?

These “rude” but necessary interruptions help me misunderstand and misinterpret LESS. If I wait to ask for clarification I may forget (but stay mad), or the person themselves may forget what they said.

What about if you are angered or hurt by something that someone WROTE? I still ask for clarification. Maybe even though I am searching the context or doing my best to “read between the lines”, I’m still missing something. There is nothing wrong with responding (better done in a private manner and not in a public venue) and asking for clarification. I don’t know about you, but I’ve written things before that were taken wrong and it wasn’t until someone asked for clarification that I realized how harsh something I wrote seemed to the people who were reading it.

Sometimes? Sometimes people are just going to try really hard to misunderstand what you wrote too. It happens. I’ve learned to pick my battles. You cannot always expect someone to look for the best in you. Some folks look for the bad. Just drop it and go on.

Change really isn’t hard

One of my offspring is a debater. The kid can argue the paint off a wall. It use to really bother me, but I never wanted to say “shut up, already”! I never wanted to act as if their opinion held no merit. I had to learn to LISTEN. Do you know my kid actually has a lot of really wonderful ideas, points, and opinions about the world? I drove him to lunch the other day and because we were each other’s “captive audience”, I got him all to myself for 20 minutes. My kid is more informed about politics than I am. If I LISTEN I have discovered he has a lot to say.

I use to misinterpret what he said all the time. I had to change. I couldn’t take sound bite snippets and judge him for being a ninny-hammer based on one comment. I had to learn to listen “in context” and wait until he had finished speaking before agreeing, or agreeing to disagree.

Some of you may be thinking… “why should *I* have to change the way I communicate?” Communication is the glue that holds all relationships together. No one communicates perfectly. We can all brush up on better communication skills.

Last week I was asking some questions about a video we watched and trying to get the students to “think like a scientist”. I saw a student grimace and shake their head. I stopped and said, “It’s fine if you don’t agree! I welcome everyone’s opinion and think it is important to express various views! Do you have another opinion about what we saw?”

They looked startled for a minute and sheepishly admitted, “No. I was making a face because someone farted”.

Oh.

You aren’t always going to understand perfectly. You are going to misunderstand facial expressions and other nonverbal cues. You, yourself, are going to contradict what you are saying by how you look or how you are saying it once in awhile.

My encouragement to all of us is simply to work harder. We can all learn to communicate clearly, hopefully creating less chance of being misunderstood. Communication matters because people matter. If you are a person with a disability or chronic illness, work hard at communicating your needs – and what you don’t need. It is much easier to “do your part” and then walk away in the face of persistent misunderstanding, than it is to share the blame for not having tried at all.

Denise Portis

© 2016 Personal Hearing Loss Journal