this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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My dad is like this with his hearing aids. He can basically hear nothing without them, but he’ll still try to talk to Us. So he gets them, but then says it’s too loud, so he turns it down to where he still can’t hear anything. One of them stopped working, and rather than call the doctor for a replacement, probably under warranty, he’s just like “oh that one stopped working”. So meanwhile, he’s basically impossible to communicate with, but doesn’t tell people “what did you say? I couldn’t hear you”, he just acts like he heard them and then just makes up whatever he thought they said.
Man, do I hate this. My grandma does the same - she didn't want to get a hearing aid for many, many years which led to her hearing becoming absolutely terrible. She now has hearing aids, but she still doesn't understand much if you don't raise your voice a lot. Yet she acts like she understands everything, and you have to try and interpret her nods to figure out if she actually understood it.
I mean, I get why she does it, she doesn't want to annoy others by constantly asking - but I'd talk to her a lot more if she was honest with her understanding, because it's impossible to make a point more than 2-3 sentences long as it is.
All my grandparents have passed a while ago, and honestly if I could, the one thing I miss most is talking to them. Even when they didn't understand me. I got frustrated too but now that I'm older I realize I was just scared of losing them. Their nodding along was their way of making sure I didn't worry about them. They didn't want me to worry about them, as impossible as that is. I don't know what type of relationship you reading this have with your grandparents, but if it's not completely toxic go and talk to them. Even if they don't understand. They're used to you babbling in their face, you did it your first few years anyway.
Thank you for your comment! I understand where you're coming from, and my previous reply wasn't formulated in the best way. I'm trying to spend as much time with my remaining grandparents as I can. But I'm not the most "social" person, and at some point my batteries are depleted. I know for a fact that if my grandma actually asked what I said, the charge would last much longer.
Weren't there some studies that showed a link from hearing loss to dementia? Might want to shoot those studies to him maybe it'll help ¯\_(ツ)_/¯