A Guest Blog Post by Lorenzo

My friend Lorenzo Tonti recently posted something on Facebook and it was so compelling to me that I wanted to repost part of it here. With Lorenzo's permission, here is an excerpt from his post:

"Another aspect of one sided hearing loss is the lack of natural filtering. With normal hearing, the brain can 'filter out' unwanted or background noise. With only one ear functioning, that filter is not working. Every noise is registered at the same level; every noise. Can you hear your name being said or called across a room full of people? I can't, no matter how loud the person says my name. They have to scream to get my attention. This also probably seems a rather minor problem, doesn't seem that important. Not so. The effect of all this noise in one's brain is overload. My brain gets overwhelmed by noise. It can take only so much of it, but the effort of trying to understand and have some sort of normal social interaction is just so great that it overloads the brain. That means: sudden and extreme fatigue, a sense of panic, a reaction of wanting to flee and a need to be away from the noise! That sort of reaction has a huge effect on one's life! I have to think very hard before I commit myself to going out to a restaurant because I know that I most likely will not hear very much, and after a while my brain will just refuse to work properly and I will shut down. I will be isolated in the middle of a group of people, not being able to communicate, and I'll be fighting the urge to leave. This is by far the worst effect from my hearing loss, it's very isolating."

So, why am I reposting this? Because it is the best explanation I have ever read of what the world sounds like now and why it so overwhelming at times. I am sure that my other SSD friends who read this will relate - and hopefully it will help some of the non-SSD people understand a little better.

Thank you, Lorenzo - as the young'uns say - you rock!