Wonderful quote from Gael Hannan’s blog this week, titled “Is Our Hearing Loss Skin too Thin?” :
“In our struggles with the stigma of hearing loss, some of us for just a short time and some for a lifetime, every minor rejection related to our hearing loss, whether intended or not, can be a blow to our self-regard. And this term has the same impact in whatever language it is delivered:
Laissez faire! French
No importa! Spanish
Non importa! Italian
δεν πειράζει ! Greek
Nic nie szkodzi! Polish
Laat maar! Dutch
Vergiss es (forget it) or nicht wichtig (not important) German
Doesn’t matter! New Zealand
But are we being over-sensitive when we hear those words? Hearing people may think so, but I believe most people with hearing loss would agree when I say, “No, we’re not being over-sensitive. Well maybe. But even if we are, it’s tough to ignore the rejection we feel with each brush-off, each refusal to repeat what was said. When you stop us cold, it tells us you don’t value our input into what’s supposed to be a conversation.”
The question is, how do we respond to “It’s not important.”
Should we say “It’s important to me!” or “Please tell me
what you said so I can be part of this conversation.”
or “I really feel left out when you say that.”
I would like to know how other people deal with this.
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How do we respond to “It’s not important”?
I always say that it’s important to ME because I didn’t hear it.
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