I was born with a high-frequency hearing loss. It didn’t manifest the way people typically think of when they think about hearing loss. I could hear most sounds, but those in the high frequencies of human speech — p, t, and d; f, s, and x were indistinguishable, especially in a loud room. My family thought I was just not listening.

I was not diagnosed until college, when I had access to an audiology lab on campus. There my hearing loss came out. High frequency losses weren’t treatable by hearing aids back then, and the audiologist said I was compensating well, so there was nothing to be done at the time.

By ‘compensating well’, they meant reading lips, which I really don’t do well. They meant asking people to repeat themselves. I do that very well. They meant sitting out of conversations because I couldn’t hear them, or nodding and playing along. I do that a lot.

My hearing has gotten worse. The rest of the frequencies are catching up with me because of age. I now don’t hear in crowded spaces at all, and have trouble catching up with social events. I tend to avoid social events because of this. It causes me pain sitting in conversations and missing things. It’s like being left out even when sitting in a group.

I am facing a social activity today with great reluctance. Too many people to pay attention to, too noisy a space. I will have to go and pretend to hear, and then say ‘that was fun’ even though it was a trial for me. We haven’t gotten past “we need to get you a hearing test” in discussions about getting me hearing aids. I am so frustrated.