This is a concept that I address often in the context of hearing impairment, but not only in this context. Each of us sees the world through our own eyes, hears through our own ears, feels through our own hearts and intellectualizes through our own brains. Each individual's reality is their very own. I use myself as the basis of normal. When it comes to hearing loss, it may not be a great idea to use ourselves as a measuring stick of normal. The fact is that hearing loss is insidious, creeping up so incrementally that the person with the loss is often the last to be aware of it. It is often explained away or rationalized. I certainly hear these rationalizations verbalized by my patients. I hear consistently that "I don't have a hearing loss it is just that people mumble now" or "People just don't open their mouths when they speak or anunciate anymore."
On a much more universal basis the fact is that each individual has a very self centered sense of normal and a very specific interpretation of the events surrounding their lives. Sometimes I find myself in a disagreement with someone with a very different view than I have. I think that the premise people function on is that "I am right and you are wrong." I heard a quip on American Idol the other day when Steven Tyler disagreed with Randy Jackson regarding the performance of one of the singers, Steven Tyler in disagreeing with Randy said " If I agreed with you, we would both be wrong." This is to say that there are absolute correct opinions and absolute incorrect opinions. I have learned to tell myself in circumstances where I might disagree with someone that this may be their absolute conviction, that this is perhaps their reality. I may not share the view of another but the reality that they percieve is no less real to them than is my own. This little reminder to myself has often helped to defuse situations that might otherwise have proven volatile.
Back in the world of Audiology I have made it my role to assess and educate my patients, to try to give them an understanding that reshapes and questions their perception of normal, of their reality. I will not prescribe help for someone that doesn't believe they have a problem. I have had severely hearing impaired people in my office that think they hear normally. While I know they need help I can do no more than educate them to the fact that they have a hearing loss and wait for them to have a perception of need. It is futile to force help on those that do not think they need it.
Perhaps the lesson here is that each of us tries to keep an open mind, that we allow for the possibility that we might be wrong or that the view of others rises out of true conviction much like our own. Perhaps what we consider to be absolute truths are not so to others.
