One night in 1995, it felt like my whole world was crashing down, and all I could think of to do in the moment was reach out to my mother.
I share this story because of the strength of the compulsion I felt in the moment, and how turning to my mother seemed like what you do.
I am moderately hearing impaired, and I’m not sure why. As far back as 8th grade, I noticed that I missed words, and that in band, the sounds of the instruments were distorted. My father took me to an audiologist, who cleaned my ears and proclaimed me fixed.
I was not.
On the one hand, I have a few modest birth defects, including one in my eye. Is there a congenital hearing issue as well? On the other, loud music became a go-to, and between concerts and the work I did as a stage hand/roadie, the number of live shows I’ve seen is in the thousands. My ears have been through a lot.
My undergraduate degree is a BS in Radio-TV-Film with an audio production specialty. I attended the University of Texas. I spent those years also working live sound on the show Austin City Limits. I loved it.
My hearing continued to decline, however, and in 1995, a few pivotal things happened. First, I saw an audiologist again, and the results of my testing were alarming: sensorineural hearing loss. Here I was, weeks from graduating, and my plan to do work that relied on my hearing were in jeopardy.
Second, I’d gotten a job in a recording studio. I’d paid my dues, answering phones, wiring patch bays, etc. It came time to record some music sessions. The first session was a solo pianist/vocalist. I set up a pair of microphones in a standard arrangement, paired her with a good vocal mic, and got to work. When playing back the results, she was displeased with the sound. We soldiered on, but the next morning my boss took me aside, having heard the recording, and made it clear that I’d gotten poor results.
I couldn’t tell.
Finally, I was hit with tinnitus. You might be familiar with it: roaring, ringing, or hissing sounds in the ears. I’d experienced it periodically over the years, but this time, it persisted for weeks at a time. I got a clock that played white noise in an attempt to mask it.
And one night, I felt like I would break. The clock couldn’t drown it out. Bells rang in my head, and I could not sleep. Hours ticked by, and it felt like this was the new normal. I was catastrophizing, worried that I’d spend the rest of my days this way.
My newlywed wife was asleep. At perhaps 2:00am, rattled to my core, I felt like a helpless little boy again.
I need my mother, I thought. It was too late to call her, so what did I do? I frantically poured it all out in a letter, giving in to every fear that compounded my inability to sleep: My planned career was out the window. My new degree was useless. I would soon be disabled.
And I think about that feeling in our circumstances as estranged parents. Our children will experience distress, as we know. My father passed three years ago, and when things are hard I wish I could speak to him.
How have we ended up in a circumstance in which our adult children, facing pivotal life events, choose to seek help elsewhere?
As we’ve talked about in group, I feel that we have a continuum of estranged parent circumstances. Some of us have little to no idea what actually caused this, while some of us feel we’ve made pivotal mistakes. And when looked at with all the objectivity we can muster, doesn’t this mean that by and large, we are a bunch of typical parents? Furthermore, when trying to help our children, wouldn’t we transparently highlight our own mistakes, as parents and humans in general, to try to lift them up?
I think we know the answer to that.
**
Coda: I pivoted into a television career, protected my hearing more diligently, and eventually got hearing aids. The tinnitus recurs once in a while, but as is often the case with our worst fears, my life was not ruined.
