The Truth Was I Felt So Lonely
“It was my first experience of feeling left out.”
The pain of difference! It’s so acute — especially as experienced by a child. Not to say difference isn’t strength (it is). Not to say difference isn’t beautiful (it is). Not to say that difference isn’t, in any number of other situations, permutations, any number of other things, most of them merely facts to be navigated, accommodated, which is to say neutral. But to feel, as child, I am not like others. To worry that the not likeness will be not the reason but the excuse for punishment. The pain of separateness! The desire to belong and the fact of difference making it easier for a schoolyard bully, literal or metaphorical, child or adult, to deny our fundamental interconnectedness.
In the essay below, first published in 2021, A.J. writes about being deaf in his left ear. My life was shitty and confusing at times like everyone else’s. Now let’s move on, he writes. And yet, and also: I’ve bailed on so many conversations at so many happy hours or weddings or house parties because I didn’t hear a damn thing coming from the moving mouth in front of me. I just pretended I did. Totally rude of me, I know. I was very off-putting. Or maybe they found me aloof. Disdainful. Stupid. It happened so many times. How could it not affect me?
If the cost of a subscription is prohibitive, or if you wish to send TSB to someone you love, contact us. We’ll happily pass along a free annual subscription to those who need it most.
We can offer free subscriptions as long as we continue to grow. Grab a paid subscription today if you’d like to be a part of that growth — spiritually and otherwise. —TSB Editor
Surround Sound
Originally published November 23, 2021
A few days ago, I was walking the dog along a too-narrow sidewalk and I almost got creamed by a bus when I absentmindedly drifted a little too close to the curb without turning around first. I was fine, the dog was fine, but I was furious. Familiar insecurity crept in, along with the impulse to self-destruct. I both wanted to run away and pout or follow the bus to the next stop, climb on board and punch the driver in the face.
Or drink. A drink to calm the storm.
I did none of that. I walked home, hugged the dog, and felt sorry for myself.
I didn’t hear the bus because I am deaf in my left ear. It’s been useless since birth, but after the Great Upending that came with my early sobriety, it was very easy for me to point out all the deficiencies and humiliations that caused me to drink all those drinks and take all those drugs. I outlined many of my complaints — often hysterically — to therapists, lawyers, friends, parents, my sister, Uber drivers, but, eventually, I got tired of the heaviness of blame: My life was shitty and confusing at times like everyone else’s. Now let’s move on.
Yet, there’s part of me that wonders if my deaf ear had a more significant impact. For example, I’ve bailed on so many conversations at so many happy hours or weddings or house parties because I didn’t hear a damn thing coming from the moving mouth in front of me. I just pretended I did. Totally rude of me, I know. I was very off-putting. Or maybe they found me aloof. Disdainful. Stupid. It happened so many times. How could it not affect me?
*****
When I was in elementary school, I stuck two plastic straws in my ears and made funny faces to impress some kids at my lunch table. Then an idiot named Todd smashed one of the straws and jammed it pretty far in there. I yelped in pain, sure that my inner ear had exploded. It had not, but the moment was memorable enough for me to point to as I advanced through elementary and into junior high school when, inevitably, someone would ask why my hearing was so bad. It was Todd, that bastard. Always Todd.
That story was a lie — I had no idea why my left ear didn’t work. The only evidence that I couldn’t hear well was through those tests, the ones where a machine would pipe a series of bleeps and breezes into each ear to make sure they both worked. I heard no bleeps in my left ear, only a faint hum. I’d hear no breezes either, maybe a soft buzz.
All through junior high, I’d get pulled out of class for weekly lessons from a district-appointed speech and pathology instructor, a very kind and impossibly patient woman named Mrs. Germany. She had a poofy wig and insane-looking red lipstick. We’d sit across from each other in a small empty classroom with ugly orange carpeting and work on lip-reading which, because of the lipstick, was pretty intense. She also taught me some very basic ASL, like the whole alphabet, plus a few words a highly-incentivized chimpanzee could probably understand: Hello. Happy. Rain. Sun.
If one of my overly curious classmates asked where I went every week, I’d act mysterious. “Can’t talk about it,” I’d say, sometimes with an anguished expression that conveyed no one could know the truth or else their lives would also be in danger.
So in a way, the deafness helped bolster one of my stronger abilities: pathological lying. But the truth was I felt so lonely when I’d get called out of class each week; it was my first experience of feeling left out.
*****
When I was 25, right before I moved up to New York, I finally visited an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor to see if I could get my ear fixed. Plus, I’d hoped to finally get some conclusive diagnosis as to why it never worked. The doctor did the usual standard bleep tests and some X-rays, which provided no new information. But then he noticed my blue-brown Husky-like eye color and guessed that it was something called Waardenburg Syndrome. It’s a disease that causes scattered pigmentation problems on the body, mostly eyes, hair, and patches of skin, that in rare cases could also damage the inner ear. Unfortunately, a regular hearing aid wouldn’t work on me. Sensing my disappointment, the doctor tried to console me. “You’ve come this far,” he said. I left his office and went back into my own world.
A few years later, I investigated bone-anchored hearing devices because a friend of a friend’s husband worked at one of the companys that sold them. Here’s how it worked: a mic the size of a pencil eraser would be Frankenstein-fused into the back of my skull. It would pick up sound from the deaf side and toss it over to the hearing side, essentially mimicking normal hearing.
To sell me on this device, he gave me a special prototype headset for the week to get a feel for what my life would be like in stereo. “It’s a bit overwhelming, and it will take some time to get used to,” he warned. That proved to be a comical understatement.
I did my test drive while a staff writer at Philadelphia magazine and everything was so damn loud. The copier. The microwave. Conversations from three cubicles down sounded like they were happening right underneath my chair. This must be what it’s like to be Spiderman, I thought.
But I could not distinguish all the random, sporadic noises: Was that a stapler or an active shooter? I had to take it off while sitting at my desk because I kept startling myself whenever I scratched my shoulder.
I also went to the movies by myself, eager to get a sense of this whole surround sound thing everyone was so crazy about. I saw The Bee Movie — the obnoxious animated one with Jerry Seinfeld — because I didn’t want to possibly have a miserable time or a panic attack at one I wanted to see. And, of course, it totally messed me up. My attention kept drifting over to the left side of the screen, and I felt the noise vibrations of every buzzing action sequence through my seat. Also, you guessed it: REALLY loud. If I saw Jurassic Park with that thing on I would have fainted.
And it was even worse outside. Even on short walks in the city to buy cigarettes, the blasting car horns and noisy footsteps were everywhere. I heard everything — but also nothing.
After two days, I threw the headset in my desk drawer and never wore it again. I’d had enough. My life stayed the same.
*****
But I wonder if I should give the skull ear another shot. Getting smushed by a bus is one thing, but it’s also the little stuff — all the huhs and whats and leaning in too close to people. Or I’ll be daydreaming in line at the pharmacy, unaware that there’s a woman with a stroller right behind me asking to get by. Sometimes I’ll miss the baby crying after a bad dream. And here’s an example of the type of conversation we could have on a long road trip together:
DRIVER: Did you hear me?
ME: Yes
DRIVER: What did I say?
ME: You asked me if I could throw your food at the windshield.
DRIVER: No. No, why on earth would I say something like that?
I’ve tried to repair many things since I’ve gotten sober: My teeth. My credit score. My blood pressure. I even have a Cologuard sitting on the counter right behind me. Maybe it’s time to seriously consider this next step. Because one of the most intense, tear-jerking gifts of my new life is that whole being present thing. It’d be nice to get the full experience.
*****
ALL ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDITH ZIMMERMAN
MORE ON FEELING LIKE THE ONLY ONE/NOT FEELING LIKE THE ONLY ONE ANYMORE:
That Mountain Goats Song
A few months ago, I wanted to try EMDR again, but, for some forgotten reason, I never did, mainly because my body lost most of the rottenness in it that had gotten too heavy for me. My first EMDR attempt was a success (I think?) even though I’d only participated in a handful of sessions. But now I’m back to feeling a little up-and-down and disinterested but also very EXCITED, possibly destructive, yet fully content, confused, and still rotten to the core. So what gives!
Let It Begin With Me
I want to tell you about Cameron, the man who’s been my sponsor in Al-Anon/ACA, who changed my life unexpectedly and without warning. He’s not dead, but he is moving across the country, and I will miss him dearly. So let me lay out for you what this man has helped me do: Take personal responsibility. Be compassionate. Lead with love. Not lie. Work less! Forgive my parents. And–incredibly–he helped me forgive myself.
*****
ZOOM MEETING SCHEDULE
Monday: 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 ET
Tuesday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET
Wednesday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET
Thursday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET (Women and non-binary meeting.)
Friday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET and 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET
Saturday: Mental Health Focus (Peer support for bipolar/anxiety/depression) 9:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. ET
Sunday: (Mental Health and Sobriety Support Group.) 1:00 p.m PT/4 p.m. ET
*****
If you don’t feel comfortable calling yourself an “alcoholic,” that’s fine. If you have issues with sex, food, drugs, codependency, love, loneliness, and/or depression, come on in. Newcomers are especially welcome.
FORMAT: CROSSTALK, TOPIC MEETING
We’re there for an hour, sometimes more. We’d love to have you.
Meeting ID: 874 2568 6609
PASSWORD TO ZOOM: nickfoles
Need more info?: ajd@thesmallbow.com
This is The Small Bow newsletter. It is mainly written and edited by A.J. Daulerio. And Edith Zimmerman always illustrates it. We send it out every Tuesday and Friday.
You can also get a Sunday issue for $9 monthly or $60 annually. The Sunday issue is a recovery bonanza full of gratitude lists, a study guide to my daily recovery routines, a poem I like, the TSB Spotify playlist, and more exclusive essays. You also get commenting privileges!
Other ways you can help:
BUY A COFFEE MUG FOR YOUR BOOKS
TSB merch is a good thing. [STORE]
Or you can support Edith directly!
Demon With Watering Can Greeting Cards [Edith’s Store]
Or…
or you can give a
that goes toward the production of the podcast.
Everything helps.
A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:
“Alone”
by Edgar Allan Poe
*****
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—
Emailed! :)