Living With Diplacusis

Two Notes, One World and a Lot of Noise

The grit and surrealism of living with hearing loss, diplacusis, and tinnitus inspired this writing. It’s not a gentle thing. It’s rough and harsh, and I choose to be unapologetically honest. I now know noise as well as, or better, than anyone.

You hear the world in stereo, I hear it with a confusion of sound. One musical note splits into two, like a truth that cannot decide what it wants to be.

Diplacusis! Such an elegant name. It sounds like a spell, but feels like a curse. When I play a guitar chord, it takes on two different keys a semitone apart. Birdsong has become a broken harmony.

My own voice? It echoes with my double hearing, a duet I didn’t audition for. Then there’s that other guest, Tinnitus, the uninvited squatter in my skull. A constant companion, never cruel and never kind, just there, preaching in a voice no one else hears.

I once knew silence, the hush between heartbeats. A room untouched by sound, a meadow in the dead of night. But now, even stillness sings. A phantom choir, out of tune and never welcome.

I wear hearing aids like battle gear. Not to fix, but to face. So, I’m still here, still listening. Just in a different way.

I once was broken, but now I am rewired. I inhabit a new reality of foreign soundscapes and travelling without a map. Just instinct and determination.

So now, if you ask me, ‘What does silence sound like?’

I’ll tell you, ‘Aeroplanes, microwaves and high-pitched whistles’.

And though silence has gone forever, I’ll hear some different sounds. The rhythm of resilience, the music of my memory, and the strength in my own voice.

The spoken voice