Yesterday I heard a BBC radio report about a man with Parkinson's Disease and how he was detained by police because he looked as if he was fidgeting and showed hardly any facial emotion. It was his non-verbal communication that the police perceived as suspicious behavior.
I started wondering about tinnitus sufferers and how we may be inadvertently sending similar non-verbal communications signals to people around us. If we lack sleep we may appear lazy, bored, fatigued, uninterested, and distant.
After a few evenings of total sleeplessness we could be more easily agitated and fidgety. If the tinnitus is very loud we may not know that we are talking over it and so what we perceive to be normal speech may be misperceived by other people as shouting or aggressive behavior. People with hyperacusis and tinnitus may begin to slur words due to grogginess. Slurring words could be misperceived as being drunk.
A friend of mine was accused of being drunk at work, as a flight attendant, and she was placed on administrative leave until, after some tests, it turned out that she was suffering from early signs of muscular dystrophy (a non-visible disability at first). The false accusation really was a stressful ordeal for her.
Tinnitus, like Parkinson's Dissease, is a non-visible disability. Discrimination is typically just a misinterpretation of unintended non-verbal communication. This is why I make sure to communicate my condition during important situations where the stakeholders need to know. Think of police as stakeholders. If, hypothetically, I get pulled over for a broken tail light I would immediately communicate to the police officer that I sometimes speak over my auditory condition and that it can be misunderstood as nervousness, shouting, and anger.
Other stakeholders (people who need to know about your tinnitus) may include:
Spouse
Family
Friends
Medical Practitioners
Supervisor
Co-workers
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