I've had moderate to severe hearing loss since I was a young child. I am thankful for that as I'm certain my ability to observe my surroundings and give attention to details is an adaptation to my hearing loss.
There is a difference between physical hearing capacity and the ability to consciously work with what is heard. While it is true I am physically hearing less than most people, I believe not only do I pay attention more details in sounds, but I have learned to effectively use more information to fill in the gaps. This is why most people I have met would never guess I have such a large amount of hearing loss.
At work, there is this door. It squeaks when someone opens it and it's obvious to anyone when someone is going to the door. But I'm unsure how many people have noticed that because one side is one of those push bars and one side is a handle, there is a slight difference in sound when someone is going either in or out.
That's another thing, I seemingly pay attention to useless things like this. I've noticed that when pushing buttons on an elevator and the door opens right away, it's less likely that someone will be coming out of the elevator (actually it's almost never to be someone there). And we need to make a decision if we should stand out of the way or not if someone is going to be there.
There seems to be a lot of differences in how I observe the world around me compared to the average person and I'm thinking it's likely due to having hearing loss at an early age.
Then again, I've never actually been different people and only seeing from my perspective. Could be that people notice these things too but simply don't care. But I've had many experiences where other people tell me they don't notice these things.
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