I’m afraid you’re correct, @hass5744. Because sounds, not speech, are paramount in my world it is a blessed relief when I can hand over the listening chores to MrsSpudGunner at bedtime and unwind.
Mind you, I still have enough hearing left to detect the big goings on, but I can relax more fully without my aids.
[… but I still must remain attuned to the sounds emanating from HerSelf®️]
I’m not sure I would hear a nuclear bomb going off by in my backyard. But then again I probably wouldn’t need to
I second that!! It’s a blessing to have someone who understands too.
I remember getting my first aids and walking the dog and wondering what the strange squeaking sound I was hearing, then I realized it was birds chirping in the trees above.
My relative has worse hearing than I and his wife said the fire alarm went off one night and he slept right through it
my last hearing aids deteriorated with every visit to the audiologist that sold them to me. I had severe wind noise. Walks were a chore. I couldn’t hear cars behind me either. And our streets have no sidewalks. (still an issue with my new hearing aids. Paradise.)
Now with my new hearing aids I hear the wind in the trees! The little birds chirping! It’s beautiful. I used to love hearing acoustic guitars well played. I stopped listening to beautiful music. I’m looking forward to listening again.
Dave
Walking my dog is beautiful. However, I sometimes wonder about getting a hearing dog. Or giving my dog specific training. She is wonderful and very smart. She walks me quickly across streets at intersections to keep me out of harms way.
I wish she was responsive to cars behind on streets with no sidewalks. (Tesla driver goes down the middle of the road at high speed. I stepped the wrong way one day because I didn’t know she was behind. Car stopped. Close call. She was very angry.)
A Hearing Ear Dog. I want one. Wishing my dog could stop me from one of my stupid off-topic replies because of mis-hearing the conversation
I never thought my hearing was bad. Somehow I convinced myself that all the speakers in modern electronics produced poor audio, that my neighborhood had very few birds due to recent overdevelopment (even though it was fully developed 60 years ago), and that lots more people mumbled for mysterious reasons. My wife had enough and made me get checked out and … well long story short I have a pair of KS10s.
The first time I put them in I heard a lot of stuff but that didn’t bowl me over. I just thought ‘well sure, everythings a bit louder but that’s not that special’. It was when I took them out and half of all that was going on around me just disappeared and the rest sounded like I was listening to it through a pillow. That was a real ah-hah moment.
I’ve had them now for six weeks I think and even now sometimes I go into the app and push the mute button so I can get a real A/B comparison in a specific place. It’s striking. I’m glad my wife called me on my denial BS and made me get checked out. Life changing.
My tinnitus sounds a bit like a jazz band, just not a very creative one.
When I first got my aids the Audi told me to wear them all day every day to get used to them
So when I left him I got on a bus wearing my aids. I was actually startled at all the sounds. I spent some time figuring out where they were coming from. Fare box, windows rattling, bus frame rattling and flexing and so on
I soon realized that some things are worth missing. I never wear them on the bus or train. 
Wow there’s actually someone else who has this on the forum, I have a very mild form of this type, it’s called musical ear or Musical hallucination (MH) for me it’s a orchestra! Oddly I don’t get this all the time tho, as it can and does change to other sounds at times, I think I’m lucky in a way because I actually have to concentrate to actually notice it.
I have 2 jazz bands. Both are out of tune. Focus on one, the other sounds so much more noticeable and so much worse. It’s like every musician is tuning their instrument as loud as they can. A concophonyb.
And they play loud. So anyone talking more quietly I can’t hear. Adding white noise won’t help. It willl be noise still.
I feel the same way as you,I don’t like the feeling at all,in fact it seem a little scary to me,like is my hearing getting worse!
Getting new aids and then being told to wear them as much as possible right from the start might not have been the best idea. You’ll be overwhelmed by all the new sounds like you were on the bus. Your brain needs time to adjust which it will and then you would return to your audiologist for further adjustments to the aids. To tell a person to wear the aids as much as possible right from the get go leads to people not wearing the aids at all. Nobody wants everything to be screaming in their face 24/7
Usually an audi/fitter won’t put a new wearer immediately at full prescription strength, but work up to that over the first several visits (took maybe 6 weeks for me initially). If it’s too much, you need to tell the audi to back off some so you can get to full strength more slowly. That should help the overwhelm, and def wearing all day makes a big diff in getting used to the sounds you’re not used to hearing
A very useful adjustment for those new to aids.
I self program and my Resound One’s have the option in the SmartFit program to auto adjust to full prescription over a given time frame. Both the increase in gain and time frame to reach full gain can be adjusted and the user doesn’t have to do a thing while they self increase gain over time
I take out my hearing aids just before going to bed. The silence is very calming. Before I started wearing hearing aids I can’t remember the number of times my wife would ask me to turn down the TV and now she asks me to turn it up.
I found the silence I enjoy without my hearing aids is way better than the static, the sometimes stunning loud mind and ear-jarring pops, poor mixing abilities, and non-understandable audio mess delivered to me by two of the most expensive and supposedly best brands of hearing aids. Yeah, I’m done with it.
Don’t give up yet, there’s always DIY, sounds to me you could do a better job yourself!
Just remember that your brain will get used to that silence also, and like unused muscles, you lose them if you don’t use them