Perfect Hearing, but I have trouble hearing

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I went to an ear doctor and turns out my hearing is nearly perfect, way better than most my age. But the whole reason I went to the ear doctor was that I have trouble hearing people speak. I tend to miss words even when I'm paying attention.

I try my best, but I often mishear words or I can't focus on what a person is saying.

I also have problems speaking for long periods of time, I will be talking and then I will have forgotten what I am talking about. For example,

(I've been an avid environmentalist ever since I saw a documentary on the side effects of irresponsible fracking. I'm always disheartened by the great amount of food wasted by people when they eat as well as the large amount of trash that people are always throwing on the floor. Did you know that several tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year and resulting in the deaths and mutated births of birds and fishes? It's not that difficult to throw plastic in the trash right? So we should... Uhm, what I was talking about again, I remember talking about fracking, and I'm drawing a blank, it's something something about the environment. GOD DAMN IT. it's on the tip of my mind.) Usually, it takes a bit longer than this for me to lose my place, but I cut it down for the sake of brevity.

Often it takes me a few to several minutes to remember what I was talking about.

Does anybody know if these symptoms point to a mental condition of some kind. Trouble hearing with perfect hearing, and ability to forget what you are talking about mid-conversation.

You are not crazy but there may be something odd going on; autistic people (so I heard) often tend to tune out sounds or confuse them. I was experiencing the same and had my hearing tested. It scored uncommonly good but I still miss things and have to tell people, "Sorry, I can't hear so great."

And though I have 20-20 or even 20-16 vision and excellent hearing, I sometimes look or act like a very nearsighted person who's hard of hearing because I have to pay very close attention to something in order to figure out what it is or what is going on.

It might be some mental condition, but if it's not leading you to sin & perdition, why bother? You have the option of being really worried about it, or just enjoying the fact that you have awesome hearing but still have to get people to actually SPEAK if they want you to hear them.

I guess you are able to hear quite well but not to process what you are hearing and your short time memory isn't the best. I would suggest to read a lot of books because it teaches you typical phrases and you'll get them more easily if talking to people. Beside of this it trains your imagination which is a bit related to the short time memory.

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Auditory processing disorder ?

@quite an extreme, I read a crap ton of books (Mostly fiction), I prefer text to audio, I often get confused by audio.

@Borromeo, still it gets in the way of normal life, makes you look slower and dumber than you actually are. I guess I'll still tell people I have bad hearing.

@firemonkey, auditory processing disorder does look a lot like what I experience.

If I'm in a flow state I may have trouble understanding what someone is saying until I drop out of it. I can hear something but not process it. I'll drop into a flow state to do something very quickly. One fix is to wear headphones and listen to something while working.

CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder/Delay).

@BTDT I don't know what a flow state is, but I often wear earbuds at work or school, took a couple of years for me to realize, wait, this seems disrespectful, doesn't it? It helps me filter out noise, which is calming, but my problem is that I can't hear when I need to, I can't keep earbuds on if I need to hear what a person is saying.

When I start to come out of a shutdown or a partial shutdown, I can hear the words people say in plain English, but only some words make sense. It is as if I am listening to a foreign language.
When coming out of a partial shutdown, the people around me usually do not know I have had one, and as I am trying to avoid using my brain to think as I could easily slip into a shutdown, I can be slightly abrupt or if someone is asking a question I will ask them to say it again and again, and when they become frustrated and say "Do you understand?" I will say "Yes" just to get rid of them so I can recover even though I have not undeerstood what they have said. This has had me into trouble in pkaces I have worked as work collegues won't realize that I have been in a partial shutdown to begin with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
In positive psychology, a flow state, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the mental state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time.

@Mountain Goat, I often nod my head and say "I got it." even when I don't fully process a conversation, since it takes me a while to actually process the words, and sometimes I get confused.

That reminds me I sometimes (it doesn't happen too often) have the problem of saying one word when I meant to say a different word. That's led to some very embarrassing situations. For example, I am thinking "It's hot." I say "It's cold."
Or "I'm full." "I'm hungry."
or "You have fifteen." "You have five."

I'm not sure why I have that problem, I thought I had Aphasia, but then I realized my verbal problems were nowhere close to being that severe.

@BTDT, I totally get that, I often need to be in the zone to be productive. The difference is substantial, I am about 10x more productive when I am in the zone. The problem is getting into the flow state.

Could be noise filtering. It's not that uncommon among autists tbh.

Yep autistic people often have issues with auditory processing. I often struggle to work out what people are saying to me until slightly after I’m expected to give a response, so I’ll say something generic to fill the gap. I also sometimes mistake random background noises for voices, and the sound of cars going by can sometimes sound like rain falling on the roof.

It probably isn’t anything to worry about.

I loose the thread of what I’m saying quite often too, I’ve developed a workaround:
I hold my right hand up about a foot in front of my shoulder and slightly to the right and slowly rotate it clockwise at my wrist, in essence a slow-mo handflap.
It works for me, I almost always remember where I am and what I’m saying, and it almost always makes other people sit back and wait for me to carry on. Assume it reads as ‘buffering’.