Musuta Kusaka's Everyday Journey with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Japan

“People don’t break all at once. They break one by one, and by the time you realize it’s bad, it’s too late. That’s the pattern for everyone,” the ENT doctor said, taking off his reading glasses and running his hand over his beard. He sounded like a political scientist lecturing on the mistakes of war.

Then, lining up the test results papers, he continued.
“Rest immediately. Your hearing can still return now.”
My hearing suddenly worsened, and I rushed to the doctor.

The day before, late at night on Monday, March 10, 2025. When I took a shower, water got into my left ear. And it wouldn’t come out. I wiped it with a cotton swab, or hit my head with a one-legged jump, but it didn’t come out. The water was completely blocking my ears. “Well, it’ll come out when I sleep,” I thought.

But when morning came, the sound in my left ear remained muffled. My daughter’s “Good morning” sounded distorted. I was worried about how far away her voice was. This can’t be caused by the water. I went straight to the ENT doctor and had an examination.

First, the medical interview. It was a questionnaire to be answered on a tablet. I was bombarded with 178 questions, covering everything from my date of birth to my medical history, employment status, mental state, and even my diet.

As I continued to fill out dozens of unhealthy and unhealthy answers, I began to feel more like I was being interrogated than questioned. I wonder if this questionnaire was a roundabout way of encouraging me to reflect on myself.

Next came the hearing test. When a sound was heard through the cool headphones, a machine similar to a remote shutter responded. It was the familiar buzzer quiz.

The nurse who saw my test results frowned and said, “I think the doctor will tell you about the results. Please sit on the “left seat” for a while. For meetings and meals, etc. If you sit on the “left seat,” you can catch the sound with your right ear.” Isn’t that pretty much the result? I had no time to wait for the doctor to tell me, but I could imagine what the condition of my ears was.

Speaking of imagination, the sense of balance was better than I expected, or maybe even worse.

The tests I took included one to measure the sway of the center of gravity. I had to close my eyes, stretch both arms out to the sides, and repeatedly stomp my feet on the spot. I also had to stand on a machine that looked like a weighing scale and stare at a point on the wall, a test that was like standing meditation. Both results came back abnormal.

Especially the eyes-closed stomp test. Apparently, when people close one’s eyes and lift legs one, two, one, two, most people end up moving in unexpected directions.
But in my case, distance was added to the test. I started from the center of the room, and within 30 steps, my fingertips poked the fabric. I must have touched the nurse in charge. I opened my eyes and said, “I’m sorry!”, but it was a curtain. The test was forced to end. I turned around, and the starting point was far behind me. She shouted, “Please stay there for a while. Not many people go to the window,”
and gave me both instructions and feedback at the same time.

After the test, I moved to the examination room, where a doctor wearing thick reading glasses came in, flipping through papers with the test results. “Kusaka-san, it was your left ear that you said you had trouble hearing with, right?” “Yes.” “Right here. This graph,” he said, circling part of the paper with a ballpoint pen. “Your hearing has deteriorated in both ears. Much more than last year.”
The graph showed red and blue lines. The gap between the top and bottom looked like something had evaporated.
“Oh, so I’ve lost hearing in both ears?” “You have severe hearing loss.” What an unpleasant refrain.

He then pulled out a sheet of paper and continued his explanation. “And here. Your sense of balance is also quite disturbed. To the point where you feel drunk or dizzy. Your semicircular canals are weak. Does this sound familiar?”
Semicircular canals? I had a feeling, but I assumed it was just dizziness. “It could be Meniere’s disease.”

“The cause is chronic overwork. First, take a month off. Your return will depend on when your hearing returns. The first stage is until your hearing returns. The second stage is when your hearing stabilizes. Even if you enter the second stage, your hearing may fall off again depending on how tired you are. So first, talk to your company and tell them you want to take as much time off as you can.” I didn’t understand the difference between the first and second stages. All I understood was that I should take a break until my hearing returns.

But I know this feeling. The day to pay off a debt that I’ve been putting off has finally come. It’s that feeling. The accumulated fatigue and stress are finally paying off. I have to pay the interest with my body. My ears are ringing.

For about a year now, I’ve been suffering from tinnitus that resonates in the core of my head, like a microphone feedback. It starts in response to strong stress. Until now, I’ve tried not to think about the future, assuming that “everyone is like this.”

Then it finally developed into hearing loss. In addition to working continuously since the New Year, my work that had lasted for six months came to a halt at the end of the fiscal year. It was on March 10th that I found out I wouldn’t be paid. That was the end of my stress allowance limit. There’s no doubt about it.

I wanted something to use to negotiate with my company for time off. When I asked the doctor for a medical certificate, it said: “Diagnosis: Sudden hearing loss, dizziness. It is expected that immediate rest and treatment with oral medication will be required.”

“Even if you rest your body for a long time, even if you take enough time to forget about work, your ears may not return to normal. This time, you will need to approach it from a mental perspective. I think you should also consult with your current psychiatrist.”

I was rather surprised that the ENT doctor was looking for an approach other than mental. Speaking of ears, it’s a mental thing. That’s what I thought. I see. So even just physical fatigue can affect your ears.

Without even being prompted by my ENT doctor, I made an appointment with my psychiatrist because my depressive symptoms had worsened prior to my ear problems, and medication alone was no longer enough to keep me going in my daily life.

My psychiatrist, whom I met for the first time in a month, had a short bob haircut. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear looked different from usual. “Did it trouble your ears?” “Yes. I got a medical certificate.” “Shall I get this one too?” I didn’t understand why two medical certificates were necessary. It felt like I was scraping together an excuse to run away from work, and I felt guilty. Is there really such a thing as a way to run away so openly?

She began to explain while typing something on her computer. Her voice was difficult to hear because it was mixed with the sound of typing. I turned my right ear towards her. “There are various symptoms of depression, but when you feel down and your mind doesn’t work for a long time, it’s called a depressive state. If I were to write it on the medical certificate now, that would be it.” “Um. What is the difference between depression and a depressive state?” “Depression is the name of the disease, and a depressive state is the name of the symptoms. There is a world of difference.”She spread her arms and eyes wide to express the difference.

“If you take time off work and your depressive state doesn’t go away, it’s likely that you have depression. Your brain function will remain impaired. If you leave it until that happens, you’ll have to take two years off to get treatment, which is a lot of work. You’re in a dangerous
situation, too.” A depressive state and depression might be like the mouth and the basin of a waterfall. I’m going to the psychiatrist, but I’m fighting the flow. In fact, this was the first time she had clearly stated the name of my illness. If it’s a medical certificate, you have to give a name to a fluid state. I felt like I had a glimpse of the difficulty of approaching from a mental perspective.

“So, how do you tell the difference between being depressed and just not being motivated?” “It depends on whether or not you make mistakes. One of the symptoms of depression is a decrease in concentration, and if you continue to make mistakes like this, you will cause trouble for those around you, so everyone will step down. Everyone would have taken a leave of absence long ago before it got as bad as Kusaka-san’s, normally.” That’s what you would say sooner, wouldn’t it? The fact that there was another medical certificate seemed to make her talk more casually. Everyone wants a push in the right direction.

Her medical certificate said, “Name of injury: Depressive state. It is expected that you will need to rest and receive treatment for three months from ● month ● day of 2025.”

Two medical certificates for hearing loss and depression. I submitted them to the company as if I was trying to take two swords at the same time, but surprisingly they were accepted without any hesitation, and I was given permission to take a leave of absence. Even more unexpectedly, my boss told me to “take a leave of absence irresponsibly,” while my colleague reassured me by saying, “You can push it onto me.”

However, the reason I ended up like this is because I have had to fill in the gaps left by personnel transfers and take over the work of members who were taking leave at the same time. From being pushed to being the one pushing it. Who is going to be happy with this bomb relay?

However. I was pushed to a point where such idealism was no longer valid. Maybe it was an opportunity to reconsider the way I work, or rather, the way I live. I have to change my culture. I didn’t have the time to think such plausible things, and I was completely at a loss. I had imagined myself feeling relieved when the doctor told me to stop, and secretly excited about the vacation, but in reality, I was just confused and worried. There was no sense of relief.

So, what should I do now? For now, I’ll start by losing the visceral fat, also known as “belly fat,” that I gained 7kg in just three months. My ENT doctor told me, “Just rest your body. Even just breathing takes energy for humans. Don’t use your brain, either. Stay away from the computer.” 

But I’m writing this blog, breaking the rules. I won’t let this be broken. It’s okay to have at least one thing like that.