Anxiety & Ear Discomfort

[SugarMagnolia]

Hopefully my ear discomfort is the result of anxiety causing tension. But I'm mad at myself for not being careful. Here's my ridiculous story:

I had to do a video conference for work. I've never done this before. Prior to the meeting I was listening to a video that was very quiet, so I had the volume knob on my external speakers turned up higher than normal. When it was conference time, I didn't remember to lower the volume and the voice that came through the speaker was loud. Now it's an external speaker, not a headset, and it was louder than I expected, but I don't think it was dangerously loud. Also, I turned the knob down right away. But my ear felt strange.

It's been an hour, it's a bit crackly, and I can feel that there's a lot of tension in my face. So much tension that I feel it a little on my good side too. I need to relax my mind and my muscles and hopefully I'll be okay. But with my OCD being an issue lately, I've got a bad case of the "what ifs."

This whole video conference thing actually had me anxious before the loud sound even occurred. I did not want to do it. It wasn't easy to admit the truth to myself, but my unease with the technology is obviously the result of my acoustic trauma coming from a conference call. I kept telling myself that this was different. I was not going to be putting a phone to my ear. But I still had a sense of foreboding. Then the voice came through the speaker so loud.

 

[Mystery Reader]

@SugarMagnolia
Oh, man -- how well I know the "what if's?" What's encouraging in your post is where you say "I don't think it was dangerously loud." We start to get a sense of these things as we go along. I'll give you an example -- the other day I was near someone (and in an enclosed space) who did that loud whistle where you put your fingers in your mouth and blow down. I thought, "I'm screwed." I did have some ear discomfort after that, but it passed. I can tell you, though, I was pretty anxious for quite a while. I'm not saying I'd want to be around that kind of noise a lot, and maybe I was just lucky that day, but in some cases it turns out to be not as bad as we think. It's the "not knowing" that can make it worse, sometimes. I hope everything will be okay for you.

Mystery Reader