And the Consequences
There is this weird phenomenon called "Hyperacusis" - it is pretty alien. It is a loss of hearing at the same time coupled with a hypersensibility towards sounds, mostly high-pitched ones.
Hyperacusis can be caused by traumatic acoustic events or exposure to loud environments for a couple of years, or an inflammation of the middle ear (mostly during childhood it can go unnoticed).
In any case, one's eardrum gets ruptured and scarred. One has a dropoff of 10-20 Decibels in the higher frequencies, but is, as said, also extremely sensitive to loud noises in that frequency band.
In hindsight, it cannot be told, if there was a previous injury that was worsened by an incident or if it was due to the incidence itself, and/or a former problem, like an inflammation as a child.
I myself experienced this. It hurt, and the day after I could not get up, because I felt really dizzy, after all, our hearing apparatus is also responsible for our sense of balance.
And all of a sudden every noise, be it the radio or the TV or talking felt very loud and uncomfortable to me.
The doctor's diagnosis came as a shock to me, since I am a musician and heavily rely on my sense of hearing. And nothing can be done about it.
The consequences are, I have trouble understanding speech and am totally helpless in loud environments. The action my left ear takes when something unfitting arrives is to shut down and make an uncomfortable Tinnitus noise that lasts for a few minutes, which hurts.
The other weird part: my right ear kind of chimed in, achieving „Hypaccusis“ - not to be disambiguated with Hyperacusis, it is a simple loss of hearing.
I created some music because I got invited to a project – I did it Beethoven-style: Deaf. I could not listen to it at all, actually.
I had let some customized hearing protection made for me, because I am a man of music and I want to go to concerts. They work pretty well, even in the hardest part for me: The handclapping of the audience.
This experience changed my sense of hearing profoundly. I could not listen to my own music for quite a while – but now my hearing is faintly better, and I am not so much afraid to lose it at all, anymore. I took up a job in the field and found balance in how to adjust volumes for me, and to use hearing protection on the right occasion.
Here is my deaf composition: https://pwgen20.bandcamp.com/album/get-this-32-tracks-for-free-a-tribute-to-peter-rehberg
It is the first track, called „Alarms“. I am now able to listen to it and have my dog sing along.
By nokturnal