A few years back I went through what could be referred to as a severe mental health crisis. During that time, I'm not sure what exactly it was - but for whatever reason I didn't want to be able to hear anymore. I think it might have been this warped logic that is I couldn't communicate with people, I could distance myself from everyone and shut myself off more or less. So I started going to an indoor firing range in my area, then I would take off the hearing protection while shooting. I know it's incredibly dumb, but I just wasn't thinking straight at all.
Eventually, this just wasn't enough so I turned to trying to blow out my eardrums. I bought an air compressor and got an attachment that could fit in my ear. I tried doing it a few times, but it just wasn't working how I imagined. So the last thing I did was buy one of those digital otoscopes. I mounted a needle on it and then used that to physically poke holes in my eardrums. Again, I'm aware at how crazy this all was. But to take it further I faked having an ear infection for a virtual urgent care appointment, then made up this story about this being common growing and Neomycin something that worked for me.
So they gave me a prescription for that, and for those who don't know - Neomycin can cause permanent hearing loss if it comes into contact with your inner ear, which the eardrums protect. So using this little poker, made holes in my eardrums and then poured in the Neomycin, then used my hands to create pressure that would push it through the perforations. I will never forget the pain of those drops coming into contact with my inner ear. I've been through a lot, but that was a 10/10 and I nearly threw up each time. Looking back is easy to see how unhinged it was, but at the time it all made sense