Earache

There is this pressure that will not go away. A stabbing, a throbbing, sometimes a dull pulling that radiates into the jaw, the throat, the neck. Every swallow hurts. Every sound becomes too much. You grow thin-skinned, sensitive, irritable — even a normal conversation feels like an imposition. Your ear, the gateway to the world of sounds, is inflamed, closed, on high alert.

Medically, much can be explained. Middle ear infections, Eustachian tube inflammation, irritation of the ear canal, pressure changes, infections. All of that is real. But why does it affect this particular organ? Why does the ear of all things hurt — the organ responsible for the finest of all the senses, for hearing? The psychosomatic perspective asks a simple, uncomfortable question: What have you heard that you no longer want to hear? And what are you no longer listening to in yourself?