Hey quinn_gordon,
There's information in this article that may help: Change the settings of your AirPods and AirPods Pro.
Also, check to see if headphone accommodations is enabled. If so it may be a specific setting that was changed. We suggest turning off headphone accommodations by going to Settings > Accessibility > Audio Visual > Headphone Accommodations. For more details about this settings, review this article here: Customize headphone audio levels on your iPhone or iPad.
If you continue to experience the issue, you can isolate it by testing the AirPods on a different device. If the same happens on a different device, it's isolated to the AirPods. If the issue doesn't happen on a different device, it's isolated to the iPhone.
Hope this helps.