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Listening to loud emotional music through headphones makes me crash

svetoslav80

Senior Member
Messages
700
Location
Bulgaria
Yesterday - just started to recover after crashing for 3 weeks, I felt like I wanted to give myself some pleasurable experience - put my headphones on, increased the volume and played some emotional music (I have a very deep emotional response to music). After about 20 minutes I felt a bad headache, but continued listening. After half an hour I felt overloaded - put the headphones off my ears but it was too late - I crashed again. Feeling very stupid now. Has someone experienced the same?
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Can't stand much music. It's sensory overload. I often wear ear protector when I can't control the sound level when in crowd situations, or if I am flying.

Best, Kati
 
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Effi

Senior Member
Messages
1,496
Location
Europe
@svetoslav80 Music is one of the things I miss the most. I can't take more than a few minutes on very low volume, but even that is usually so draining that I'm unable to enjoy it. Don't beat yourself up over this. We all do stupid things all the time, and then regret it when we crash. :hug:
 

whodathunkit

Senior Member
Messages
1,160
Sensory overload, especially auditory, can still wear me out, and I consider myself 80-90% recovered from my symptoms. If I win the Powerball I plan to move to a couple hundred acres in the country and put a house up smack in the middle of it, so I can leave my hearing aids in all the time without being assaulted by emergency vehicle sirens or traffic noise EVER AGAIN.
 

Izola

Senior Member
Messages
495
@svetoslav80
I am so sorry you had such a bad crash to your music. To be so tied to music and not able to listen must be some level of hell.

Background sounds were already too much even in my first few years into M.E. I still can't do Walmart, etc., or much of anywhere at all and car radios must be off.

I still have massive sensory overload but give up music? Forever? No way. I still relapse over most everything, but I am learning to meditate with the music.

I couldn't listen to music for almost a decade. Anyway, with the kids and their friends I had all I could do being so ME debilitated and a parent.

Thanks to the dozen, more or less, of kids who spent their afternoons at my house I would drive them to the store and give them the grocery and snack money. They did the shopping. I napped in the car.

Often, I'd wake up with breathing sounds over me. It wasn't the cats, the dog, the rabbits, the rat or the hamster. It was always one of the gang of kids quietly waiting for me to wake up because he or she needed to talk.

Long after the kids were gone and after several years of in and out of consciousness, I gradually started to listen on my laptop in bed. I started out really quietly, no headphones, no more than a whisper, at first. Very gradually, over a couple of years I could, on occasion, ramp it up. Now there's not too much limit. Only volume and taste and I have adapted to fairly quiet. Truth be, the speakers on my laptop do not do great volume. That helps.

I hope really, really gradual eventually works for you, too. iz
 

rosie26

Senior Member
Messages
2,446
Location
NZ
I have had to leave places where there is loud music. My mother took me to this place where they were shouting a free trial of health drinks, 3 drinks, the last drink my mother told me was really delicious but I could only make it through the first drink ( horrible tasting one too - yuk, it was awful :rofl:) because the music was loud and thumping, my POTS symptoms were coming on badly and the noise sensitivity made feel very nauseous.

I went up to the counter and told them I had to leave because I had an illness ME and the music was too loud for me. I was feeling too sick to have any more conversation with her. She possibly would have turned the music down but I was too far gone feeling sick. I just wanted to leave.

I do listen to music but prefer headphones on and volume at comfortable low level.
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
Sensory overload XXL ! Can't ear music, I feel sound as a major threat, especially those with rhythm. It really drives me nuts, screaming and shaking, and the result is always PEM.
I get a very similar reaction feeling as hanna, it's not just sound but also the rhythm, the constant beats of it affects my brain and head (it was like a brain jarring) and makes me feel like I just want to start screaming as it can become completely unbearable..but sadly cant scream as it would cause more mental overload (its horrible). If it continued once it got too bad, I can end up shaking or going into hysterical out of control crying at which point Ive basically by then lost my reason (and can no longer be quiet to try to look after myself)

This kind of thing happened to me when I was in jail with building noises and I couldn't ask them to put the radio on for me during the whole 10 weeks I spent in the isolation cell as if I did and then needed it music off once I hit my tolerance level, they make one wait and my brain wouldn't have handled that and I would of gone into an extremely bad emotional state.

I can only listen to not too loud music for not too long, it isn't relaxing to me due to the ME. Its sad as I cant even enjoy music properly and I used to love music. My head copes best in a quiet environment without stimuli. background tv voices though I can tolerate as long as it isn't too low where my brain strains or too long, I often fall asleep to TV.
 
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Izola

Senior Member
Messages
495
Hi all: Tania, I would have gone stark, raving lunatic nuts with all the building noises. You must have had a strong constitution to survive. I can't help but think Post Traumatic Stress followed your awful incarceration. I can't listen to pounding beats either, nor competing racket. Store music almost always makes me crazy. Some store will turn it down for you if you ask and explain.

I dropped flat on the floor at Walgreens, paralysis and all, one day. Now the music isn't that loud there anymore.

The staff notices when I'm lost or frustrated and come to help me. They know my shopping list almost better than I do. One day I came in and the manager's arms were filled with some of the stuff on my list. He had a big grin on his face.

They package my stuff so I know which has to go in the fridge so I don't have to put every thing away right away. They organize the rest. They make sure I have a taxi waiting so I don't have to wait in weather. They are such kind people.

They truly are angels. Were it not for their kindnesses I would have no way of getting necessaries.

I have to rest two or three weeks to go to the doctor for my injections and then to the pharmacy. I am getting worse because no one else, including my doctor, understands post exertion neuro-immune exhaustion. except for one knowledgeable paramedic.

My doctor says I am getting better because I don't come in so often. I try to explain but my verbal language doesn't work much after I have been walking, sitting and standing and when the pain becomes torture.

Poetry has always been a comfort to me ever since I learned to read and write it. I often read it or recited out loud while hiking, backpacking or climbing. Others had their earphones on.

All my books, thousands, were stolen when I was out cold from ME. (Mine started with a severe encephalitis.) Mostly I listen to Dylan or his lyrics. It's poetry.
 
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Messages
21
I seem to tolerate going to a club every now and then if I numb my system with alcohol. I only do this if I've been feeling okay lately or if I'm already high from adrenaline. This is very weird to me. On most days I prefer a quiet athmosphere though.
 

u&iraok

Senior Member
Messages
427
Location
U.S.
For a while I couldn't listen to music at all. It coincided with not being able to read. After some supplements that helped my brain, I'm now able to listen to music again, thankfully.

I also noticed that I lost my music appreciation so that all music sounded flat especially classical which I was super bummed about but that's back.

No way could I go to a concert, uh uh, no sir. no maam, nooo buddy.
 

svetoslav80

Senior Member
Messages
700
Location
Bulgaria
Update: I'm done with music, forever. I just crashed again. I thought that only music through headphones would make me crash, but it seems that is not the case. It happened that I was listening to music a few times through the speakers and I didn't crash. However today I was listening a little longer - the same speaker, the same volume, but continued listening for a long time - an hour or so. And at the end I realized I've crashed. Let's hope this will be my final lesson.
 
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BruceInOz

Senior Member
Messages
172
Location
Tasmania
I find it's the kind of music that matters just as much as the volume. I can more tolerate softer, gentle music. The biggest problem is with music that fills the full range of frequencies. That will sap my energy very quickly, as will loud crashing noises. A gentle voice to an acoustic guitar is tolerable, but I very rarely listen to music now.
 

svetoslav80

Senior Member
Messages
700
Location
Bulgaria
I find it's the kind of music that matters just as much as the volume. I can more tolerate softer, gentle music. The biggest problem is with music that fills the full range of frequencies. That will sap my energy very quickly, as will loud crashing noises. A gentle voice to an acoustic guitar is tolerable, but I very rarely listen to music now.
There's another factor in my opinion - emotions. Prolonged emotional state, even when emotions are positive, can be exhausting, and eventually would make me crash. I guess this won't happen with some calming music but in my case, I was searching for emotions on the first place.
 

Glycon

World's Most Dangerous Hand Puppet
Messages
299
Location
ON, Canada
Poetry has always been a comfort to me ever since I learned to read and write it.

Same here. And on top of finding it difficult to listen to music, I also cannot tolerate the emotional exertion of reading poetry. The fact that my favorite poet wrote a lot about chronic illness doesn't help. :cry: