Struggle at Cold Play Conert

As a Christmas present, my husband bought us tickets to see Cold Play perform at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. For those of you who are not familiar with the venue, it is a huge indoor arena. I was so excited for the concert because I love experiences. I have only been to two concerts in the last eight years because music usually bothers my body. It is often too stimulating. When I say that it bothers my body, I really mean my body, not solely my ears. The night that we left for the concert, I felt optimistic that my health had improved enough for me to be able to withstand the volume of a concert. I was wrong. Cold Play came on stage and the volume of their music overwhelmed me. I could not believe that it was really that loud. I could feel the vibration of the sound in my chest. My whole body felt the music. Ear plugs did not help. I started to sweat and to feel the urge to run out of the arena. My husband had treated me to great seats. Well, he meant for them to be great seats because we were really close to the band but, for me, they were miserable. We were too close and the sound was too loud. I tried to withstand the vibrations. My body was feeling awful. It is a hard sensation to describe. It is extremely uncomfortable. My body feels like it is being attacked and my fight or flight response is triggered. I pushed myself to try to stay in our seats since my husband had paid a lot of money for them. I only lasted for about four songs. We decided to see if I could handle the volume if we sat in the furthest possible seats from the stage. Since the concert was sold out, we climbed to the top of the back of the arena. We sat on the stairs for a few songs. I tried so hard to stay. I kept thinking that if I could just make it through half of the concert, then it would be reasonable to leave. We decided to trade our seats with someone who was sitting in our new section. We just wanted to have seats so that we would be more comfortable. Our plan worked out well because two women were thrilled to be given two tickets to much closer seats. After we had been sitting in our seats for a few minutes, I realized that I might be able to stay through the whole concert. I was still overwhelmed by the noise. I still felt the vibrations pounding in my chest but I no longer had the urge to flee. Had my body become more accustomed to the noise level? I’m not sure what happened. I started to enjoy the music. It was still loud but my body had calmed down. For the last 45 minutes of the concert, I really had a great time. It is frustrating to respond to noise levels in ways that other people do not. I wanted to yell out at everyone and ask them how they could just sit there calmly. Weren’t their chests vibrating out of their body also? Even though this concert experience was stressful on my body, it helped me realize that I am getting better. A few years ago, I would never have been able to stay through even one song.