The bell ruined my school life

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Same here. My theory is I've been misdiagnosed with schizoaffective and ADHD, but my doctors do not listen to me. So yeah, the bell drove me nuts, I spun around a lot and eventually adapted. Yay me.

Heh, when I was in elementary school, nobody there knew about Aspergers' Syndrome, so some of the faculty thought I was strange. My third grade teacher used to be rather crabby with me, and it wasn't just their fire alarm giving me problems (as the school had no functional bell system, and still doesn't to this day). I recall having to go to the principal's office once or twice a month when she couldn't stand me, or some other problem involving me would happen!
My brother told me that after I left, things got WORSE there. But that's for another topic.

At least my high school teachers were more understanding, as autism awareness was more common by then. The students were another story...

Oh by the way, this is what the bells in the school I went to for kindergarten looked like:

(Most of Brockton's schools had the habit of putting a bell next to each fire alarm.)
Those bells sounded like THIS: http://www.audiomicro.com/chimes-bells- ... cts-150409 (CAUTION: Loud!)

The gym had bigger and louder bells:



These are the "regular" bells we had at my middle school:


And this is what the quieter chimes they had in some parts of the building looked like:



I used to always synchronize my watch to this Simplex master time control panel so I would know exactly when the bells would ring. It broke down in early 2010 and was replaced with a newer model from American Time and Signal, but the old bells and chimes are still intact.

I went to a charter high school that used several old elementary school buildings within walking distance of one another. We had bells, but they weren't used. Instead, teachers would walk around announcing loudly that it was class time, first in the morning, and then after lunch. No tones, no PA system.
One time, some joker decided to activate the bell. All the kids in the building were PISSED.

The school 'bell' at my secondary school is not even a real bell it just 5 very loud beeps. It's pretty useless as well as it doesn't ring at the end of break and lunch (because years 7,8 and 10 have different breaks to 9,11 and 12). Dang I hate that 'bell'.

I will use British language in this post.

I just had a phobia of bells. It was easier to avoid in primary school because the bells normally rang when we were in the classroom or the playground (the bells were in the corridors) - although assembly was hard because there was a loud echoey bell in the school hall and it would ring when assembly was over. If the kids filed out noisily it wasn't so bad because it could mask the sudden ring of the bell a bit, but sometimes the teachers made us file out quietly, which meant the bell would suddenly echo around the hall and even made some of the other kids jump. But it was worse for me because I'd anticipate it, which was very anxiety triggering.
So I had no alternative but to put my fingers in my ears - which made me look autistic and was probably why I got my diagnosis.

At secondary school it was much harder to avoid being near bells. The bell would ring during the changing over of classes, so you had no choice but to be in the corridor under a bell. I always took the outside route if I could, and hung about a bit outside until the bell rang.

Yes, the bells ruled my school life.

There was nothing particularly "British" within what you wrote. I understood it perfectly. And even if it was "British," it behooves me to do research, and to expand my knowledge, rather than criticizing something that I can't comprehend right away.

Sorry you had to go through the crap with the bells. But it's over. You don't have to endure this any longer.

I go through anxiety-provoking things all the time. They make me suffer for the moment. But after I succeed in enduring this, I move on.

The Number One thing that I find keeps people down and depressed is harping on the past. I had a pretty lousy past, too. If I let my past affect my present, I wouldn't be able to see the forest for the trees.

^
It's because I had no choice but to put my fingers in my ears when around a bell that is about to ring, even though I was aware of what I was doing and didn't have any other choice, and what freaks me out about it is that that is how other kids will remember me forever. I tried to be cool in my last couple of years at school, but standing there with your fingers in your ears is not cool. It's just plain autistic.

I used to do that, too. I didn’t care what the other people thought. It was just too loud.

It wasn't that it was too loud for me or anything, it was just that I didn't like sudden loud noises. I still don't now. If I know a sudden loud noise is going to occur at any moment, I have to get away or put earplugs in otherwise I'll get horribly startled, my arms will involuntarily jerk out and I might even choke. It's a horrid feeling. Sometimes the shock can last 15 minutes or more, with my heart pounding. It's just my nerves. If there was a fire drill, I wasn't bothered by it at all when walking under a bell, because it was continuous. I don't mind continuous loud noises.