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RJDG14
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02 Jul 2014, 11:50 am

Ever since about the age of 7, I've found certain loud noises scary. The two that I have in mind are fire alarms (all sorts - smoke detectors, bells and sirens, this also goes towards school bells) and PA announcements, which can be heard in a number of places (shops, airports, train stations, and several others). Usually at school if there is going to be a fire drill, I'm notified, and will only stay in the lesson up to the point of the alarm going off when there is no alarm in the classroom. Back in around Y5, I was very worried about starting secondary school due to bells, however I was then told that the main school for my area only used its bells as fire alarms, not for regular intervals (which made me much happier). I actually wet myself on a couple of occasions when fire alarms/smoke detectors sounded. One time was at school in Y1 (afterwards they told me about the timings of when they would be). The other was at a childminder's house at the age of six.

Onto the second topic, PA announcements. I'm scared less of the talking on these, but more by the chimes which are often heard on many systems before the information. Usually I can go into shopping malls (often they have few announcements, and there are plenty of shops to go into where I can hide from the noise), but for supermarkets and ferries, I often have to listen to loud music, which has stopped me from hearing high pitched noises (such as the Mosquito). I simply refuse to fly because of the requirement for electronic devices to be turned off during the first and last few minutes of each flight (and when going through the metal detector at the airport). Often if a "ding-dong" goes off when I can hear it, I will often go into panic, almost like I have had a boost of adrenaline.

Nobody who I know at my school is very accepting over my issue of PA announcement chimes, and I really need major help on the issue. I am almost getting over the issue of fire alarms, yet not the chimes. Please try to help me. How common is it for someone with Asperger's syndrome to be scared of large shops for exactly the same reason as me?



Spitfyr
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08 Jul 2014, 8:14 pm

Yeah, this is extremely common. I have it too and I am notified of fire drills also. The PA thing is a little bit odd though. It doesn't bother me as much and at the most startles me slightly. (Just a reminder, if you are using the loud music to drown the PA out, don't forget to turn it down again after it's over. I've forgot before and started playing it the next day and it scared the living sh*t out of me.)



RJDG14
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10 Jul 2014, 2:40 am

Spitfyr wrote:
Yeah, this is extremely common. I have it too and I am notified of fire drills also. The PA thing is a little bit odd though. It doesn't bother me as much and at the most startles me slightly. (Just a reminder, if you are using the loud music to drown the PA out, don't forget to turn it down again after it's over. I've forgot before and started playing it the next day and it scared the living sh*t out of me.)

I can usually cope if it is just talking through a PA announcement - I only have a major issue if there are chimes beforehand. Especially certain pitched ones.