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Guys help I have PTSD and the fire alarms in my dorm building genuinely sound like some purge alarm and they went off 3 times in one night and for the last 4 nights I’ve been shaking every time I try to sleep and I gen don’t know what to do it’s bad
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Anonymous 1d

Two things- If it’s in your budget- get a REALLY nice pair of noise canceling headphones AND either a pair of wired earbuds or earplugs. Put the earbuds in on something called brown noise (or use plain earplugs if that’s better for you)- and then put your noise canceling headphones over that and play music/asmr/movie on at high volume. You can also do this inverse- with earbuds with music and headphones with brown noise. Whatever feels best. I literally slept through all the alarms last year.

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Anonymous replying to -> #1 1d

Second option is to talk to your psychiatrist about rescue meds if it causes you to have panic attacks. These are like a four pills a month sort of thing in case your body decides to take the panic and run with it and none of the grounding methods you’ve worked on in therapy work (I am in the same boat). Talk to them specifically about a CNS suppressant- but DO NOT mention any meds by name bc they are predisposed to assume you are a drug addict if you ask for anything by name.

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Anonymous replying to -> #1 7h

Thank you so much these are actually wonderful tips. I unfortunately cannot sleep with any noise past like rain sounds so I’ve been trying with my AirPods at max volume rain sounds with noise cancelling on but my biggest issue is I’m such a light sleeper that I always shoot awake when they die in the middle of the night which starts me panicking all over again. I’ll def look into the meds just since I’ve never had much luck with grounding and I’ve been losing so much sleep over this

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Anonymous replying to -> #1 7h

Again I seriously appreciate it. I’ll prob look into seeing if I can get better noise cancelling headphones but it means a lot to have some actual help to consider

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Anonymous replying to -> OP 6h

I have this special pair of headphones that last all night that are called SleepPhones. They’re soft so they don’t hurt your head and they last for like 12 hours. Buuuut- they aren’t really noise canceling- they’re like a headband type thing. I can also recommend getting soundproof paneling for your dorm room. The kind they use for recording rooms and stuff. It helps dampen the noise of all kinds- but I’m not sure how great it would work in your case bc most dorms have speakers IN the room.

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