Thursday, April 28, 2016

How do you cope with noise or other irritating stimuli that are beyond your control? Anxiety

I've run out of options to avoid or silence the noise, and now I'm looking for some way to mentally cope with it.

The problem is our apartment is next to a small food terminal which has refrigerator trucks and a cooling system on the building which are running day and night, I think on timers. It's a low frequency rumbling that escalates up and down irregularly. It's mostly on all the time with occasional breaks (just to taunt me with how blissful it is when it is quiet).

I've tried all the usual ways to deal with noise (earplugs, noise machine, etc). They fail for various reasons. I've become so desperate I've added more pillows to the bed and even hung up thick fabrics around the room in a futile attempt to muffle out the sounds. Obviously that doesn't work.

The more I focus on it, and the worse it gets. Knowing that it is never going to stop as long as I live here makes me feel trapped and frustrated. I'm at a point now where I dread going to bed. I lay down and feel stress and anger rising up at a time I should be winding down for sleep. It usually takes hours to fall asleep even when I'm exhausted. In the rare events that those fans are quiet, I sleep incredibly well and wake up like a new person... unfortunately those nights are rare.

So what I'm looking for are some kind of internal coping mechanisms. Some possible way I can train myself to stop focusing on this irritation and ignore it. Is this even possible? Has anyone else found a way to cope with irritating and inescapable stimuli that are beyond your control? Or is moving away the only option (not really an option at this time).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. If you have a similar experience and want to vent I'd love to hear that too, it would be nice to know I'm not alone with this as my boyfriend handles the noise just fine, and that makes me feel worse about myself for not being able to tolerate it.



Submitted April 29, 2016 at 11:28AM by VorticellaC http://ift.tt/1Ti7vuL Anxiety

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