AS and fire alarms

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Fire alarms throw a monkey wrench into the gears of my brain. Total shutdown. I can't even think until the noise stops.

Im not happy when they go off, when I was at university living in student halls the fire alarm drill would go off once a week and we each had an electric alarm in each bedroom so I covered it in plastic bags and got in trouble for it and I complained about the fire drills. Arrrhhhhhhhh lots of ear covering

I've never liked fire alarms, but then again, I've never met someone who did... I'm pretty sure they are designed that way on purpose.

I find the ones at work painful. They don't seem to bother other people, who just comment, "Oh, that's a bit loud," to anywhere near the same degree. I have to cover my ears.

Mixed emotions for me... I hate the sound of a smoke alarm, as it stops my brain; dead in it's tracks, and I will NEVER remember whatever it was that I was thinking or planning to do. HOWEVER, I have had my house burn down, and I saw first-hand how quickly it happened, and how it would have been impossible for me to have gotten out if it had been at night and if there were no alarms. As it was, it was in the daytime and there was barely time. It's bad enough that I lost pretty much everything, but I'm grateful that I'm here now 25 years later writing this post! So I feel that it's a trade-off, and gladly accept the annoyance of false alarms and the need to maintain batteries, and to replace the alarms every 50 months. It's a small price to pay! I won't sleep in a building without a working smoke detector, and that is basically the ONLY issue I have ever "forced" on my wife. She has never had a fire, and she only understands the whole fire safety thing based on my experience, and she would remove all the smoke detectors if I didn't make issue of it.

As far as other kinds of alarms that take me rudely by surprise, such as theft alarms in store display cases, etc., I will have to leave the building if it doesn't get shut off FAST. I can't stand it. So many times, in a place like Costco, somebody will accidentally set off a theft alarm while looking at a laptop or something, and the store just ignores the alarm wailing away for ever, and sometimes the only employee with the shutoff key is not to be found.

Charles

At first, the fire alarms at school bothered me, but eventually I got used to them, as the regular bells starting in middle school were a longer form of the fire drill bell. In college, we had advanced warning of fire drills, so some professors ended class early so we were able to get outside before the alarm went off as by the time the all clear was given, class would have been over anyway.

Put it this way, they certainly get me out of the building quickly.

I didn't mind the ones in k-12 school, but the ones in my college dorm drive me nuts. They send me into a panic, and they always go off when I'm relaxing in my PJs with my shoes off, so I have to scramble to put something more suitable on, gather up some stuff and get out, all while listening to that incessant blaring noise. Talk about hell.

I hate the fire alarms. Every time we had fire drills at school, I would have to plug my ears because the noise was so distressing for me. I dreaded them every time because I never knew when they would go off and then to make things worse, fire trucks would come blaring in and that also made things worse. I would plug my ears so much that I actually hurt them but it was just so hard for me to deal with those fire alarms.

I agre about the low-battery beep. It drives me crazy! And fire alarms have always scared me. I remember the first one I ever heard. I was in kindergarten and I started crying.

I can NOT stand fire alarms because they are so loud and I am really sensitive to loud noises!:(

I can't stand fire alarms. They hurt my ears.

I self-diagnosed myself with AS or HFA - I think it is more likely to be HFA since I did not talk until I was 4 years old. What I would do when I wanted something was point and I think I grunted or something like that. Then when I spoke, the first words I spoke were, "Mother, I rather do it myself". Funny thing was that I was parroting what I heard on a TV commercial or program. Plus, I went through a period when I was in 6th grade where I was not doing well in any subjects. Finally with some help with summer school, I did manage to make to 7th grade and Math and Science were my strongest subjects. Everything else, I just got by.

In any event, as far back as I can remember, I have always had an issue with loud noises. In fact my hearing is so sensitive that when I was around 23 or 24 and my Siamese cat went missing for nearly 5 or 6 days. One night it was raining and I had my window opened. Through the rain, I heard a faint meow in the distance. The next morning I went out in the woods across the street where I lived behind our neighbors house and started walking in the woods. I finally heard the meow louder and finally I found my cat up a tree, at least 100 ft away. Apparently, he was chased up a tree by a dog. No one else heard him but me.

Recently at work during a meeting, I kept hearing a sound like a printer sound. I finally figured it out, it was a co-worker in the meeting whose chair was squeaking when he kept turning in the chair. He was about 15 ft away from me on the other side of the room.

So, noises really do hurt me, especially fire alarms. I have to put cotton in my ears when they go off. Even then, it is still a little painful. Plus, I cannot understand what people are saying if there istoo much background noise or if several people are talking rapidly and together in a conversation. All I hear is noise or what sounds like gibberish, much like what you would hear if their voices were speeded up 2 or more times. I also have a hypersensitivity to taste and I cannot tolerate spicy foods hardly at all.

When was young I couldn't stand loud noises, and to an extent I still do. But I work in a large datacenter, and it never fails on Saturdays they work on the alarms. They always seem to know right when I am standing under a klaxton to set them off. Nearly had to be scraped off the ceiling a few times.

Since I work in NYC when ever the alarms go off unannounced it's a beeline to the door.