Need some help right NOW, please.

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I'm travelling home by train. 2.5 hours left. My boyfriend had not booked specific seats so we just had to pick a couple. We got stuck in a carriage filled with kids (I believe they're 12-14 years old) on their way home from some sort of tennis event (which I can tell by their bags). I'm honestly on the verge of freaking out and I don't know what to do.

1. The kids are incredibly noisy. They're talking and laughing and shouting. Not only are they noisy but they're walking around in the carriage and won't sit still.

2. It's warm in here. Too warm.

3. There's not really any room for my stuff on the overhead shelves so I have to keep it by my feet.

4. There's stuff on the tray in front of me. My stuff plus my boyfriends phone. I don't know why but it's like it's contributing to the overload I suspect I'm experiencing.

5. The movement of the train contributes to feeling overwhelmed as well.

6. I'm also worried that someone might've booked out seats so we'll have to find new ones, which will be difficult.

I'm not sure I can explain what I'm feeling. Super anxious I think. I want to scream, cry, hit stuff, shout at the kids etc. The fact that I'm on a train and can't get out of here feels awful right now. The train's really full too and we had to look for seats for quite a while before we found these so we can't really get other seats at the moment.

I don't know what to do and I'm seriously freaking out. I'm sitting here listening to one song on repeat over and over and over but my earphones can't filter out the noise. My breathing's getting shallow and I really don't know what to do! Please, someone, tell me what to do.

I'm sorry if this post is stupid. I just really don't know what else to do right now.

Try closing your eyes and slowly counting to 100 in your mind then back down to zero again, concentrating on the numbers. The background noise is still there but don't latch onto it. Breath in, breath out and keep counting, synchronise the counting with your breathing, each in breathe add one, each out breathe add one and so on. Don't try to fight the noise, just let it be, it comes and it goes, don't latch onto it. Keep counting and breathing.

or close your eyes and imagine yourself in your favorite calm place while controlling your breathing to be slow and deep.

Concentrate on what you can do to feel safer in the future.

I have learned to have earplugs in my purse so they're with me when I need them.

The noise of a train, plane or car can feel very intense. And try what Tallyman suggested, it works. Though I just focus on breathing and don't count.

Thank you.

I think my boyfriend realised how serious it was when I started crying. He went through half the train looking for seats and managed to find some. We moved to those seats and that's where we're sitting now. It's not quiet in here but it's definitely much better than in the other carriage. I'm not freaking out anymore though I'm exhausted and agitated. Just want to get home.

Sorry for starting this thread. I know I probably shouldn't post things when I'm that upset but I didn't know what else to do.

This. Meditate.

If the earphones aren't blocking enough noise, try earplugs if anyone has any? Or make some out of some napkins/tissues or something - just block as much noise as you can.

If you're not familiar with meditation at all, try it in it's simplest form and just focus on counting. Slowly count up to whatever number (say 100) and then back down again to zero, focusing only on counting in your head. You'll tune out everything else.

Are there lavatories on the train? You could go and sit in there for a few minutes to get some space, that's what I do when I have to get away from people in a public area. Obviously not ideal given how cramped transportation bathrooms are, but it's better than nothing. Do you have earplugs or noise-blocking headphones you can use? You can put them over or under your music headphones (unless you have earbuds) and that will block out some of the noise while maintaining the music. If you have a sweater or blanket (don't know if trains offer those the way airplanes do) you can cover your head with it and cut out the visual stimuli, which I often find helpful as well. With the light and visual chaos gone, I find I'm better able to tolerate noise stimuli. Good luck, get home safe!

I once spent some time on a crowded train sitting on my backpack in that space between cars. It might be too strange, but the consistant rumbling of the wheels on the tracks and the rocking wasn't too bad really. It was distracting anyway.

When I get upset at the environment I try if at all possible to get up and move around, walk, anything to get away from it. Carrying some good ear plugs with you might help a little.

I just got home. Survived though I'm exhausted now. I'm off to bed. Thanks again for all the replies.

Yeah, I very often bring earplugs when going places and I had them with me today as well (I mostly just use them when I'm going to bed though). Unfortunately they don't seem to work that well in that kind of environment and I think I probably need to buy other ones. Not sure which ones are good though.

I am not sure how to get 'good ones' but would do a search of sites that cater to heavy duty noise hazards, like industrial safety gear companies, or companies that sell equipment for target shooters/hunters, etc. I was once issued some in the military that were a sort of soft plastic and came in a small canister. Those were ok, but not disposable, so you had to clean them after use. But having the canister made it not messy. I think they were made for working on the flight line (runway) but we had them because we worked on a live aircraft target range. So maybe a company that makes stuff for airlines employees too.

I liked TallyMan's advice a lot.

This too^^ I keep them in my pocket. One time I honestly believe they saved me from permanent hearing damage. I was in a truck with three other guys for 8 hours. The driver had this horrible funk music going with the base all the way up. He turned it up so loud I could actually feel it places besides my ears. The earplugs were great. It was still too loud with the earplugs in but they helped a lot.

I'm sorry that you had to go through that.

I once did some research on noise canceling headphones (to block noise from my large family), and noise canceling headphones are not designed to block out the frequencies that speech is at, at least the cheap ones anyways.

I've gotten more than one pair of noise canceling headphones type that go in your ear that seem to effectively block out most annoying noise, but I usually get somewhat higher quality ones to, cheap ones don't block anything out and don't sound as good either.

Just found this thread, glad you got through this, OP. Very exhausting and distressing. I am like this on journeys made on the London "tube" depending on how crowded and how long my journey, and the last time it happened I was cringing into a corner with my eyes closed, finding it completely unbearable as you were.

I really liked Tallyman's suggestsions and will try them myself if I have a bad journey again in the future.

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