Initially, apologies for any formatting issues – I am writing this on my phone and this is my first post.
For background, I (18M) am currently in a long-distance relationship with my partner (also 18M) of two years. My partner – I’ll call them Q for privacy – struggles with what we have assumed to be BPD and intense anxiety. I have done my best throughout our friendship and relationship to research and cater to the things they need to feel comfortable, and I like to think l’ve helped him build a somewhat stable roster of coping mechanisms and strategies to help him when he needs them.
Our relationship began in 2021, and because we are long distance, I messed up my sleeping schedule to stay up with him whenever he had a bout of anxiety.
Recently, I’ve been making efforts towards fixing my sleeping schedule, and Q has arranged to see a therapist regarding his anxiety and BPD.
The problem is that I fall asleep very quickly. We will message goodnight to one another, and 10 minutes later, I am fast asleep. Often, Q’s anxiety heightens at times like 1 or 2AM, and only recently have I not been there to help.
I’m not making this post to complain about Q having a go at me for sleeping through it, or to bash him in any way. While a little disheartened, they’re very understanding of my situation and do not blame me in the slightest.
I’m here to ask if any of you have advice regarding how to wake up to the sound of notifications? Or anything that can wake me up in general? Please and thank you, I’ve been feeling so guilty recently.
2 comments
There’s limits to any device. No way around that afaik. You can crank the notification/call volume to max, and it just won’t get louder.
What you *can* do is use tones that are more strident or irregular so that your brain isn’t as likely to filter them. Something like air horn sounds, or music you hate.
And, if you change those regularly, your brain doesn’t get too used to them.
Your only other option is to hook up your device to an external speaker that is powered and can go louder. The problem with that is *all* of your notifications are then amplified. It isn’t selective.
There *may* be exceptions to that if you’re on a rooted android device via something like tasker that will only bump volume for one contact, but you’d need more specific advice about that app and how to set it up. I’ve never messed with tasker enough to know it’s possible for certain, much less how to do it.
On iOS, no such thing exists.
You can check at r/tasker to see if it’s possible. If it is, and you don’t want to root your current device, or you’re on iOS, it is possible to pick up older android devices that are root friendly, though that’s an entire essay in itself.
But, again, I don’t know if it’s possible, I’m just trying to guide you to where there may be better answers.
Mind you, it would still likely mean you’d need to do some tweaking and a good bit of experimenting if you aren’t already familiar with rooting and such.
Put your phone under your pillow. It’s hard to sleep through a pillow shrieking at you and vibrating.
That said: I am intimately familiar with these kinds of problems, both personally and with loved ones. I completely understand that you want to be there to comfort your partner. And there are times when you should do that. If they’re in physical danger, for instance, you absolutely should wake up and speak to them on the phone.
The problem with an anxiety disorder is that *every* anxiety attack feels like a crisis. An emergency. Anxiety is the very natural alarm system we have in our brain going off at inappropriate times.
It’s important to be able to manage an anxiety episode alone. Calling you up every night is what is known as a *maladaptive coping strategy*. What that means is that although it helps in the short term, it has significant downsides and harms a person long-term.
It’s fine to do this for a while. Just make sure that your partner brings it up to his therapist so that they can work on replacing the maladaptive coping strategy with healthy coping strategies.