Living with misophonia. Anyone who has misophonia want to chat? My son is a gobbler and I want to do terrible things!!!

[IncompleteSenten]

My son is in the room with me and he's eating.

Gobble gobble chomp chomp grunt ahhhh grunt chomp gobble gobble sigh.

How loaded is your fucking fork if you're grunting like you're deadlifting a horse?

I feel a murderous rage and at the same time i want to cry.

I hate eating with people and avoid it as much as possible because not only do I fantasise about plucking people's eyes out with my fork and beating them to death with it but I'm so paranoid about my own eating noises that I can't force food down and need to take tiny bites and drink water to force each bite down.

My sister is blind and came to stay. We had to eat together so i sat at the other side of the room and I had to have her play an audio book while I had a towel that I shoved in front of my mouth while I chewed in an attempt to muffle any noise I might make.

I know it's a condition people joke about and don't take seriously but it's utterly miserable to have to cope with this.

I want to yell at my son which is unreasonable and unfair so I won't but the pent up rage feels like a physical pain in my chest.

I'd love to talk with fellow sufferers about this godawful thing.

Misery loves company, I suppose.

Edit - my late dad had it too. I remember him yelling at me that my dinner was already dead so I didn't need to growl at it. That is when I started to become paranoid about making any noise when eating.

I don’t think I have a diagnosed condition but some of the noises my husband makes when he eats make me feel murderous

OK he works late but last night when he came in his jaws didn’t fucking stop for 45 minutes including crunching solidly for at least 20 mins. A half pack of butter biscuits and then 4 ice poles. Near the end of it I said to him seriously you’ve not stopped crunching for 20 minutes do your jaws not ache. As for him eating cereal he slurps and clangs his spoon noisily off the bowl whilst shoving it in. And he and my eldest bite their forks whilst eating it sets my teeth on edge.

It only seems to be the past few years the sound of chewing angers or disgusts me. And I only notice it with certain people. My MIL has terrible teeth and tends to mash her food with her tongue (sounds like that anyway). Hearing her eating anything is quite an amplified gum chewer. I don’t notice it if we are over for lunch as people are chatting but when she’s at my house having a sandwich or something I go to the loo or make an excuse. It’s just vile. I want to scream get your teeth sorted (some are fragile or missing- needs dentures or implants)- you can afford it!!!

I did not know that. That's fascinating. I'm going to have a good Google. Thank you.

I definitely have misophonia. It’s so hard to describe the feeling to people isn’t it?

Eating noises aren’t too bad but I tend to have the radio or tv on at the same time.

My trigger is like ice clinking in glasses or people doing ridiculous stirring in a mug.

My long suffering DH loves peanut m&ms but the sound of them knocking together makes me murderous. Now he lines a bowl with kitchen roll and decants them. It seems to help.

I do apologise to him profusely as I KNOW it’s MY problem but some days I literally can’t take it. I think if I’ve had a stressful day at work I’m worse

I'm hyper-sensitive to noise as well. My bugbear is noisy cars – you know, the ones with souped up engines. I've been told people do something to the exhaust to make it crackle and bang like that. Apparently it's illegal, but that doesn't seem to bother them. I can't put into words the rage that goes through me. I'm so hyper-sensitive to the sound that they wake me up in the mornings, even when I have the windows closed and earplugs in.

The UK is a hellish place for people who hate noise. It's overcrowded, plus the houses and flats are small and jammed on top of one another. One of my dark fears is noisy neighbours. I honestly think it would drive me to a breakdown.

Yes ... the accent is like nails down a blackboard to me too.

I am 62 and have had misophonia since I was 2. It started when I had to sit in a child seat on the back of my mums bike and I could hear the ticking sound of the wheel in the hub.

It then moved to food and eating sounds. And smells, they are a precursor to eating. I can't even look at a banana!

I also have issues with textures on my skin, my hands in particular. Pruny skin makes me want to vomit and tear my skin off. I cannot look at pruny skin. It made bathing my son really difficult when he loved to stay in the bath until his skin went pruny (I can barely write it, it affects me so badly).

I also don't like music, clicking pens, tapping sounds etc. I can hear someone outside laughing, probably drunk, right now, I want to go outside and kill her. It's been going on for half an hour.

The pandemic and working from home was the happiest work time I have ever experienced. No apple crunching, no Tupperware or yoghurt pot scraping, no coffee or banana smells, no pens clicking or keyboard hammering.

Weirdly, ( I have been reflecting on it tonight) and it rarely affects me if I've had alcohol, so eating out in restaurants is mostly fine (apart from background music).

With the exception of his pruny fingers and nail biting, my son's behaviour doesn't affect me. My mother on the other hand only has to pick up a cup and I feel nauseous.

I use loop ear plugs which help a bit. I've told my fellow office workers about it, hoping that they might cut up an apple before eating it. But they just think I'm weird (or at least they did until we recently did some training about neurodiversity and there was misophonia on the list! I actually burst out in tears when I saw it there. I knew that at last I could tell them and not be awkward about putting my ear buds in). My colleagues don't see me digging my fingernails into the fleshy bit under my thumb as I attempt to regulate myself and fight off the rage and disgust I feel when they open their stinky lunches. I rarely eat anything at work because of it.

Even some shapes give me the shudders when it comes to eating. I can eat apples cut up, tomatoes have to be sliced, I could not bite into a whole tomato because of its round shape and the sensation of it bursting into my mouth.

As I write I realise how much it has affected my life and I feel sad that it's taken until now to know that I'm not alone, or mad, or an angry person. It's affected my parenting, my relationships and my work. Because it extends to visual, kinaesthetic and olfactory cues it really does affect my life.

I did the quiz that the article links to and there is no doubt that this is real, self diagnosed or not.

@FantaIsFine Re sniffing..

We were doing our 'A' level mocks, and Asif {my bench mate for two years } was sitting behind me in the Hall, and every few seconds he'd SNIFFFF like someone shovelling wet gravel.

I couldn't concentrate, as was waiting for his next shovel of wet gravel.

I opened up a packet of tissues, turned round, and put one on his desk.🧻🧻🧻

The invigilator came striding over, and demanded to know what was going on.

I whispered that Asif's sniffing was distracting, and I offered him a tissue.

The Invigilator said had it been the proper 'A' level, we could both have been disqualified.

Fortunately, other students in the hall said afterwards that Asif's summer cold was very distracting for them, too.

He is now a Pharmacist with all the tissues he needs 😂 - {a lovely chap}

Do you know how it can be reversed? This is interesting because my understanding was that it can't be treated. I'd try almost anything.

I did read somewhere that hearing about other people's triggers can add more misophonia noises to our own repertoire. Reading this thread I'm trying very hard to concentrate on solidarity with fellow sufferers without thinking about their noise cues.

I wrote to the author of the paper linked here yesterday to thank her for finally making this discussable, and she said that good results have been seen with CBT for treatment and reassured me that CBT does not involve exposure to the trigger sounds.

She was also interested in my sensory skin issues, does anyone else have this? (Phobia of pruny skin?).

I don't.
But I do have synesthesia.
Whenever I see or am told about someone getting hurt, I get shooting pains down my legs.
The odd thing is it only happens if it's a small injury such as a paper cut or a skinned knee.

I don't have that reaction to serious injury.

It's very odd

Yes, by breaking the emotive link. If you think about it you are surrounded by noise pretty much all the time - traffic, other people, TV, radio, etc. Your brain decides which sounds are relevant and which can be ignored. With misophonia your brain is on high alert for those sounds because you've decided that they are annoying but will happily ignore a plane overhead or a rooster crowing because you've not ascribed any importance or emotion to them. As a remedial hypnotist I simply ask that part of your subconscious that is overreacting to, well, stop! Once your mind knows there's no value to doing something then it's easy to turn off. Pain works in the same way.

Is misophonia always part of something else?

Ooh that sounds incredibly hopeful. Thank you. Can any hypnotherapist treat this or are self hypnosis recordings available? I was amazed at how effective hypnobirthing was so this might work for me.

There's one texture of fabric that I can't touch or even have in the house. The reaction is less extreme than noises but certainly beyond a normal strong dislike.

Thank you for writing to the author. I'm so glad that this is being talked about. My symptoms appeared in adolescence and it was confusing and stressful for years. I'll look at CBT too.

@Jein Any good hypnotherapist should be able to work with misphonia but always ask first - some might not be aware that it's possible. Not sure about self hypnosis recordings (not a big fan, mainly because I fall asleep within moments!). If you don't get anywhere I can send you a list of practitioners.

I have this thing also where I cannot bear the sensation of my head rubbing against the back of a car seat, or if I'm lying in the floor, the carpet. I can hardly even think of it.

A bit niche, I'll admit.

Not always but often.

I know I'm resurrecting an almost zombie thread here, but I've been invited to take part in some national research in to misophonia as a result of my writing to the researchers at Sussex.

I don't know if they are looking for more participants, but might be worth getting in touch if you want to be part of something that finally starts to get this awful reaction discussable.

Interested @Mxflamingnoravera - would you be happy to share the details please?

Just putting myself on this thread, my 7 year old had misophonia and I feel so bad for her.

@Mxflamingnoravera Thank you for this. DD has now been in touch with Sussex as she’s keen to take part. Misophonia is terrible for the entire family!

@mildlysweaty the link is here: www.misophonia-hub.org/

This is the link i found, there seems to be a few different tests and options, this is the 25 minute study

https://www.misophonia-hub.org/studies/misophonia-adult-behavioural-tests/start

^ Blimey, that test was quite exhausting