Dds 18 severe misophonia : intolerance to sounds (mainly mine )

[PomandersandRedRibbon]

Can anyone help ?
It's so bad and it's mainly me to the point where is if sit next to her she jumps up angirly.and slams things about. Defiantly can't tolerate my eating and I think it's my breathing as well.
Other sounds like keyboard etc obvsiuky i.can help

She wears headphones slot of the time

I have misophonia but I have learned how to control it and I would never overeact like this. Your daughter just needs to learn how to control her reactions better.

Public transport is the main trigger for me, I have to use headphones.

Says someone who doesn't have a clue about misphonia.

Noise cancelling headphones should only be worn for short periods of time , otherwise the brain gets used to the quiet as normal and normal sounds are then heard as louder. Her condition is usually connected to anxiety or having sensory processing issues. Does she have any other symptoms. Antidepressants support anxiety and anxiety brought on by other difficulties so may help her if this is the case.

I have it. I'm prob autistic as dd is and my dad but no diagnosis for me. I cope ok so won't bother. Just assume.

Anyway. I wear earplugs a lot.

Or headphones.

That helps.

I can't share a room with dh and hate it on holiday when we have to share.

I have to leave the room a fair amount or have music on or tv when eating.

It's a pain to live with go me and dh.

Sneezing - specifically my DH. Other people talking on hands free in the car and music late at night (although this is coupled with trauma from childhood).

When my DH sneezes I feel like a thunderclap has gone off in my chest. It is the worst feeling and causes terrible rows. Weirdly its just his sneezes, they are very forceful. Similarly if I am a passenger in a car and the driver is talking to somebody on hands free I want to cry and run away.

Misophonia is awful.

Tbf, it's much easier to cope if your main trigger is something like public transport. Far more difficult if your triggers are being around family members eating. I have misophonia (not that anyone had any idea it was a thing in the 80s). My response was to stop eating around people. Being the 80s, I was usually given no choice to eat by myself, so I just.... stopped eating.

It really is a visceral response, and no easier to repress than any other involuntary feeling of disgust or extreme discomfort.

More generally, I agree that the DD needs to be supported to find more appropriate coping mechanisms, but getting angry with her and telling her she's being ridiculous won't help.

Reading this, maybe I have misophonia.
If I hear someone snoring, I want to murder them (especially a stranger through a hotel wall).
I hate the sound of any machines/pumps humming or buzzing.
I want to murder any neighbours who play a TV loudly/ have wind-chimes/ a buzzing hot-tub.
I want to kill the dog who wakes me with his incessant barking every morning (and his annoying barks are the last thing I hear at night).
My kids’ whingey-voice drives me crazy.
I hate anyone who lets their kids watch iPads with volume up and no headphones.
I hate the random person in a restaurant with a loud braying voice and laugh, who is 10 times louder than everyone else.
I hate any unnecessary noise, especially when the person making it is willfully inconsiderate.

Nature sounds are absolutely fine - pelting rain on the roof/ a howling gale/ hailstones, etc.

I forgot the annoyance of a dripping tap - I once had to move hotel rooms since the shower wouldn’t stop dripping.
Also hate petrol-mowers and leaf-blowers in summer.

This is what I was thinking

I have misophonia to some extent

It was really bad when I was that age. But I never shouted at anybody. I did have to leave the room when my parents were clattering around unnecessarily. They thought I was being really over the top, but I did it politely.

To some extent, I had to deal with it in order to commute to work so I had to work on keeping myself calm

Didn't have the wonderful array of headphones that we have now - I think in recent times I've forgotten mine on the commute once and I did feel really upset about it but you just have to go to work and get on with it.

but I am wondering if this is more of an anger problem for your DD @PomandersandRedRibbon and it's current manifestation is misophonia.

I have got better as I've got older, but for example the sound of children playing and that frequency that toddlers talk at drives me nuts. Unsurprisingly, I don't have kids.

I can't explain it very well, but there are some pubs where I would just walk in and walk straight back out again. I'm not saying I never go to noisy places, but for some reason some places are harder than others. And some days it's about your frame of mind. Sometimes you can hear under the noise if that makes any sense.

My DD has this. She is now allowed to eat in another room. Allowing this and her beige food preferences has improved her overall mental health. It’s called low demand parenting. Look up dr Naomi fisher. My Dd is autistic for context

Wow some people have 0 sympathy.

I'm a physician myself and was diagnosed with it. It's often linked to generalised anxiety disorder.

SSRIs are am option. Definitely get her loops to wear, I wear them in work.

Don't know if this is relevant but this thread resonated with me. I think I'm likely autistic and really struggle in a shared office space. I can't concentrate at all to the point I get completely overwhelmed. The sounds of people typing, talking, laughing, phones ringing, footsteps, doors banging etc. It's like sensory overload.

Does she have good headphones? We have Bose QuietComfort headphones and they have amazing noise cancelling. There is 'quiet mode' and 'aware mode'. With aware mode, it modulates the sound but allows conversation.

My misophonia was absolutely the worst with my mum - I wanted to scream at the noises she'd make and it made me so utterly angry inside. I'm generally a very happy go lucky person but the feelings it gave me were so not me.

My mum has sadly passed now and over time, my misophonia is much better - it doesn't trigger in the same way though I cannot abide noisy eaters and I still need to eat with sound about me - the tv always has to be on if I'm eating with other people. Its only the last few years that I'd even heard of misophonia and the revelation that it existed went a long way to also helping me deal with it.

I could have written your post, as I'm in exactly the same situation with my DD.

We tried (very expensive) therapy that targets misophonia and claims a 70% improvement in most cases; it didn't make any difference to DD unfortunately.

For now, we've just learned to live with it by eating separately, but we can't be in the same room together unless the TV is on or there's some other background noise (e.g. other people in the room) as hearing me swallowing triggers her. Even the most effective headphones wouldn't solve the problem as she can't cope with even seeing me eating.

@PrismOfCynicism thanks ,my sympathies what type of therapy did you try.

Yes, this is pretty much why I took SSRI most of my adult life. I could never have had a career without them.

Although now you've said it, it strikes me that I also took them within a couple of years of entering the working world. Then there was a bit of a break then I carried on taking them for decades after realising I couldn't manage without.

They really help with the sensory overload problem

I don't take anything now, but if I need to again, I will.

@PomandersandRedRibbon medication will probably be way more effective than therapy.

Misophonia is real!! Typing is the absolute worst noise for me. I have 2 colleagues who eat like animals and I camnot be in the tearoom at the same time.
It really does provoke a strong reaction so I sympathise with your dd.

What does she do when she’s out of the house OP? When she socialises for instance.

Maybe ask for a referral to Jane Gregory? https://oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/ohspic/team/j-gregory/

I’m wondering if you are still reading OP.

I hope you can sidestep the responses that come from ignorance of what misophonia is. If I hadn’t experienced it myself, I might think like that too.

it must be so distressing for everyone involved, you, your daughter, and the rest of the family.

I’m wondering, does your daughter understand that it isn’t your fault, that the noises you make affect her so badly? Is this something you can talk to her about, when she is calm?

is she willing to try and control her reaction to her feelings? Can she separate those two things, the distressing angry feelings, and the acting out of those feelings?

it sounds like hypnotherapy might be worth trying. There’s a lot of different hypnotherapists out there, and some are not as highly trained or qualified as others. The best hypnotherapy qualification is someone who is also a psychotherapist and is registered with the UKCP. I worked with someone like this for an anxiety issue. I see he works a lot with different forms of OCD (misophonia seems to be related to OCD), and anger management, and is also qualified to work with children and adolescents. If you want his details, message me.

@PomandersandRedRibbon We tried Sequent Repatterning therapy, which - as it says on the website - was developed specifically to help people with misophonia. It sounded really promising and we did initially think it was working, as DD wasn't triggered by me having a cup of coffee when we were out not long after her first session, but it turned out to be just a one-off, unfortunately.

She gets annoyed about other people eating loudly, but I'm the only person who triggers her (and I don't even have to eat particularly noisily to do so). I've read that people with misophonia are often most triggered by people they're close to, which is often their mother - definitely the case with us. We get on fine otherwise, but she becomes extremely tearful and quite aggressive if she catches me eating (which hardly ever happens any more). She always apologises afterwards, I hasten to add.

@GentlyDoesItt when I've tried to talk to her about it she has immediately responded about herself and how awful it is for her which I know which is why we make any allowances she wants
I hoped for.some.reocgnition that it's also awful for me having a child whose almost allergic to me and has made every meal stressful end made me very self consous about eating ( obviously didn't stress those parts ?

@GentlyDoesItt I think grandma has OCD or something like it and possibly the granddTher in law side

As a child she has these on off random ticks

I do understand how difficult this is for the person with misophonia, I have what is prbably a reasonably mild version of this myself. I sometimes really struggle with collegues eating in the open plan office at work, or even drinking water or tea etc. The swallowing sounds. I sometimes have to leave the office over lunchtime in particular. I also sometimes struggle with DH's eating sounds and he is not a noisy or loud eater at all. It is much worse with DS who is very noisy when he eats

However I have seen this from both sides, as DS for all his noisy eating, also gets annoyed with me in particular for how I breathe and eat. I find being the one whose nosie is unbearable much harder to deal with than the misophonia for some reason. I feel like it is an attack on who I am fundamentally and it makes me very sad, which is much harder for me to deal with than the anger and disgust when the unbearable noise is from someone else.

I would actually rather be the one with misophonia than be the person who is the main object of that misophonia. I am.not sure I would stay with DH if he felt about me the way DS does with regards to breathing and eating