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. The rage is real. The rage is what gets you diagnosed.

Mine is not over people eating, mine is repetitive noises, a ball being bounced, a pen being clicked.

It has been a lifelong disability. Loop earplugs didn't help, SSRIs didn't help.

Have found a single wondrous side effect of menopause (at 61 yo)... tinnitus. I can focus on my tinnitus and it lessens the misophonia response. Don't know what happens with those who's trigger is white noise though...

I think this too and I speak as someone who wants to do physical harm to anyone who smacks their lips together when eating but I don't!

It is worse with you as she has tuned into it, and she is basically anticipating the noises that annoy her. I experienced it with my own mum until the day she died! I am NT.

I would say unless your dd has other significant problems - she is nearly an adult and needs to recognise this is a “her” problem and hers to fix. It’s unacceptable to blame you and bang around and be unpleasant about it. She needs to take responsibility for her own MH and sort it, not rely on you to mother her. Basically - I learned to bottle it, realising my mum’s feelings were hurt and it was bitchy to make my problem affect her in her own home.

I do sometimes think we evolved in such a way that it’s increasingly uncomfortable to stay tied to our parents once we reach maturity. Hopefully she will fly the nest and with less exposure she’ll find the problem less aggravating when she sees you.

Mine is worse when I'm stressed or otherwise unregulated

It's fine that she had this but she needs to find a way to manage this herself without making it other people's problems. My suggestion based on lived experience for both me and DC is for her to find an activity - swimming, walking, yoga, reading, long baths, singing loudly - something, anything, that makes her feel calmer, and to use this regenerated calm and set it against the stress of other people's sounds. Read about the spoons analogy for chronic illness, and see it as doing activities that don't cost spoons or give extra spoons, and then using them sparingly in certain circumstances to nurture important relationships. She needs to take responsibility for managing this but she can do that..

Sorry this is long

I have this and I wish it wasn't real and I wish I didn't have it, I have it as far back as I can remember, quite a young child. There is no official diagnosis but I do remember seeing a psychologist as a child speaking about these noises and stories my mother told me regarding my behaviour as they didn't know what it was and why I was so angry and would cry all the time with certain noises, it was only in my 20s that I looked into my feelings around this and discovered misophonia.

Different noises are different triggers for us, a person who is a loud eater will be extremely loud to us, a loud eater will sound like they are breathing really heavy through their nose, loud smacking, licking, crunching sounds will be what we hear. Unfortunately we don't choose who annoys us, maybe being around another person more than others we zone in on their eating, my dhs eating annoys me more than my adult children, but one of my brother's annoys me more than my DH, he sounds like he's eating glass when he eats.

Eating and heavy breathing is my worse triggers, there's many but these two are the worst for me. Bag rattling , sniffing, coughing and screaming a close second. I can't be around anyone who's eating an apple as it sounds like glass going around their mouth, eating a banana as it sounds like smacking, slurping nose, crisps are just a definite no with everyone, the bag rattling then the crunching, these actually make me extremely angry, I can feel my heart racing and the blood boiling inside me. These sounds are always extremely loud in my head.

I have gone through everything from quietly seething inside on the verge of hitting someone, storming off, shouting, pulling at my face and ears and head, wanting to punch myself and other people. I'm not a violent person but when these noises happen I am a completely different person. I have gotten off buses and trains mid journey because of the noises from people. I have walked out of small staff rooms in jobs and many more places.

My family know how I am, there's been many talks, arguments over it. I can look back now and understand why I was so angry in certain situations, unfortunately I'm now in my 50s and have suffered all these years and just wish people believed it's a real thing.

Doctors prescribed antidepressants but they didn't help, it's a case of finding which are the triggers and having a plan for coping in place. I have all sorts of ear/head phones, I can cope using ear buds at home with music to drown out certain noises and when I'm on public transport I have to use noise cancelling headphones that nearly suck my ears in with no gaps. It's not wide open spaces it's small enclosed spaces that is the worse for me. Wide open spaces seem to always have other noises that don't irritate me, for dinners here I wear wear buds, or just having the TV on helps a lot. If someone is eating or drinking in the same room and I'm not, I just leave the room and do some else.

I understand that it's difficult for others to not be offended and get angry themselves with people like me.

Something I discovered 2 years ago is ASMR, there are thousands of videos online on YouTube, it's trial and error doing this one but your DD might like to try it, there will be sounds she knows she dislikes but there's no harm in trying it, different sounds work differently for us all, while I may dislike the sound of running water, someone else will find it relaxing, there's every sound on there, have a listen to them and see if there's a sound that relaxes her, when she finds the sound(s) that doesn't irritate her and relaxes her it can come in handy to listen to it for the times she's struggling with noises around her.

Thats really hard for you. I’m sorry she hasn’t been able to acknowledge that, difficult as it is for her, she isn’t the only one who is suffering.

18 is technically an adult but still very young.

as a PP said, being the trigger for misophonia in a loved one must be so very distressing, even if you understand it isn’t really personal, it must feel so very personal!

And no doubt, the condition not being well understood won’t help, when trying to get support.

I hope you can also find support for yourself, and that your daughter can find better ways of dealing with it.

my sympathies.

This.
She may not be able to control how the noises make her feel, but she absolutely needs to learn to control how she reacts to that feeling. The rest of the world is not going to adapt itself to her for the rest of her life.

I suffer horribly from this and of course it can relate to only one person’s noises. I just really try and think of something else but my god it’s hard. I’ve always been sensitive to noise and light, my whole life.

I have misophonia - mouth sounds like eating and heavy breathing and also snoring are my particular “triggers” (for want of a better word).

These sounds send physically unpleasant sensations throughout my body as well as inducing visceral and overwhelming anger / distress.

Your DD does need to learn to be polite and respectful, there’s no need for rudeness. It’s very much a ‘her’ problem rather than a ‘you’ problem, and as considerate as you are to make accommodations to support her, you are entitled to breathe and eat freely in your own home, OP.

As other PPs have stated, ear defenders and therapy are solutions. I don’t rate medication personally.

OP, my DD always wears AirPods, it’s the only way she can cope. I don’t eat if we’re watching TV together. I wouldn’t blow my nose near her. Even though DHs chewing gives me the absolute rage, I still feel hurt when DD tells me I’m chewing too loudly. I think it’s a case bit of give and take, a lot of patience, and possibly a purchase of some AirPods.

Back for more solidarity….it is really hard feeling that your child finds you repulsive for just existing. Sounds dramatic, but sometimes that’s what it feels like. I’ve also become self conscious about eating, drinking and breathing around other people even though those close to me assure me that I don’t do any of those things unusually noisily.

My daughter knows that being rude about it is not good behaviour, but she’s young and she’s having to manage her feelings about it all the time. I feel strongly that her home should be a safe space where we treat each other with respect and consideration. This means we will try to avoid triggering her, and she will try to behave respectfully if she is triggered. We’re all doing our best and we all mess it up sometimes. And that’s OK.

could you ask her, along the lines of: “I know this is really hard for you. Can you see it’s also really hard for me?”

if she can recognise that it might be a start. It’s not her fault, but it’s also not your fault.

empathy is fine, but when you live with someone with misophonia, it is on EVERYONE (but especially that person) to control their actions and reactions.

The DD is 18 not 7. She must learn to control her reaction or she needs to face consequences. My DD has misophonia. As she was growing up we helped her learn coping strategies, and that does include some use of Loop earplugs. It also included reading up on strategies to help the person affected, and to help the rest of the family live as much of a normal life as possible.

but so many have zero empathy for OP who is doing nothing wrong.

Watching with interest, my autistic 18 year old daughter also suffers with this.

However she will do NOTHING to help herself. She has noise cancelling headphones, she says they hurt her. I bought her some specialist ear buds that have wonderful reviews, she won’t even try them. Won’t consider medication.

She just expects everyone else to accommodate her needs 🤷‍♀️

@Mothersruin123 thanks that is what I'm aiming for but it's hard isn't it

I understand that she cant help sounds upsetting her, however she needs to control her reactions / behaviour.
Would she anger / slam if you were at someone else's house, or a different (public) environment? If the answer is no then she is aware of her reactions and that they arent appropraite.
If she would still slam then you need to have a chat with her as you are making as many adjustments as you can for her to help her, therefore she needs to show you the same respect and look into other ways to manage her annoyance.