To be at my wits end re dd and her melt downs over loud chewing and slurping....

[PolkadotCircus]

......which ended up with her going to school with half a packed lunch and me screaming like a banshee.

Really don't know what to do.It's really starting to have an impact on our family life.

Dd nearly 8 has this weird obsession over loud chewing,crunching,sniffing and slurping.She doesn't have SEN and apart from being a minx now and again she's a normal bright 7 year old with a great sense of humour.

Soooo if she hears any of the above she sobs,gets uber angry and literally can't control herself.

She has 2 brothers who are now eating meals on tender hooks.1 had a cold last week and omg the fall out.

Aside from screaming at her I'm all out of ideas.She grudgingly admitted today that she could stop herself but she doesn't, it happens over and over again.I'm starting to dread breakfast as it's the one meal I can't send her up to her room(she gets very wobbly if she goes without food for too long).

1 of her brothers is getting very nervous re eating meals and the continual mealtime stress is making me .

Sorry to post here but I need the traffic and ideas of how to handle it.I've tried everything.Today I threatened to contact school and frogmarch in her nightie,she begged me not to and admitted she could control herself saying she would in future(heard that before).

I want nice serene breakfast times of a school morning like other families have.

Help-please before I explode(again)!!!!

Ummm, believe me I do. I have just realised that you can't stomp around in a rage all the time when you hear these trigger sounds.

Do you think it's acceptable to fly into a rage because someone is chewing gum near you? It's ridiculous to say to an 8 year old girl that this behaviour is fine. It won't help her to win friends and influence people.

As an adult, I leave the room and don't stomp around no, but I cannot just sit it out either. I would definitely recommend to the OP that she lets her DD listen to music at the dinner table.

Be prepared to notice other triggers along the line.

My very first mn post. Wow. Firstly, to the OP, well done for asking when you clearly had no notion of misophonia. I only heard of it last year.

The first incident I can recall: must have been 8 or 9. I shared a bedroom with my sister. There was an 'electric' clock. I have no notion of how long it had been in the room, could have been the first night, could have been weeks (though I doubt that). It made a 'sound', regularly. I became very agitated very quickly. I was crying and creating a fuss. God knows what my sister made of it. She is 4 years older. All I know is my mum came in to find out what the fuss was about. All I could say was 'it's the clock, it makes a noise, and I know it's going to make a noise and I am waiting'. This was all through near hysterical tears. Thankfully for me my mum unplugged the clock. I honestly don't know what I would have done if she had told me to shut up and left it. It felt intolerable.

I can relate so well to people who have posted that they feel absolute rage and tearfulness. That is exactly how it is. For me it is mostly sniffing, whistling, slurping from other people but also noises from 'other places', e.g. Bass from stereos or tv. I have left public transport at the first available opportunity on many occasions. It is NOT something I can control. I also just thought I was an intolerant, mean, spoilt bitch for finding other people so 'offensive'.

So, OP. your daughter really really cannot help it or control it. Bless you for seeking answers beyond chastising her for being prissy. I always have my iPod in public spaces and that helps enormously.

For posters who suggest that we all dislike noisy eaters etc. it really is something else. You truly cannot understand unless you suffer. Good luck to everyone with misophonia. May your nearest and dearest 'get' it.

BringMeTea, great first post and welcome to mumsnet.

Gee thanks Scrazy. It did feel quite momentous.

I have this too. Some times I have it under control - I put myself in a trance and distance myself from the rest of the world. It doesn't work when I need to stay alert when I am in meetings, but it helps when I am sitting next to a disgusting man repetitively 'unsticking" and wiggling his false teeth on the train etc. We pretty much always have the TV/music on when eating so I can direct my focus elsewhere. When I was younger my mum let me read comics whilst I ate which helped immensely.

My biggest hate though is ticking clocks, I broke one once when I was younger because I had been lying in bed for two hours wide awake, feeling the anger build and build. Got in so much trouble (my dad restored antique clocks as a hobby and it was £££) but he didn't leave clocks outside my room anymore. I also can't bear to be touched repetitively - DH absent mindedly caresses or strokes me and still looks quite shocked (after 12 years!) when I swipe his hand away. I don't mind if its random but as soon as a pattern is established the irritation starts to build. He knows thoughif I say 'Rarrgh' quietly that I am having difficulty processing something and will help me deal with it in social situations. Its my safe word that also helps let some of the anger out.

I have this too just like your daughter and I have had it as long as I can remember, from at least as young as 5 years old. To the posters saying you need to nip it in the bud before it gets worse, am afraid that it is not as easy as that. My parents punished me if I made a fuss about eating noises and the end result was that at meal times I just bolted my food down as quickly as possible and asked to leave the table. I have no nice memories of family mealtimes, they were torture for me.

Now as an adult with a family of my own, it is still a problem but I find I can actually enjoy meals if we have music on in the background. My parents dont like that when they visit us, but they have no choice now!!

So my suggestion, take it seriously but don't let it dominate your mealtimes or make your sons feel on edge. Find some way, earplugs (these make it worse for me) or radio on or something.

Wow. It's very reassuring to know that other people feel the same way as me about eating noises. My children's noises didn't bother me in the slightest until they reached about 7 - now it drives me mad!
I do seem to be more annoyed by family, though a fellow student eats an apple at the start of every afternoon lecture and it makes me want to punch her. Eating with my DM/stepfather causes extreme anxiety to the point where I could cry. Strangely, the dog's noises don't worry me at all.
DB has similar issues and once when we visited the cinema had to move seats 4 times due to noisy popcorn eaters.
OP - I agree with the other posters who've advised you to try to be understanding and let DD eat in a different room if she needs to, but also to ask your other children to remember their table manners without making them feel paranoid about eating.
Your DD can't help how she feels - I wish I didn't have these issues as eating with certain people causes a LOT of anxiety.

Naicedude, I used to get catrage! We had one cat that really used to bolt its food, complete with lots of noise. I trained it to eat nicely

Fascinating thread, PolkaDot. Thanks for posting. :) I never knew this was an identified syndrome.

My friend's AS DS has misophonia. Over the years 7-11 as it got worse, he was banned from school dinners because he would freak out at the sound of chewing; and then assemblies became a problem because he couldn't stand the fidgeting and sniffing. School allowed him to wear headphones in assembly, which helped. As a teenager, he listened to music

I think it's definitely worth asking your DD about how she deals with school noises, partly because she may need support, and partly because if she has developed some coping strategies there, she may be able to 'transfer' them to use at home too.

I wouldn't say I have misophonia myelf, but I do understand the level of extreme anxiety that noises can prompt. Sometimes I get beside myself to the point of sleeplessness or tears (or occasionally anger) at really very small sounds, especially when I want/need to sleep. I have never been able to sleep with things like clock radios in my room because of the electrical hum; and noises through walls are almost worse than ones in the room. I feel ridiculous but I can no more control it than I could control fear if a tarantula climbed up my leg!

Fascinating thread, PolkaDot. Thanks for posting. :) I never knew this was an identified syndrome.

My friend's AS DS has misophonia. Over the years 7-11 as it got worse, he was banned from school dinners because he would freak out at the sound of chewing; and then assemblies became a problem because he couldn't stand the fidgeting and sniffing. School allowed him to wear headphones in assembly, which helped. As a teenager, he listened to music

I think it's definitely worth asking your DD about how she deals with school noises, partly because she may need support, and partly because if she has developed some coping strategies there, she may be able to 'transfer' them to use at home too.

I wouldn't say I have misophonia myelf, but I do understand the level of extreme anxiety that noises can prompt. Sometimes I get beside myself to the point of sleeplessness or tears (or occasionally anger) at really very small sounds, especially when I want/need to sleep. I have never been able to sleep with things like clock radios in my room because of the electrical hum; and noises through walls are almost worse than ones in the room. I feel ridiculous but I can no more control it than I could control fear if a tarantula climbed up my leg!

i have this too and i never knew it had a name until another thread a few months ago. eating, sniffing, coughing... my poor DP has had to try to break habits he never knew he had! its much much worse when im tired. there was a manwhere i used to work that i would be close to tears at the thought ofsitting near him all day every day as he used to cough loudly exactly the same way once every few minutes... i couldnt understand how nobody else thought it was a problem!

Kind of worried re the person who said people with this have troubled childhoods.

OP, I had a shit childhood. I do think, however, that my intolerance of sounds that other family members found totally innocuous was part of the reason why my mother and I were at loggerheads so much of the time: she just thought I was "an intolerant, mean, spoilt bitch for finding other people so 'offensive'," to quote a previous poster. And that's how I saw myself too, for most of my life until I googled "I can't stand repetitive sounds" and found out that I'm not vile, I just have a problem.

I know that other posters have said that you need to teach your DD that it's her problem and that she has to learn to deal with it, and I agree with that up to a point - but only as long as "learning to deal with it" doesn't boil down to "just put up with it." If you have misophonia, you can't just put up with it. As another poster said, it would be like expecting an arachnophobe to sit there calmly while a tarantula crawled up their leg. Personally I think you need to tread a fine line. I think that for her sake you need to acknowledge to her that you accept that she is distressed. I think you need to explain to her that she experiences sounds differently from the way other people do but that she's not a freak because of that. And I think that she needs to be allowed to do what is necessary to minimise her discomfort in ways that are not upsetting or offensive to other people - and that may mean allowing her to eat alone sometimes and helping other family members to understand that she is not rejecting them personally.

I have always referred to myself as having a "noise allergy" - weird that it has a proper name. Although my problem with noises is not nearly as bad as Polkadot's DD, it is definitely not something I can control.

Like other people on this thread, at home I always have the radio on during meal times - and I never thought why that was. Now I realise how much it would have helped me if I could have worn earphones as a child (I am extremely old and walkmen had not been invented yet) - it would certainly have saved a lot of screaming rows with my brother, who still eats like a pig, and with my mother who took his side. Like other phobias, it is a matter of finding coping strategies. So punishing the poor girl and expecting her to get over it or grow out of it is just cruel.

Someone earlier mentioned hating repetitive touching. I hate this too! DH knows that he must not stroke my skin, specially not my arm, it drives me nuts.

Until this was mentioned, I hadn't a clue that the touching thing could be part of it.

I am so relieved! It really winds me up.

Naicedude

I left the extractor fan on tonight while my ds's had their dinner and there were no problems at all during the meal!

Auntpepita, I'm the same. We live in a terraced house and ican often hear the noise from the neighbours tv. Drives me up the bloody wall and then I can't relax at all. If it goes quite, I end up stressing about the fact that it might start again.

Other things I have thought of since first reading this thread. I have felt like a mean so and so for years because of these.

The way my grandparents slurped their tea.

My grandad sneezing, so loud. Would make me so angry.

The way some people eat. Put food in their mouths and then keep their hands there.

People who sniffle, instead of blowing their nose. Yes you DP.

DP's clicking noise when he's sleeping.

dP's snoring

DP sneezing. So loud. I always say, 'oh for fucks goodness sake!' Even in my sleep. He thinks I'm really unsympathetic. But then again I used to live with someone who did that sneeze while holding their nose. Just sneeze properly!!!

My neighbour snoring, which I can hear through the wall.

Tv or any base-y sound through the wall. Beeping noises don't bother me at all.
I used to live with someone who had a whistle-y nose, like that guy from alley mcbeal. Aaarrrggghhhh!!!!

People who eat with their mouths open.

The way DP has to scrape the last teeny weeny bit from the yogurt pot. That scraping of a spoon on that plastic or plastic-y cardboard.

The way DP gulps a glad of juice of squash or water. I can hear his throat working.

There are others but I'm getting stressed and angry just thinking about them.

I've never told anyone about these before. I do still feel like a cow though, even if this is an actual condition.

Glad = glass

I can't stand eating sounds to the point that I struggle to control myself. Its started when I was about 8. I used to eat in a different room from the rest of the family, I also can't stand sniffing noises either. My DH is the most disgusting eater I have ever heard, he actually sounds like a dog when he eats but I have managed to sit at the table with him most meal times, I just try really hard to focus on something else. If I'm really stressed I can't process it out and can't eat with him. I hate being like this, the noise really makes me want to cry and scream (I don't as I've learnt to control it), I also hate loud noises, its like they hurt my ears so banging cutlery off plates really annoys me too. I'm sorry I have no advice but just wanted you to know that its not just your DD, I loved eating my meals alone as a child, it was a huge relief even though it meant my table was the washing machine!

I had to post again to say I'm so sorry for my very angry sounding post.

I can't sleep at the moment as I'm always waiting to be 'disturbed' by dP's snoring or one of the dc waking up in the night. I used to sleep with earplugs all the time but am trying to wean myself off them as I'm not sure they're so good for my ears.

OP, thank you so much for starting his thread. I really thought I was just a bit of a mean person, but knowing that it's not just me is so helpful.

I really hope your DD manages to find some way of coping so that she doesn't become too stressed or isolated. Apologies for my ranty post. I don't know what came over me. The red mist probably. again.

Take care. xxx

now that you know your daughter is not alone abd what it is like us with misophonia, i hope youve stopped shouting at the poor girl. knowing how difficult it is to stand the noises i felt desperately sorry for her reading your op