Does everyone feel like this? Mysophonia?

[MaintainTheMolehill]

I always thought everyone was like this until DH said it's just me.
I cope fine with loud noises, concerts, shouting etc but if there are two loud noises or more at the same time, I can't cope and find I am panicky, agitated and angry.
For example if the TV is loud and someone is talking, I feel like this.

Does anyone else or AIBU?

You know how travel companies do packages for different things, like skiing/adventure/luxury/sensory/small and friendly or whatever, well they’re missing a trick. They should do Quiet Holidays. No background music, silent heating, no plane noise, no fucking snoring, no phones at all, no keypad tones, only soft carpets, rubber coated tables, slightly plastic cutlery and crockery. I’d be there like a shot.

No minibar that buzzes at night. No annoying refilling toilet cistern. Quiet-closing doors. Room service by text.

And no sniffing. At all. Ever.

I have CFS/ME & am autistic, things like going to the supermarket are really difficult for me because of the noise, I usually wear my ear buds & play music quietly to mask things like noise from the checkouts.

It could be ADHD too.

At Christmas dinner, the hosts had music on and I couldn't hear anything anyone was saying. Awful.

My husband has a cold right now and his coughing is making me angry.

It's really hard.

Me too. I hate a lot of noise, I hate loud noise and I really really really hate the sound of people eating and drinking. I could never watch that TV program "weeds" because the main character was always loudly sucking iced coffee or other cold drinks through a straw and it gave me the rage. I liked every other character in it, but I had to fast forward her horrible horrible sucking noises.

Ikea on a Saturday afternoon. I was really looking forward to the retail experience. Until it all started spinning around me, shouty voices, everybody clattering and nattering and jumping in and out of chairs and kids screeching and parents shouting and piles of plastic boxes and people walking everywhere and shouting everywhere and chasing kids everywhere and arguing everywhere.

I was fecking out of there mate. 5 minutes tops. Fuck the meatballs.

My husband has a cold right now and his coughing is making me angry

See, that wouldn't bother me beyond feeling a bit sorry for him that he's not well. Unless he was sniffing with no attempt to blow his nose. Then I'd have to smother him.

I think we all have the same 'disease' but with different triggers.

Intolerable Noise Syndrome.

This is me but then I am autistic like so many others on this thread.

Multiple "noise streams " at the same time mean I can't filter out what I need to focus on - this is especially bad with human voices. If two people are in conversation with me at once 90% of it instantly becomes gibberish to me. I have been known to freeze in place if a lot is going on around me. It makes life extremely difficult, especially at work.

I don't care about noise generally, however the sound of people eating with their mouths open or crunchy food like carrots when it's quiet makes me need to leave the room 🙉

OP I think your feelings are reasonable, but perhaps the level " can't cope, panicky, agitated and angry." of response is on the high side.

I don't like noise muc, and what you say would irritate me, if it was within my control I would do what I could to minimise- turn off TV etc. If I couldn't- a noisy restaurant or someone else's house I would grin and bear it until it was over.
I wouldn't like it but I could cope.

@speakout well yes, that's what differentiates people with a genuine mh/neurological issue and people without one.

You can cope, we can't.

I am like this, I’m not on the spectrum. I did have a hearing test some years ago where they confirmed that although my hearing was fine on one to one it was reduced by background noise and certain noise patterns.

When I work in an open office if it is noisy I wear headphones and listen to music. Many people don’t understand how I can do this, but I can filter out one noise and concentrate but I can’t filter out the office chat, phone conversations, music, doors banging and phones ringing. It has got worse as I’ve got older.

Doesn't help that my Dad is partially dead

I guess that could be a bit of a problem all round

I live with the world's noisiest eater. I often leave the room because of the volume and I can hear crisp chomping from the kitchen when he is in the front of the house.

How on earth can someone crunch chocolate so that it sounds like walking on a gravel path?

And banging cutlery on a plate, not just scraping which is bad enough but bashing it down with each forkful. Eating should be quiet.

I can’t stand competing noises - TV on and someone watching something on their phone, or DS playing with a noisy toy, or two people talking at me about different things at the same time. I often end up putting my fingers in my ears!

Goodness so many of us. I discovered this word several years ago and it really helped knowing its an actual condition. DS is aspergers so I suspect he got it from me. Like pp I'm fine with loud, love clubbing (well i did pre kids) but sounds like a rustling bag or whoosing fan sounds like the extractor fans, both children trying to talk to me when the tv and radio are on will send me into an absolute rage. I have to work really hard not to lose it. I've learnt that I need ten mins every now and again to go upstairs to the bedroom and play on mumsnet/reddit with no sound to calm down. Having noisy children might not have been the plan plan for me 😂

Sniffing, slurping and loud eating causes this reaction in me... ever since I was a child.

It caused no end of arguments in my house growing up as my parents thought I was being dramatic and moody for no reason. It’s utterly horrendous the angry reaction is causes in me, literally a red mist descents and I feel like I could genuinely kill the person doing it. I really wish I wasn’t like this. I work with a woman who is one of the loveliest people you could ever meet but when she slurps her tea I have visions of bludgeoning her to death with her mug... it’s not bloody normal! 😩

I'm like this. Turning the extractor fan off is like a physical relief.

Like other posters I get overwhelmed when there is more than one source of noise. I panic and stop thinking clearly. For me it just makes me freeze and once I calm down I can often block the noise out mentally (so things like tube journeys no longer bother me much). But parties or clubs with loud music and plates and glasses chinking and people shouting over the music are unbearable. In similar situations my mum has actually vomited because the noise distresses her so much.

I do wonder if our difficulty with noise is an ASD trait, particularly as my brother’s son has been diagnosed with ASD and I understand there may be a hereditary element.

Google Auditory Processing Disorder.

I'm autistic and did a lot of reading while I was waiting to be assessed. That's how I came across APD.

I'm writing this in a hotel while having breakfast. Reading helps me to block off noises (so reading MN threads has been great). Writing doesn't seem to work as well. There are 3 tables of people near me, all having simultaneous conversations. Yuck. At least they're not speaking English so I'm not tracking the conversations which would have been even worse.

I always assumed that everybody did this and found it equally tiring until I read about APD.

Yes me. Not quite as bad as some people on this thread but I do get irrationally angry when there is too much noise going on. My old boss used to think it was really funny when there was lots of people in the office at times and I struggled to cope with it.

I dream of working on my own in a quiet environment! Modern life is set up for noise living extroverts though.....

Living with someone with Misophonia is awful.

It's much more than just not liking a noise or getting a bit anxious/hating noises.

My DM has it, and certain triggers (crisp packets are especially bad) send her into a Hulk-like rage.

As kids if we wanted to open something we'd make sure DM wasn't around; if we did accidentally cause a trigger noise around her she'd hit us.

To avoid the triggers, she doesn't ever go to the cinema or travel on public transport. She can't sleep in the same room as her DH because the noises he makes (breathing) trigger her.

It's an awful thing, she literally can't help it.

I can’t stand the sound of people dragging their feet over certain types of hard floor. I remember as a child having to go to beach cafes that had sand on the floor and people dragging their flip flops. I found it unbearable.

For me it's two fold; multiple noises cause my "brain" to shut down and secondly the RAGE.

If there is background noise and then someone asks me something (kids!) My thought process sort of slows down and I do stupid things for example I'm making a cup of tea, kettle is noisy, kid comes in and asks for something then I just drop the cup and it smashes. Regularly!

Or I forget where stuff goes.

It's like being super distracted.

I do not like repetitive noises (sniffing, chewing, buzzing, beeping, alarms etc) and that causes major rage!! I could kill. Also repetitive tapping, clicking, humming, leg jiggling etc.

I can only cope with removing myself from the noise. The "distracted" noise thing is trickier because it catches me out everytime.

Hate it.