To ask if you have misophonia or sensitive to neighbour music/loud music

[vogue87]

what are your mental coping mechanisms? I believe I have misophonia so hoping to get some tips from others who suffer.

I cannot do headphones or earphones but white noise or fan helps me block out the physical noise. But even if I have successfully covered the noise and cant hear it I am thinking about it! and then find myself trying to listen for it

So I mean more mental coping mechanisms, is there anything you do to help you calm down and focus and make your brain ignore it? Do you have any tips?

It has been an awful summer of noise so far and I struggle so so badly with loud music from other people it absolutely makes meltdown, it is miserable. I am hoping other people might have some tips to help me cope.

If I could pay to retrain my brain to not care I absolutely would in a heart beat

I've had noisy neighbours who moved in when I lived in a terraced house. When I complained to the council, they didn't even have to put a noise monitor in my house as they could hear the noise in the street.
The neighbours were right a*holes & used to literally torture us after the first noise complaint.
They would start playing really loud bass/dance music at various times during the night - only for 10-15 mins but just enough to wake me up. A fan used to help but just not knowing when they would play the music almost drove me mad!
Now if I hear loud music, especially from a booming bass line, coming from a car or house, I start to feel panicky - fight or flight.
I moved into a detached house & so far, the last 18 years, all the neighbours have always been considerate of others.
I have a variety of natural sound CDs that I can use on Bluetooth speakers or in headphones.
Before I had a 'live & let live' attitude & could cope. My first neighbours definitely changed my reactions to loud music...

I've found that meditation and mindfulness has helped. I also read the book The Power of Now and felt this helped to stay focused on the moment. The other day I was on my balcony and I managed to carry on reading despite some drilling sounds! This was quite encouraging as I normally would go and hide under the blanket and shut all doors and windows.

Ps I should show this thread to my DH husband. He still thinks I'm a delicate snowflake every time I adjust the volume to just the right level and change carriages when somebody sniffs or types on their laptop

The closed Facebook misophonia support group is the place to go for advice and to vent up

As above, mindfulness is a wonderful approach. It teaches you that the things that frustrate you and turn unbearable can actually be tolerated by considering that as something that comes and passes and that you witness rather than feel. It's the lack of control and unability to make it go away that makes it painful. Once you accept that it is there, but far away in the background of your mind, so that you can tune off it, it's ok.

It's not easy practice, takes some time, but it really does work.

Earplugs don't filter everything out, and blasting loud music into your ears all day isn't ok. If you need to concentrate on something, you need peace and quiet, not a loud sound covered up by a louder sound.

You can get noise cancelling headphones though, the big style not the in ear ones. They make everything silent and you can either play some quiet music/waves whatever, or not.
Or in imagine there are ear defenders that are cheaper and do the same.

This thread is helping me so much because I dont feel so alone reading others experiences. My husband and kids can sleep through a bomb dropping so have no clue but everytime the neighbours have a get together I am in such a state that I am wanting to move! It is a real panic response and I want to.run away . It is such a horrible feeling and though I am aware it is disproportionate to the situation I just cant stop.it. They just think I am being ridiculous !

@4PawsGood

They don't work. And would you really want to wear a big pair of headphones all day every day? When it's this hot, especially? It's swapping one discomfort for another, even if they did work.

So according to the responses, there's no physical reason why people can't wear headphones, I am.not suggesting people wear them all day but if i want to listen to a podcast or music in the garden I wear them just for that

And I have noise cancelling headphones but they dont block everything even though I bought the best available. At least that is my experience. It is as if my hearing is just really heightened and I can hear things others cant.
I do find the headphones a massive help though .

www.mynoise.net

This is brilliant because it has sliders so that you can turn different aspects of the sounds up and down. You can create something that only plays at the frequency that's bothering you, and so is really unobtrusive, and doesn't drown out everything else.

There's nothing quite so satisfying as finding something that matches the exact frequency of my downstairs neighbour's droning voice and then turning it to a volume that's just enough to completely drown him out. It's often surprisingly quiet. It's like making the sound of him vanish into thin air.

I'm really glad to be able to do this because he's a really nice bloke who isn't doing anything wrong, so I don't want to have to kill him.

I suffer from misophonia and have to use noise cancelling headphones. Not playing anything but just the noise cancelling feature.

If I don't use them I can end up in tears because I'm so upset about where I live and the stupid neighbours.

I also have plans to start terrorizing said neighbour, finding a way to turn off his power, reporting him for serious crimes and destroying his life. He is scum.

Plan for 18 months is to move somewhere with no neighbours. That obviously comes at a high price 😞

@Tomnooktoldmeto
What research is that. Sounds interesting

Ear plugs are the only thing that help me but only so much.

My hatred of our neighbours is causing serious problems between me and OH so I'm starting to wonder about misphonia and whether I've always had it. It doesn't really bother him although he concedes they are noisy. Whatever my problem is, it's being exacerbated by the stress of the current world situation and the fact my office is being closed down for good so WFH forever. I feel like there's no escape from the banging and shouting and it's making me panic. I'm trying to control it with headphones but I'd rather just sit in peace! Doesn't help with the resentment. Why can't they just be considerate instead?

I moved to escape my awful neighbours with their 4 screaming children on a trampoline right by our garden and noise at all hours including playing drums with the windows open for hours a day including 7am on Sundays :( Sympathy to OP and others.

A few thoughts:

Anti-anxiety meds may help if suitable for you.

I have tinnitus these days and the techniques they teach you to deal with that would have been helpful, some already mentioned here:
Using white noise
Moving your attention to a different noise, e.g. music
Reducing your emotional reaction to the noise using CBT etc.

My current house works better for me as its half a mile from a major road, so there's a constant drone that blocks out a lot of the other noises. Think my brain treats it like white noise and I dont' hear it.

@whenwillthemadnessend for the first time ever the area of the brain affected when Misophonia is triggered was identified

This will hopefully lead to greater understanding and in time hopefully treatment that may even be in use for other conditions already

I haven't found anything that helps and I've tried most things. So, watching with interest.

@chunderwunder

I have misophonia. Sadly my coping mechanisms are not vey mature and usually revolve around ranting, seething and being passive aggressive.

I really think (hope) that there will be better understanding of misophonia as a neurological disorder soon and that telling people to 'just be more tolerant' will be as unacceptable as telling autistic people to stop being autistic.

And then maybe the Mumsnet favourite of 'if you don't like noise go and buy a house in the middle of nowhere' will die a welcome death, consigned to the graveyard of 'comnents made by cunts'.

Haha same @chunderwunder. I just get angry and make myself even more miserable.

We're about to put our house on the market because I think I will end up either in hospital or in jail if I continued to live next door to my neighbours with their barking dog, screaming kid, constant door slamming and arguing and coming in and out of their house 30 times a day (not exaggerating). I'm terrified we'll end up somewhere just as bad though because I think people have become feral over the past year.

Ah, my ASD kids have super sensitive senses including great hearing and also dysregulated emotions. Loud noises, uncontrolled music, eating noises, body noises, sudden noises all cause stress and sometimes meltdowns.

They have noise cancelling headphones and a variety of ear buds to minimise noise, but obviously these can't be used all the time in all situations. So the stress just builds up until they can't cope any more :(

OMG, I didn’t realise so many people are like me!

I hate my new NDN - shouting screaming kids, trampoline, football against my fence, hot-tub, incessant building works, drilling, banging, you name it. They don’t speak to me and look down their noses since I asked them to calm it down one day last summer (I’ve worked from home for 7 years now). Ive been too scared to say anything since as they own and I only rent. I dislike confrontation. I need to move to a caravan in the middle of a field I think.

I also cannot entertain a partner as invariably they breathe. And tap. Or repetitively swing their foot. Or rub their feet together. Or do that thing with their thumbs going around in circles. Or hum. Or whistle.

What the hell is wrong with me? All I know is I’m on edge ALL THE TIME. It’s exhausting.

I live in a house with very thin walls and it stresses me out no end. I just want to live my life in peace but I can hear everything my neighbours do.

Can hear when their telly is on, often hear it over my own. Then every saturday night it's loud music that wrecks my evening because I can't sit and watch anything without hearing that over the top.

I frequently get woken up by them early in the morning, so now I wake up automatically at 5.30 every day feeling stressed. I've tried earplugs for sleeping but they have a habit of shouting, which is still loud enough to wake me.

Moving house but can only afford another semi. I feel very down about it all because now I feel jaded, and like everyone is just going to be selfish and loud wherever I move to, as my last neighbours were with their dog that barked for hours on end.

Mine is neighbourhood noise too, specifically dogs barking and loud music. (Plus my neighbours have voices that are nails down a blackboard to me). I had a horrific time of it years ago so it seems particularly triggering now. This time next week we'll be in our new home.

Have you tried hypnotherapy- not the "you are getting sleepy" type on stage but the proper therapy. It can help with your subconscious and lack of control over sounds.

im feeling really anxious today as im having some family over for dinner for the first time since before covid, terrified ndn will start their loud music while we're eating, cant stop thinking about

i know for most people it would be an annoyance but they would get on with it and not let it ruin their night, for me it would cause an absolute meltdown and would just be awful. i just wish i could stop my brain from making me feel so anxious about something that hasnt even happened yet, my ears are listening out for every single noise

but i am grateful for everyone who has posted here and made me see that im not on my own feeling like this

@ShoppingBasket

Have you tried hypnotherapy- not the "you are getting sleepy" type on stage but the proper therapy. It can help with your subconscious and lack of control over sounds.

thank you, i havent but someone else has mentioned this to me before for general anxiety so its something i want to look more into.

i keep telling myself that in the future we will be in a different living situation and it will be fine, but i know deep down the problem is mostly with me and will follow me wherever i go so i really need to deal with it