Should You Tell Friends and Family That You Have Misophonia?

by | Sep 18, 2015 | Articles | 26 comments

Should you tell people about your misophonia?

One of the most difficult and important questions you face if you have misophonia, is whether or not to tell other people that you have it.

There are a huge range of complex emotions and factors at play. Will they understand? Will they treat me differently? Does it change anything?

Some misophones prefer to put on a brave face and keep it hidden from the world. Others tell just their immediate family and loved ones. Then there are those that tell friends, colleagues, everyone.

The truth is there’s no right or wrong answer to this, so I’m going to take you through my own experiences and then I’d be really interested to hear your own take.

My earliest misophonia memories where at the kitchen table during meal times with the family. I won’t talk about the triggers (I’m sure you can guess) but my mum was by far my worst trigger factory for me. This was no doubt magnified by the fact she used to sit right next to me, amplifying the sound by what seemed like 1,000 decibels.

As the number one source of triggers in my youth, mum would have been the natural person to tell. Partly because she’s my mum, and would encourage me to tell her everything, but also for the more pressing reason that the noises that she made caused me, at times, unbearable misery.

Sometimes she’d ask why I was making strange faces at the table, or sticking my fingers in my ear, but I always managed to switch the conversation or blame it on something else… a headache, earache anything.

She was blissfully unaware and I never told her.

The reason I didn’t tell her was because I thought she wouldn’t understand. How do you explain something you don’t understand yourself and can barely put into words? I thought she’d be upset and angry.

Now that we know misophonia has a name it’s tempting to look back with hindsight and think “if only I’d dealt with it this way at the time”, but actually, ‘at the time’, we didn’t have a clue. If you’re feeling that way, please let yourself off the hook because you’ve not done anything wrong.

Up until very recently I didn’t know how to explain it to another living soul because the idea of it seemed as inconceivable as the rage I felt when I hear someone crunching an apple. I knew I couldn’t cope with certain sounds or movements but I didn’t realise that it could be a ‘thing’. It just seemed so random and bizarre.

At best, I thought that maybe I was wired a bit differently from other people. If the misophonia got really, hellishly bad I would sometimes (when I was much younger) tell the offending family member to stop making the noise, but I would never let them know what was really going on in my head.

The one person I told when I was child was my form tutor. He was nice guy and asked us one day all to write down our single greatest fear. So I wrote him a note saying “I can’t stand the noise that people make when they eat and I don’t know how to cope and it’s making me really unhappy” or something to that effect. He never followed up and nor did I (and frankly I don’t blame him). Let’s face it a bit of an odd bolt from the blue. Might as well have told him I was allergic to joy.

There was a very real reason I didn’t tell my friends or any of the kids at school and that was because kids can be absolute turds. Give them a weakness and they’ll exploit it. Letting them know that you can be flung into a debilitating, internal rage by certain sounds… sounds that they can recreate REALLY easily, would be lunacy. It’d be like Superman buying Lex Luther a gift subscription to Kryptonite monthly.

I have no regrets that I didn’t tell my school friends. I’ve convinced that it a) prevented a great deal of unnecessary bullying and b) probably forced me to evolve coping mechanisms that would put me in better stead later on.

Fast forward 10 years and I was living in halls at my university. 3 glorious years of dancing badly, working hardly and misbehaving.

One of the best things about leaving home as a misophone is that you suddenly have much more control over the condition

If you’re reading this as someone who’s still living at home, don’t worry, I promise you it gets better.

As an adult you can leave a room at will and no-one will tell you off. You’re not forced to eat every meal right next to someone and you can avoid certain situations and people.

At uni I decided, while very drunk, to tell my best friend that I was tripped out about the tiny movements her boyfriend (and my other closest friend) made with his hand when we were at the cinema. She’s the most emphatic person I know… and yet she didn’t get it at all.

She wasn’t angry or weird about it, she just said she genuinely never noticed or was ever bothered by that kind of thing. I chose to confide in her because I thought if there was even the tiniest element of people finding something like that annoying, she would be honest and tell me.

That was really when I realised, once and for all, that this was something specific to the way my brain was wired.

I didn’t really talk to her about it after that, there wasn’t really anything else to say. But I think she was happy that I was able to confide in her. Moderate victory.

Fast forward another 10 years-ish and we get to the present day more or less.

It was 2014 when I first discovered that this thing actually has a name(s): misophonia and misokinesia. Now for the first time it suddenly feels as if everything is falling into place and starting to make sense.

As soon as I found out it was called misophonia, I devoured information and tried to look for research and tips and advice. While there’s some interesting stuff out there it still feels like this is almost completely virgin territory.

Nonetheless there were enough fancy (incomprehensible) academic studies online for me to think I could share this with my partner and a couple of close friends without them calling in the men in white coats and getting me sectioned, so I did.

Here was the response I got…

How my friends responded when I told them I had misophonia

They were politely interested but couldn’t really grasp it. They kept saying things like: “yeah I get that a bit” but they unable to truly understand or relate to it (no doubt due to the total lack of awareness about misophonia and lets face it, the weirdness of the condition).

When I told them how it actually felt, the uncontrollable rage and panic, they looked at me in disbelief. But you never seem angry or upset when we eat out? Then they were worried that I would get triggers around them and started feeling self conscious.

It was fine and they didn’t judge me but I also didn’t bring it up again because I didn’t want them to treat me differently. To be honest if I could I would probably go back in time and un tell if I could, but it hasn’t caused any issues either way so I’m not worried.

How my partner responded when I told her I had misophonia

When I told my partner about it she was extremely understanding. I think it may have helped that she’s had some experience with coping with mental illness, so in that sense I was lucky. She reassured me, didn’t treat me like a leper and tried to think of ways she could help.

For my part, I’m always do everything I can to try and make sure she doesn’t realise or feel uncomfortable when I’m experiencing a trigger. Whether it’s leaving the room for an opportune bathroom break or covertly shielding my ears.

I’ve found it really helps her knowing that sometimes if I’m being a bit frantic or panicky in public that it’s probably because I’m struggling with a misokinesia or misophonia trigger. That’s been a great help.

If you have an understanding partner then I would recommend letting them know. It’s a hugely tricky subject to broach, particularly if you’re younger and still living at home, so I did an article about it here.

Ultimately whether or not you tell one person or a hundred people about your misophonia it doesn’t change the fact that you have it. I know that sounds blindingly obvious, but what I mean is this:

Whoever you tell, people will still eat, fidget, walk in high heels and make sounds that tumble us into temporary madness and you know what? That’s fine, because they’re not doing anything wrong.

If you do tell someone, think about what you hope the end goal will be. I drew up a quick list of pros and cons here. Feel free to add to these in the comments below and I’ll add the most popular ones:

What are the potential pros and cons of telling your friends and/or loved ones?

Support – Having a trusted ally who can give you emotional support can be invaluable. They can help talk you down after an episode and be there for you and suggest calming techniques

Understanding – If it’s seriously effecting your relationship (due to confrontations etc), then letting that person know that you have misophonia could really help. If they can come to terms with the fact that it’s not about them – but that it’s rather certain sounds – they may feel less ‘got at’ and be able to be there for you

Awareness – Ok so this one’s more a pro for the greater good, but the truth is we do need to raise awareness about the condition. Not in a moany “woe is me” type way, but in an informative way. People need to know that this isn’t a made up bat shit crazy disorder, but a sensory disorder in much the same way synaesthesia is. If we can educate people and campaign for more research we can help people realise this and hopefully stop others thinking that we’re complete psychopaths

Being pitied – The last thing you want is to be told “oh you poor thing” and patted on the head when you’re going through a misophonic episode.

Being treated differently – You don’t want socialising events with friends or family to be mired by people thinking that they need to treat you with kid gloves. Ironically noisy environments, where there’s plenty of background noise, don’t tend to be a big problem for most misophones. That’s one of the reasons why so many of us cite family, loved ones and colleagues as our worst triggers. They are the people we spend the most time with in otherwise quiet surroundings, which is when the triggers really stand out

Making your friends/family feel uncomfortable – I think this can be avoided if explained the right way, but there’s a danger that the knowledge of your misophonia will put some people on edge and cause them to behave unnaturally when they’re around you. Them knowing you have misophonia won’t change the fact you have misophonia so in some cases it’s worth questioning whether this person knowing is positive for either of you

I’ve personally found it more helpful to talk to other people with misophonia who understand what it’s like, than a family member or friend who doesn’t – and who may actually feel worse for knowing.

That’s why I would rather focus on raising awareness about the condition through research and the pooling of knowledge for from our great misophonic, genius minds.

But these are just my experiences and I’d love to know what you think.

How have you dealt with this issue and what approaches have (and haven’t) worked for you. Do you think the benefits outweigh the negatives?

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26 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    I told my husband how his gum chewing fills me with tension. He uses it against me. If we are arguing he will without gum start smacking his jaw. I’m forced to walk out of the room and he gets his way. He laughs at me. It’s a living hell.

    Reply
    • Allergic to Sound

      I’m trying to think of a thoughtful, measured response here – but to be honest if he’s aware of your anxieties and still ‘does it anyway’ (and worse, laughs at you while he’s doing it) that’s a form of bullying. It sounds like he has some very serious issues that he needs to deal with because that is not acceptable under any circumstance. I’m so sorry you’ve had to experience that and hope you are able to find the strength to resolve this.

      Reply
    • Jeanne Davies

      I get the same treatment from my family members

      Reply
  2. Maggie

    I used to ask my mother to stop clicking her nail, slurp when eating and constant whistling, she would do it all the more! It made me feel worthless as a child because if you can’t trust your mother who can you trust. I hated my mother for a long time! I think my dad had the same condition as I remember him getting really angry if dogs were barking. My worst trigger is people clearing their throat, nail and pen clicking and hearing people eat. I am relieved there is now a name for this condition and its recognized for research. Thank you x

    Reply
    • Georgia

      Ugh, I know what it’s like to have a family member that ignores what you want. I tell my mum that I get really angry at people when they make noises that are annoying, and she just waves it off as, in her words, “a little bit of anxiety”. My sister and I used to be really close, but she would always sing in these fake voices. I kept telling her the I couldn’t handle it, and know she uses it against me when we fight. My dad doesn’t let me have earbuds in when I’m at home, so that doesn’t help. I don’t know if other people do this, but does anyone pick friends based on their voices? I do it a lot, so I was wondering if it was common.

      Reply
  3. Shirley

    Usually I’m alone. Likely a consequence of isolating myself for a lifetime and shutting out family and friends for a variety of reasons, including misophonia. When my husband and I eat in the car, the music is turned on loud and the window rolled down, when in a restaurant I sit furthest away from people as possible. If it’s a Mexican restaurant that serves chips, I teasingly but seriously say I need a couple shots of tequila to tolerate the crunching! I feel like I want to flipping shoot the whole dang place up. At the movies, I have to sit in the back row and wear ear plugs and wait till the trailers are over and the movie starts before I can go inside. I send my husband in to save me a seat before before the back row seats are filled up. I always want to scream, “Shut the F*#k up, and stop rattling your G-da#*% wrappers!” My husband smacks his lips and doesn’t realize it and I try to give him hints that it bothers me and he gets pissed off sometimes. Usually he stops, but I feel guilty and shitty about it. When I have asked family to chew with their mouth closed, they do for a second then go right back to their regular chewing. I went to a support group for depression/anxiety and people chew gum and crack their sunflower seeds and rattle their wrappers, I stopped going, I couldn’t stand it. Snoring and breathing sounds bother me too. I can’t sleep in the same side of the house with a snorer. Fans and earplugs don’t work. Once I get enraged, I can’t sleep. It adversely affects marital intimacy. I’d rather be left alone than deal with the emotional trauma this condition causes.

    Reply
    • Anonymous

      You are not alone! All the things you talk about happen to me also. Just looking at someone from a distance chewing gum sets me off. I wish I had advice but I don’t have any?

      Reply
  4. Anonymous

    I want to tell my mum that her snoring is my trigger sound and that I think I have this disorder. I’m still new to this and I only discovered misophonia a couple of months ago when I typed into the Google search bar ‘why do I find people snoring makes me angry and upset’ and the first thing that popped up on my screen was misophonia. I was so scared at first and it caused my anxiety and panic attacks to get worse considering up to that point I had learnt to keep in control of my panic attacks. I felt and still feel alone, I’ve had sleepless nights and I’m about to go into one of my most important years of school. I’ve had my mum moan and get angry at me because I have had to go into her room and ask her politely to be quiet because I can’t sleep then in the morning she would moan at me because I would go into her room to ask her to be quiet. I want to tell her so she can try and help me because I’ve always had a really good bond with my mum and I tell her almost everything. I want to be able to do something about my misophonia but everyone around me doesn’t understand and thinks I’m complaining. I usually end up sleeping downstairs, crying my eyes out and panicking because of my mum snoring( which if you haven’t gathered is my trigger sound) I just feel so alone and I don’t know what to do because I know if I told someone they would think of me as insane or I’m just complaining but I can’t let this stay in much longer as I feel like one day I can burst and I’ve always been told I ‘over exaggerate’ and I feel like if I told my mum she would think I’m over exaggerating. I just don’t want to live like this anymore, in fear of going to sleep at night. If anyone has any advice on how to deal with this than please let me know

    Reply
    • Anonymous

      Yes, I’m the exact same. Snoring is one of my main triggers too. I can never sleep If I’m ever at someone’s house (or my own, obviously) and they snore or breath loudly. I’ve even unintentionally at someone’s house while everyone was sleeping made sounds of absolute anger a kind of ‘arghhh’ sound loudly because I couldn’t take the snoring anymore and I would just cry full of rage and put my fingers in my ears and even try covering my ears with my pillow. But it doesn’t work. My friends mum came into the room because she thought someone was hurt or something. So, I was there crying my eyes out and clearly angry… I just didn’t know what to do. I ended up saying I was having a nightmare. I live on a blueberry farm (weird, I know) and we have a large chiller to keep the blueberries fresh, and the low rumble of it drives me absolutely crazy, along with muffled sounds of people talking from another room, I cannot deal with it. I usually lock myself in my room and play really loud music and having my fan on high. The only way I will have any chance at sleeping is to have my fan on, but now that’s even starting to get annoying, and sometimes I even hear my trigger sounds at night and I know I’m not ‘actually hearing them’. Also, my mum’s eating is the worst, along with her partners loud breathing and wheezing (from smoking). I’ve tried to tell my mum how much these noises annoy me and she just tells me to ‘Get over it, and stop getting so angry all the time’. I would advice that you download an app that plays ‘white sounds’ I find white sounds to be very effective at usually blocking out most sounds, although it doesn’t always work.

      Reply
  5. Ruby

    I seriously don’t even know what to do at this point. I’m in middle school, and kids are ALWAYS sniffling. ALWAYS. It’s making me borderline insane. I get extremely salty at times, because, HEY! THERE’S A BOX OF TISSUES RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! COULD YOU PLEASE JUST USE THEM INSTEAD OF SNIFFLING AND SNORTING LIKE A PIG? I’ve tried telling my parents about it, but they didn’t seem too concerned. I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve had to ask my mom to stop chewing with her mouth open, because I can hear her smacking around in there. (Dunno if that made any sense.) I wanna try telling them again, and maybe talking to my counselor to see if it would be acceptable for me to sit in the back of my classes with my earbuds in during our work times and such. The last thing I want to do is burst into frustrated tears because people refuse to blow their nose for whatever reason.

    Reply
    • Olivia

      Frustrated tears. I’ve almost been brought to those because of this condition too, even though I am new to it

      Reply
  6. Kolbrún Gunnarsdóttir

    Omg! It’s such a relief to read all the comments. I have had this problems since I was a kid. So many sounds deeply annoy, angers and upsets me. Some of my trigger sounds and movements are foot
    tapping, pens clicking, nail biting, fingers moving on objekts, shaking legs up and down (the sound of the clothing in constant stressful quick back and forth movement). Kids playing, screaming, crying, laughing. Adults that speak in high pitch and laughs loudly. Voices/people talking, tv, radio etc. from the next room – or in the room I’m in (especially if I’m trying to ‘hear my inner self’ or doing something else like reading, cooking, whatever basically). Every sound of objekts that other people make. Fx neighboors doors, neigboors walking.
    The sounds when a bus door opens and closes. I want to scream and stop the sound for good and get angry that everything is so fucking noisy!

    Every traffic sound that I’ve heard. Especially if I’m in my private space, where I ideally would have my private acoustics and choice of sounds if it was up to me. Sounds from the “outer world” from my space feels like an invasion and I feel trapped and cloustrofobic. Because even if I turn to nature… to get a break from all human beings and human build machines… I still hear traffic in the far… and it’s so annoying.

    Once I hiked up a mountain with a tent to get away from people and machine sounds. Only to wake up by a guy snoring in a tent next to me.

    Some campers liked me and decided to camp right next to my tent…. great if I didn’t get super annoyed. So I got angry and cried myself to sleep. Because my get away from
    sounds was ruined by yet another of my long list of trigger sounds.

    Snoring. Breathing. Foot tapping. Any kind of build Chewing. “Bipping sounds” from machines and trucks (when backing). Water dripping. Clock ticking. Slurping. Other people laughing loud. People on the phone in the same room as me. Childrens many sounds. Talking. Any kind of tools used in construction etc. unless I myself use a drilling machine or other tools. Restaurant sounds (knives and fork against plate, a mass of talking, annoying music with vocal on top of all the talking, the way the sounds reflect in the room etc.). Music from neighboors. Church bella. High pitch opera singing. Traffic sounds. And… deep vibrations in general… I feel it in my body and get angry, panicy and so annoyed that I cry and cry. Bacuase so much of this is not something I can control.

    I bought a house in the country to get more quite time and private sound space. But there is neighboors… and they work on somethings sometimes, cars drive by the main road far from my house. I hear many different dog bark, even far from my place… etc. etc.

    And you must all relate to people assuring you that a place or area is super quite and you arrive and all sorts of trigger sounds are there… which they only notice when you point them out.

    What has helped:

    As a teenager… letting my stepdad know that I was getting agressive before going yelling “Shuuuuut Up!!!!!” at my younger siblings or being mean to them because of the sounds they made all day all my life.

    A christmas gift from my younger siblings which my mom bought as a joke. It’s earmuffs that workers use when handling machines.

    But the thing was… my siblings woke up as they did every morning and were kids / constant sounds both verbally and other such as walking, running or jumping heavily, moving around toys, furnitures and closing doors…. you get the point!

    So…..

    I suddenly instinctively reached for the earmuffs and it blocked out the worst.

    This was in year 2005. It’s 2017 now and I’m 27… still sleeping with earmuffs.

    I love the isolation it gives me. Not that I don’t hear all the sounds still, especially the deep frequencies pass through earmuffs while the high frequencies is blocked more out….. It’s still better than “poked” by every sound in my area.

    So I recommend it to everyone as sensitive and physically and mentally affected by sounds as me.

    You can sleep on the side. You just need a soft pillow that will kind of make room for the earmuffs if you’ll want to sleep on the side. Otherwise two pillows help… and sleeping on the side in the gap, also helps.

    Yes, people think its funny or weird and you’ll hear a lot of comments…. but omg! The quality of sleep without as many sound disturbances is worth it. Fx it blocks out other peoples breathing (not snoring though as it’s low frequencies).

    Another thing that helps me:

    I’m a musician. And over the past years I’ve learned how to record in studios and make electonic music and much much more. This I use…

    How?

    I sample all the sounds in my environments (which I of course, like you, unwillingly notice)… and I put them into another context. Give them new meaning… a musical meaning which I have control over through all the different effects and timing and combination.

    How does that help? Well it gives me just one reason to be thankful for me sound sensitivity. Instead of only getting super annoyed, angry, claustrofobic, sad, anxious etc. I pull out my iphone or Zoom (sound) recorder and “catch” the sound for me to do whatever I want with it later.

    This makes me be excited because I see an artistic pontential.

    Not that it helps at home where I feel ones private space should also apply private sounds and not everyone elses sounds invate your private space and private time.

    That is also why I prefer to be up in night time. Because the people (noise producing beings) are a sleep (I know… breathing and snoring still hahahaha). And I get calmer and enjoy my alone time.

    Shortly I want to mention that I study music and sound at the university in Denmark (AAU) where I have written projects on noises and how they physically and mentally affect humans and animals.

    Fx my bachelor project was about Acoustic Ecology and how traffic noises affect people. My thesis (on it now) will be about noises are used in art through history and how sounds like objects offers different affordances depending on the perciever and situation.

    I can recommend you to read about acoustic ecology, ecological perception theory, R. Murray Schafers “Tuning of the World”. Articles such as “Bad Vibes” which tests the worst sounds and sounds that are physically uncomfortable to humans… Such as nail scratch on black board.

    Also check out the artist John Cage.

    Fx he made the 4:33 – an orchestea who played nothing for 4 minutes and 33 seconds to show the huge amound of audience that there is no silence, even in so called “musical silence” what was happen there – there will always be sounds. He was lucky though, caus’ he heard every sound as musical pieces. He would fx enjoy traffic and other city sounds like he would enjoy music and therefore opened his window in the city in rush hour time just to enjoy it. He even performed traffic sounds in a huge concert hall to make the audience experience “non-musical sounds” as musical, like him.

    As a last note, sorry for the longest comment ever, I want to add that the wolds many (to me) annoying sounds can feel claustrofobic. I can at times feel like there is no escaping them except for death perhaps.

    But since I have no clue what happens after one dies (so many different theories and speculations), that wouldn’t even be an assurance.

    So again, I’m so reliefed to not be alone in this sound struggle over-sensing way of existing.

    I will run this diagnosis/term through the sound professors at my university and see how much they know about it and let them know that it needs further studies (if they don’t already know, which they most likely do…. they are super nerdy… with theories about sounds being something in our brains and questioning the term of sounds etc. etc.)

    Ok… I’ll seriously stop now!

    \\ Over and out //

    Reply
    • Kolbrún Gunnarsdóttir

      Sorry for the spelling mistakes. Iphone and big fingers + I’m from Iceland, living in and speaking and writing mostly in danish.

      I see that some of the sentences are not finished, which is confusing to read. But my screen is so small so it was hard to spot.

      Reply
    • Eoin

      That main point you had is ingenious. Some sounds (for example specific eating sounds) I can trick my brain into thinking of the dripping of a stream or something, but it’s rare, and while imitation is my most effective coping mechanism, I have to do it very loudly and it’s almost always not acceptable in any social situation when I hear a trigger.
      Thank you so much for this suggestion, I’ll be tapping along to my asthmatic friends breathing in no time.. still with a knuckle in my ear but I can see this helping me out.

      Reply
  7. Korean

    Wow I feel I am not alone after reading the article. I am greatly thankful to the writer. I am South Korean and I have had an big problem with sniffing sound at the work place. This mental problem is not well dealt in my country and there in no term like misophonia, but I’m still the sufferer of a specific sound at the workplace! I am gonna visit your blog often to get more understanding of it 🙂
    I personally think that this is a problem related to the misinterpretation of specific sound in the brain when procressing a sound to be a danger or unhappy signal, like a dear in the wild. For me, I feel I have been distracted and thus felt damaged by the sniffing noise made by a colleague at work for a year! As time passed by, the more did I get distracted and one time I finally decided to yell at him when I was extremely tired from work and taking nap at the office. Since then, he and I do not talk a lot each other. And whenever he sniff a lot these days, I feel that he intentionally does it to me and I get stressed some time. I hope we all could find scientific and effective ways of solving the discomfort in near future.

    Reply
  8. Kenna

    My school is horrible. Wherever I go, I hear sniffling, coughing, and snorting. I can’t stand it. I once tried to tell my brother about it, but he only seemed to do it more. He once called me “picky” because I got annoyed and stressed out by the noises. I once tried telling my friends about it. All of them, except for one, immediately started to sniffle and smack their lips. Nobody understood how angry I got about it. I’m not allowed to take headphones or any electronics in school. I have escaped class by going to the nurse at least fifteen times this year. I am too scared to ask the teacher to go to another room during testing, as I don’t want to stand out. Are there anymore ways to help calm me down other than leaving to another area or using headphones and music?

    Reply
    • Hanna?

      Earplugs might help.

      Reply
  9. Hanna?

    I am 11 years old. My family knows I am sensitive to chewing and slurping and have seen me when I have had a major episode. I did not know what to think of myself for a while. I didn’t know if there was something wrong with me or what, so I researched it yesterday only to find that mesothelioma is a rare disease where you are sensitive to certain sounds such as chewing. Whenever I tell my family their chewing bothers me they(later on in the day) tease me about it. And whenever my sister is mad she perposley eat chips righ I’m my ear. I get so angry I have a violent emotion and I just want to break something or throw something.

    Reply
    • Shirley

      Kenna and Hanna I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I’ve suffered similar problems in my family as a youth and I’m 60 years old now. I’m freeer to control my situation and life than you are at this stage of my life, but nobody ever heard of misophonia back then, so I was just called a bitch. Sadly, Misophonia does not go away. We have to adjust our environment or ourselves around the problem. For someone your age I might suggest telling your parents about this disorder and tell them to Google it. Explain how you feel when you hear annoying sounds, then plead for their help. Don’t let your violence go unchecked, It’ll take you places you’ll regret! Demand to see a counselor and certainly there should should be some consequences where your annoying sister is concerned. As for school, sometimes they provide a private or quiet area for students with learning disorders like ADD or Dyslexia. I would certainly put Misophonia in that category since it is impossible to concentrate with all these annoying noises around you, gum chewing, slurping, sniffing, throats clearing, paper rattling, pencil or foot tapping… you get the picture. The school counselor should work with you and make accommodations.
      You were brave to post your feelings. It took me 58 years!

      Reply
  10. Shirley

    Im 60 now, But just a few years back, I went camping in the Sierra mountains with my siblings and Dad for one of his bucket list wishes. We had mules pack in tents and inflatable mattresses; all the comforts for the over 50 crowd doing a bucket list trip. Well they all snore like freight trains! I couldn’t stand the noise and took off hiking in the dark with my sleeping bag and my gun and bedded down on some remote, rocky trail, far enough away I couldn’t hear any more freight trains! I’d rather freeze my butt off and sleep on a narrow, rocky, wild animal’s trail and risk being mauled by mountain lions or bears than spend sleepless nights hating on my most beloved family members, just because they snore (and they can’t even help it.) That’s how crazy this misophonia makes me!

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  11. Bora

    my trigger sounds are sounds to do with eating and general flu symptoms- coughing, sniffling, smacking lips, chewing with mouth open, breathing, clearing throat, scraping the plate with a fork and i would get so frustrated and feel the need to fight them. it’s worse because i have to commute an hour and a half on public transport to and from work and during winter, EVERYONE is sniffling and coughing around me. i try to cover my anger up by breathing in and out slowly but i just get so worked up. i tell my family to chew with their mouth closed and to blow their nose, but they just keep doing it- usually even louder than usual and start to exaggerate my trigger sounds. i don’t know what to do even now i know what it is! i’ve had it ever since i remember and i think the earliest memory of misophonia was when i was around 4 years old. what should i do?

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  12. Angelina

    I have never noticed or even knew what misophonia was, until a month ago. I was doing some summer work while my mom was eating some pistachios in another room. I started to get annoyed. As she got another bowl, I started to get extremely raged. I couldn’t focus and I had the feeling to throw my pillow across my room. But I tried not to scream at my mom because I know I will get whipped. Then once we were on a road trip, and my dad had some ice breaker mints. Since he barely has teeth, the sounds of him sucking and chewing was a NIGHTMARE as I slid my seat and my face turned red with anger. My triggers are: chewing sounds and sucking sounds, lips making a popping sounds, flossing, teeth sliding on forks, and sniffling.
    It’s starting to get worse, especially that I go to school and there multiple people who chew and snort. The problem is that I don’t know how to tell my parents, but I don’t know how. I’m just afraid that my family members and friends won’t take it seriously/ understand. Any suggestions and tips before I tell my family and friends?

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  13. Lira

    Unfortunately for me music triggers mine it doesn’t matter how high the volume of the music is

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  14. Georgia

    I have a LOT of trigger sounds. Eating with a mouth open or closed, swallowing, most cooking noises (squelching), clinking of forks and knifes, when macbooks are being pushed along a table (lots of kids at my school have them), rain, mud, pencils on paper, when people have fake accents/voices, and heaps of others. But I was wondering if anyone else feels comforted by certain noises. I feel comforted when I hear heels clicking on a floor, a bus arriving at a stop, and when the laundry machine beeps when a cycle is finished. Just wondering…

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  15. Anonymous

    I’m only just turning 13 and discovered misophonia as one of my issues about a year ago. Most of my trigger sounds relate to eating/ or mouth sounds.
    – Chewing (Especially with mouth open)
    – Talking with food in the mouth
    – S/C pronunciation(example: (s)nake, (s)lither, I(c)e, plea(s)e
    – Any noticeable breathing – Snoring
    – Many more, etc…
    Hopefully, some can relate to family members checking off almost every one of your trigger sounds. I dealt with the anger and confusion of my mom and I thinking I was insane until discovering the name and both celebrating in joy.
    After about a few hours, once she starts eating the same noises are made and continued. I felt like she really didn’t give a shit as I knew she was aware of my mental/physical reactions to the sounds. I repeatedly would beg for her to please stop chewing or talking with her mouth open but she began to just get upset and start yelling whenever I did.
    It’s been a while and I still deal with the noises the other kids make at school but I’ve learned to deal with it by making excuses as needing the restroom or plugging into outlets far away from the sounds.
    In the car is when I especially feel down the most, having to shove my fingers in my ears and rub my head into the seat to avoid hearing my mother’s spit in her mouth when she talks, or the loud breathing of her s/o.
    Sometimes I feel my fingers are bleeding they’re so deep. I’ve found myself needing to plug my ears when I sleep for comfort knowing my head makes up noises that aren’t actually being made.
    The bathroom connected to my room has a fan for steam control per usual, which I use to shut out the sounds I’m struggling with. I could say I’m in my bathroom seeking ease from sounds more than in my bedroom relaxing.
    All I hope is that I can get a new counselor and be able to share my feelings getting through this with the loud immature kids around me, and a naturally loud, obnoxious mother.

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  16. Aich

    I was glad to discover that there was a name / label for what I was going through. Someone else snoring, drinking water, eating a carrot, clicking a pen, a creaking door even the loosening of shoe laces… the list keeps growing. Antidepressants probably lower the anger I feel but nothing takes it away.

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