We have a name for our condition and that’s misophonia. It’s quite cool as far as these things go – sounds chic even.
We’re lucky, it might have ended up being named by a medical boffin with a ridiculous name. I mean, imagine if we had to go round telling people that we suffered from Higgins-Bottomley Syndrome or Humperdinckitis.
Anyway, so misophonia is the name for our condition, but what we don’t have is the collective term…
If you have 2 or more misophonia sufferers in a room how do you refer to them?
How do we even refer to ourselves in the first person? WHAT ARE WE? #identitycrisis
I thought it might be good to figure out some sort of collective term. After a quick rummage in my brain these were my initial thoughts:
Misophonics
Misophones
Misophoniacs
Misos
I put these suggestions out on Twitter and there was an overwhelming response. The word deluge springs to mind. There was not one, but TWO replies from my 86 followers.
The consensus so far is *drum roll*
Misophones
What do you reckon? Is that a good term? Cast your vote in the comments below.
Personally I quite like it. The others sound a bit DJ-like, unhinged or soupy to me.
It’s early days yet and this misophonia project is new, but hopefully as the months and years roll on, more and more people will drop by.
Everyone I’ve communicated with so far has been fantastic. In fact I’ve come to the conclusion that misophonia sufferers (SEE WE *DO* NEED A COLLECTIVE TERM) are bound by awesomeness. Yes we have a shitty condition but that doesn’t stop us achieving great things and being superb human beings.
A peaceful and quiet group.
I concur
Nice, I’ve been looking for this group
I guess Misophoniacs is out? ?
just my humble opinion but I believe Misophoniacs is appropriate
I’ve just written misophonians in a message then googled to find out this exact same thing!
Can it be spelled out phonetically at the start of your site, Jim?
When I found you recently and found out I wasn’t the only one and there was even a name….. I wasn’t sure how it was to be pronounced. Is the first syllable mee-soo or miss-soo? 2nd, phone like in telephone or more like phawn (fawn) and finally ia, like eee-ah or ya. I decided its supposed to sound like: mee-soo-fone-ee-ah, hmmm, no more like: mee-soo-phone-Ya
Enlighten us please. And to think english and grammar were my strong points (before I got old) lol
It’s mis-o-phone-ia just how it looks like miss o phone ia the o is pronounced just like a long o so you you say the word oh and it is eee-ah and miii-so
Personally, I’m in favor of Misophoniac because I think it sounds rad and sometimes threatening. I think it would be a better name for a group.
But I’d also be down for Misophonian. This one sounds like we are members of a Misophonia kingdom, therefore we are Misophonians.
I am a Misophoniac.
But what about the collective noun for a number of misophoniacs? My suggestion is a quiet of misophoniacs.
Definitely misophones. Anything else hurts my ears.
Misophoniacs is my favorite but I’m fine with anything. I just love that I found a larger community. I only know of two people with this condition brother and myself.
I’m crying right now. I’m in high school and I’ve been dealing with misophonia more severely since the middle-ish of my 8th grade year (so 2 years), and for a while thought I was crazy. Stayed up one night frantically searching the internet, contemplated for weeks if I met the criteria for a misophoniac, but am still struggling. None of my friends know about it, and my siblings all treat me like I’m crazy. My mom tries to be understanding, but even the other day when I was talking to a social worker (whole other issue), she said “tell her what you think you have” I looked at her oddly, I guess, and she said “tell her what you’ve diagnosed yourself with”.
I’ve read theoretical articles online but don’t know anyone else with misophonia and, until now, have never run into anything from misophoniacs themselves. This is such a simple thing, but it really hit me hard.