I regret constantly hitting my little brother when he was chewing with his mouth open at the dinner table. I was about 13 and had developed misophonia, he must have been 5. Our parents didn't understand it. I didn't understand it. I couldn't control myself for years. He was a sweet boy in a poor and dysfunctional family that also fell apart around that time. At the very least, he deserved a better brother.
Decades later, I still get abruptly and irrationally angry when people smack their lips, though I have learnt to suppress the urge to assault the source of the sound.
I can't eat with my Chinese colleagues. I get that more air makes each bite taste better, but it is hard to eat or even focus when your brain is telling you to rip their heads off to stop the sound.
It's an odd curse to live with, as, aside from the situation with my brother, I have otherwise never hurt or assaulted anyone in my life and am generally regarded as a softy. I have to force myself to sit at the dinner table with my mother when she visits, as she still smacks her lips.
Some people smack their lips in quick succession when they taste something new, like how birds drink water, and it drives me up the walls. Slurping is triggering, but not as much. Some people swallow excessively as presenters and will make a "tsk" sound with their tongues before speaking, which is worse than slurping and usually causes me to stop watching the presentation.
I'm glad there is some traction with misophonia research. We need help.
Now imagine marrying a brilliant, gorgeous Chinese woman who slurps and snorts and air-swallows. Drives me & the kids berserk. Her father is even worse. Shudder.
For me and the kids it’s a private joke but the rage part hits when she eats in public. Noiseless! What’re we, chopped liver?
I also have a bunch of other stupid problems like that. Extreme aversion to coffee breath and onion or garlic breath; having to remove shirt tags; inability to sit through out-of-tune musical performers; physical reaction to voices; ability to identify people by smell, etc.
I simply cannot understand why producers of shirts (anything you wear, actually) feel the need to stretch a tak which is rough and creates physical pain for me.
99% of the time our reactions to stimuli are automatic. This is why we practice mediation sitting still on a hard floor. It is not comfortable, with your legs crossed, your knees hurt, your butt hurts, it makes you feel you want to move, some one is sniffling, a baby is crying somewhere, it MAKES YOU FEEL annoyed,
It is possible to overcome the "MAKES YOU FEEL" part of this. External stimulus will always be there, but with some training, the only thing that "Makes you feel" will be you. You notice the pain in your knees, but it flows over you as water flows past the stone in the river.
This is easy to say but not easy to do. It takes quite a few hours of deliberate practice. Some people never get there. But, I think it is worth a try. Find a mediation class. Go every week.
A good place to start is just noticing periodically, "what I'm doing right now, is it really a better use of time / more enjoyable than sitting and doing nothing?".
Sometimes it turns out that video games really aren't fun, thought loops aren't productive, everything sucks and is boring, and the present experience of breathing on and out is really the best show in town
Decades later, I still get abruptly and irrationally angry when people smack their lips, though I have learnt to suppress the urge to assault the source of the sound.
I can't eat with my Chinese colleagues. I get that more air makes each bite taste better, but it is hard to eat or even focus when your brain is telling you to rip their heads off to stop the sound.
It's an odd curse to live with, as, aside from the situation with my brother, I have otherwise never hurt or assaulted anyone in my life and am generally regarded as a softy. I have to force myself to sit at the dinner table with my mother when she visits, as she still smacks her lips.
Some people smack their lips in quick succession when they taste something new, like how birds drink water, and it drives me up the walls. Slurping is triggering, but not as much. Some people swallow excessively as presenters and will make a "tsk" sound with their tongues before speaking, which is worse than slurping and usually causes me to stop watching the presentation.
I'm glad there is some traction with misophonia research. We need help.