Hatred of sound, or misophonia: triggers, treatments and the noises that can make you want to hurt your family
- Pen clicking, throat clearing, nail clipping – these are just some of the sounds that are like a red rag to a bull for misophonia sufferers
- One psychologist says it could be because the brain misinterprets certain auditory stimuli and experiences it as toxic or dangerous
Cathy Alter, The Washington Post
It started with a tuna salad sandwich. In seventh grade, I would often go to my friend Beth’s house after school. Her mother would have snacks waiting for us on the kitchen table. It’s difficult to estimate how many times I sat down at that table with no incident – 50, maybe? – until something happened that would forever change me.
On this particular day, the sound of Beth nibbling her crust like a baby squirrel made me so angry, so atypically full of rage, that I wanted to reach across the table and break something.
Things only got worse as I got older. Whether it was a college roommate’s habit of glugging Old Milwaukee lager or my first boyfriend’s penchant for chomping his gum (like a cow chewing its cud, as my grandfather would say) it was hard for me to hear anything other than the sounds coming out of their mouths. It was even harder not to envision exactly how I would kill them.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I suffer from misophonia, a chronic condition characterised by intense feelings of rage, fear and – especially when listening to my husband, Karl, crunch his way through a bag of potato chips – anxiety so acute that I feel as though I’m having a heart attack at least twice a day.