Oh, the Emotions!
An extreme emotional response is the trademark of misophonia. Here is a comment someone with misophonia posted on misophoniatreatment.com.
Judy’s Story
“I have only recently found out that there was a name for my condition. I am fifty-four years old have suffered what seems like forever with this problem. One particular person at work drives me crazy sniffing and coughing all the time. At times I get so I angry I think I could kill. I even get to the point of wishing this person would drop dead (bad I know), but I’m sure other sufferers feel the same at times. My poor lovely husband knows how I feel and tries his best not to make the noises I detest. I sometimes don’t know how he lives with me. I know I have passed this on to one of my girls, and my dad had it, too. It’s making my social life a nightmare.”Note that she wishes the person making the noise would drop dead! It is hard for someone who does not have misophonia to understand the extent of emotions that are caused by being repeatedly triggered, especially in a situation where the misophonic individual is trapped and cannot make the triggers stop.
Below is a twenty-six-question survey of emotional responses to triggers. I use this survey for my new misophonia patients. As you read through these, you will see that the list of emotions/reactions go from mild to extreme. All of these emotions are often rated as “none of the time,” “a little of the time,” “a good deal of the time,” or “almost all the time.”
Misophonia Emotional Responses
0) None of the time, 1) A little of the time, 2) A good deal of the time, 3) Almost all of the time
- You hear a known trigger sound. You may dislike the sound.
- You hear a trigger sound and feel annoyed or upset.
- You want the other person to know how upset you are.
- You want the person to stop making the sound.
- You want to force the other person to stop making the sound.
- You feel you must see that the person is actually making the sound or doing what you think they are doing. You want to keep looking or stare.
- You want to hear something else, so you don’t hear the sound.
- You want to be physically far away from the sound.
- You wish you were deaf.
- You are afraid that if you do something you will hurt others’ feelings.
- You want to get away from the sound but do not want to make a scene.
- You want to get away from the sound as quickly as possible, even if it would be embarrassing.
- You want to push, poke, shove, etc., the person making the sound.
- You want to verbally assault of the person making the noise.
- You want to physically assault the person making the noise.
- You want to physically hurt or harm the other person.
- You want to scream or cry loudly.
- You feel anger.
- You feel rage.
- You hate the person.
- You feel disgust.
- You feel resentment.
- You feel you need to escape, flee, or run away.
- You want to get revenge.
- You feel offended by the person making the noise.
- You feel despair or hopeless.
One person may respond with “not at all” to a few of these questions, but most people with misophonia experience over 75% of the feelings expressed on this list. In general, individuals will have all of these emotions except for two or three, which are unique to each individual. Misophonia causes extreme emotions in virtually everyone.
