Are you a sound-hater? Are there sounds that you cannot tolerate. Maybe you hate the sound of someone eating potato chips or Doritos. Maybe you can’t stand the sound of someone eating popcorn. And worst of all (for many), maybe the sound of someone chewing gum causes instant rage, and makes you want to attack the person. Well, you are not alone. The condition you suffer from is called Misophonia or Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome.
Do you hate the sound of a person eating with their mouth open? That slurpy, mushy, totally disgusting sound.
Do you hate the sound of someone smacking their lips? Everyone knows they are supposed to chew with their mouth closed!
Do you hate the sound of typing? Just that click, click, click of the keys.
Do you hate the sound of someone breathing? Do you hate the sound of a nose whistle sound? Do you hate the sound of snoring?
You are not alone. There is actually a very large number of people who react this way to these sounds as a result of misophonia sound sensitivity.
Generally it is more than just hate. You probably feel hate, anger, rage, disgust, resentment and more when you hear these sounds. Usually, the hate, disgust, and rage is directed to the person making the sound. You hate that person when they are making the sound, but when they stop, and you have time to calm down, you realize that your reaction was not reasonable. It was way too strong of a reaction for what the person did. Because you felt the hate or rage toward the person, you may also feel a lot of guilt. You know you don’t really hate the person – so what is wrong?
The reason that you feel hate, rage, anger, and disgust is because you suffer from a condition called Misophonia or Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome (4S). Misophonia literally means “hate sound,” but you don’ really hate that sound, you hate the person making the sound. That is why Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome is a better name for this condition, but Misophonia is the more popular name.
The reason you hate the sound is because the sound causes a reflex reaction. You have tried to stay calm. You have tried to not hate the person making the sound. You have tried to not go into rage, but you can’t do it! The reason you can’t avoid the hate is that the sound causes an involuntary reflex reaction. The hate, rage, disgust, and anger are literally jerked out of you. Anger is a choice when you are responding to a person’s words. Another person cannot make you angry by what they say. Anger is a choice for words, but not for misophonic sounds.
Because of normal life experiences, you have acquired this reflex reaction to certain sounds. These are specific sounds to you. Usually it starts with sounds made by someone very close to you. You hear that sound and your lizard brain (your autonomic nervous system) responds with a jolt to your body and you have instant hate, anger and rage.
So you hate sounds because you have misophonia. Misophonia, or Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome, causes an involuntary reflex reaction to the sound. Unfortunately, misophonia doesn’t go away. The more you hear the sound – the more you feel hate, anger, and rage when you hear the sound – the more time you try to stick it out and stay calm (but of course cannot) – the worse the misophonia becomes. Misophonic reactions become stronger. The trigger sounds spread from one person to many people (or everyone). The number of triggers increase with time.
But It doesn’t have to progress this way. There are things you can do to stop misophonia from growing. There are things you can do to make this a more tolerable condition. There are actually some things that you can do to reduce your misophonia – to reduce the reaction to specific triggers. And there are some people who we have helped who no longer have triggers at all.
So welcome to misophoniatreatment.com and the Misophonia Treatment Institute. We want to give you help and hope.
May the sound be with you, not against you.
