MISOPHONIA - HATRED OF SOUND

Two

There are times that I feel as though I need to tell someone in my family or look for medical help or something but I always seem to fall short of actually saying what it is.

The summer I turned 16, a friend and I were talking about something that troubles her and I casually brought up that I had misophonia but I never mentioned it after that for fear that she would start to judge me, even if she didn't mean to. Bless her, she really did try to understand what I'm going through but she admitted that she couldn't, as much as she wanted to.

It isn't exactly a disorder that is acknowledged yet (and it may never be) so why would I expect my family and friends to accept it if the only evidence I have found concerning it are a few blogs with people describing their own personal hell and experiences that correspond with mine.

Once, I must have been quite young as I was playing with a new toy in the living room while my parents watched TV. I remember that my dad started to clear his throat or sniff with clear exaggeration and I got to the point where I copied it as it was beginning to trigger my misophonia. He suddenly yelled the question of why I was doing that and I pretended not to know what he was talking about. Since then, he has shouted to me about this being a childish habit that I need to stop.

How can you tell someone something that is seemingly unbelievable when they have had their mind made up about it being a bad habit for years? Another question that has been frequently screamed at me by my parents is if I do this with my friends too. I don't. It's as simple as that. It's a lot easier, I suppose, to ignore sounds when in generally louder public places as there is more background noise and their sounds are not prominent in my mind. Also, my friends and other people who are with company generally try to be quiet and not disturb the whole room with their continuous disgusting noises.

Well, to be fair, I do have a friend that gulps and slurps like an actual pig and it's extremely difficult to cope with. At times, I just have to leave the room and "go to the bathroom" or something so I have a plausible excuse to leave while my friend finishes eating.

It's definitely more difficult to cope with it at home. I guess in public, there is more of a need to keep up appearances and conform to the way society expects me to be like, so my guard slips at home and continue to mimic people rather frequently so that I can keep the anger at bay. I'm not proud of it; never have been and never will be. I'm incredibly ashamed that I subject myself to act in this way continuously just so that I can refrain from hurting myself to stop the thoughts and the feelings that well up inside of me. The longer the sound or movement continues and I can do nothing to stop it or get away from it, the worse my end reaction will ultimately be.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to hurt myself. I don't  self-harm and I have never wanted to end my life.  There are just times, although thankfully not as common as they used to be, that I need just some way to release this pent up frustration and rage and the only thing that I have to use is me. There have been times when a blinding rage has swept through me due to some revolting sound, and I've dragged a pen across my skin, scraped my nails down my arms or slapped myself pretty hard.

I have recently been trying more than I ever have before to find another way to stop the anger and also the mimicking but it is proving almost impossible. I have tried counting, distracting myself, pushing my nails into my palms, directing the person's attention to something else so that they will stop what they are doing or just looking away.

But for some reason, it's like my ears fixate on a sound I don't like and it becomes the only thing in the room that I can focus on. I can't concentrate or calm myself until I find the source of the sound. It is complete and utter torture. I could sit and watch or listen to them do something that is a trigger and I can do nothing about it; this unpleasant feeling rising through my body until it spews into the atmosphere through tears or other means insanity. It's not as if I can just walk away in the middle of a conversation or in class. So I have to revert back to my childhood fail-safe; copying what they are doing.

I think I used to clench my jaw a lot when I was in high school because it started to be incredibly stiff and painful. An orthodontist once told me the clenching was probably due to stress and I realised that she was right. Another crappy coping method that I had to use that ended up hurting myself.

By now, if anyone is reading, I dread to think what you already think of me. But yeah, at least I'm being honest about this and *trying* to accept myself.