Misophonia is petty and annoying

[Blackjack]

This petty rant is about brain-wiring making mountains out of molehills.

For anyone unfamiliar, Misophonia is a not-very-well-understood disorder that means specific sounds can trigger extreme negative reactions. I say not well understood simply because so little research has been done into it, it's not even classified medically as a proper disorder.

It manifests a bunch of ways for a different of people. Personally, mine is set off by the sounds of eating.

If I hear eating, especially with headphones, I immediately see red. There's no gradual scale, I just go from 0 -> 100 on a dime of just anger. Once the sound stops, the anger goes away almost as quickly as it came, but for those few seconds I genuinely have never felt a hatred like it. It doesn't matter who it is, in the moment I despise them more than I've ever hated anyone.

It's totally irrational, it's a short-circuit in the brain, it makes no sense.

While the hatred vanishes quickly, it's then replaced by me being frustrated and annoyed that my brain did that. Again.
It's very hard to explain to people who just don't get it.

"It's just a noise!" they say, being 100% correct. It doesn't change anything. It's an irrational and involuntary response. I agree with you, it's just a noise, but my opinion doesn't really come into it. I've spent over 30 years looking for the solution, haven't found it yet. Once I find it, I'll invite you over to chew in my ear you weirdo.

I don't really have a point with this thread. Just venting, I suppose.
If you ever encounter someone with a disproportionatly negative response to a harmless noise, try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

(This rant brought to you by the Ixion demo, which I Alt-F4'd five seconds into the tutorial of because they decided it would be super cool to have the tutorial voice be eating the entire time.)

[Rorschach]

Having been on the receiving end, I can sympathise. Being younger at the time, I just put it down to arseholery but I can see now that no one is winning in this particular transaction.

There's something oddly compelling about phobias though. I have trypophobia and the night I found that out, I spent hours prodding at it looking at images that just made me dizzier and more full of dread with each passing one. Didn't stop me though.
And then I dreamed about them for weeks. Itching. Yikes.

Have you considered noise-cancelling ear protectors? They're not stylish or anything but you might find them helpful. Cara has them for when school is just too overwhelming and my understanding is that even knowing you have that option can be a comfort even without putting them on.

And I'm sorry to hear that - by necessity - your toppy can never be too sloppy.

[Blackjack]

Phobias in general are weird as fuck. I don't have typophobia, but I can absolutely empathise with how it makes people feel. It just looks wrong on some fundamental level. Like looking at some alien nightmare.

I have aracnephobia, which is the vanilla of phobias, I feel. That one at least makes sense to me. Some ancient learned instinct by cavemen that spiders are dangerous translates to me being piss-scared of them. When I see one my brain goes "Danger alert! Scream and run away!"

Misophonia and phobias like trypophobia just hit different. You don't even really understand the why, it's just got some express lane to the part of your noggin where it just starts pulling levers.

Have you considered noise-cancelling ear protectors?

Thankfully my in-person experiences are minimal. I can put distance between me and them, or excuse myself entirely. In the rare times I can't, I put earphones in and listen to loud music.
It's online that gets me 99% of the time. I'll be in a call with someone and it'll happen, and thanks to the headphones it feels like the leaned right into my ear - awful.

And I'm sorry to hear that - by necessity - your toppy can never be too sloppy.

"Due to administrative errors, our new kink is total silence like a psychopath."
I count myself lucky it hasn't been much a problem in that respect. I'm usually too focused on other things at the time

[Rorschach]

Yeah, I think there's a lot in your theory about there being some fundamental wrongness triggering our 'shite it' glands. Like some ancient evolved fear lurking in our limbic system. I'm sure I've seen somewhere that that's one of the possible reasons cats go bonkers when you put a cucumber beside them: that they confuse the shape for a snake and so some inherited and irresistible evasive manoeuvres kick in.
Even cats that have never seen a snake, which you'd imagine would be most of them. Who knows man. I flunked first year psychology fairly hard.

Spiders? Well they're about the most alien thing you're likely to come across in your daily, aren't they? I can see why our brains just say 'Nope'.
Phobias seem to change over time though. Time was I'd to have Nicola remove the wee fuckers while I stood on a stool with my skirts gathered up, but after so many occasions where I've had to rescue my kids from spiders, I'm not nearly as scared from them as I used to be. I don't want to French one any time soon or anything, but I can watch them walk across the floor with a feeling of only mild discomfort now instead of primal dread shutting down my bodily functions like the slamming of tomb doors.

Oddly enough them more I looked into the phobia - the more I read about spiders, basically - the more I came to realise that they're the goodies in this movie. Although obviously mileage varies.