Long before I knew there was a name for it, I had a mild case of misophonia. Small, repetitive sounds irritated and distracted me. Snapping gum, long fingernails tapping on keyboards, teeth scraping on forksβthese things have been lifelong irritants, but I had strategies to manage them.
Until This year has pushed many of us to discover new truths about ourselves, and for me, the coronavirus pandemic has brought my misophonia to its breaking point.
Researchers first named misophonia as a condition in It can involve physical and emotional manifestations of irritation, anxiety, rage, and more. Misophonia triggers often have multisensory aspects that go beyond noise, like visual and tactile components, for instance. Misophonia is not in the DSM-5 , which is the manual mental health experts use to diagnose mental illnesses. Instead, at present, many experts consider it more of a neurological condition than a psychiatric disorder.
Prior to lockdown, my boyfriend, Martin, and I were always on the move. But having misophonia means that the sound of chewing is going to trigger a wave of negative feelings for me, no matter how pristine his manners are.
The thing about misophonia is that although it can feel uncontrollable, there are actually ways to try to manage it. If you think you have misophonia, the first thing to do is find other people who have it too.
