Summary

Top photo via Hasan Almasi / Unsplash

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Understand The War

The main thing to realise is that a bit of your brain is doing its best to keep you safe and can interpret stuff you hear (and see) as very threatening and is preparing you to react.

This bit of your brain is called your “limbic system” and it’s responsible for organising and recognising threats. When it recognises what it thinks is a threat, it dumps adrenaline into your body. It’s always on the alert, even when you don’t want it to be and even when you’re asleep. It thinks it always has a good reason for preparing you to react so strongly and it thinks it’s acting in your best interests at all times.

It’s just a signal to your body to react with the intention of keeping you safe. Your limbic system tagged something as dangerous sometime (especially if it repeated) and you had no control over that. The sounds, sights, smells, tastes and touches get tagged by association. They have no meaning in themselves.

It’s completely standard that some folks get tunnel hearing (and tunnel vision) because their limbic system is making them focus on the immediate threat. Folks can experience this as sensory overload.

Some folks’ unwanted reaction to certain sounds or certain visuals can be rage or fear. Some folks call it an “adrenaline rush”. The more you don’t like something the more threatening it is and the more threatening it is, the more adrenaline your limbic system will dump into your body.

It’s completely standard that some folks feel a combination of rage and fear and panic and shame and helplessness and anxiety and that they’re not okay and that no one can understand them and that they’re the only one and that they’re a freak.

It’s completely standard that some folks get more triggers and their reaction gets stronger.

Sometimes, there are life-long consequences - where folks live, who they live with, where they go, what job they do, how they structure relationships with partners, family, friends and colleagues.

You weren’t born with painful emotions. You were born with the capability to make painful emotions about something, and you did that, completely successfully. That’s what normal human beings with perfectly functioning brains do.

The sounds are neutral and everyone’s hearing the same ones but not everyone is reacting the same way.

Folks can think they’re reacting to sounds but they’re not. They’re reacting to the threat they’ve attached to the sounds. The attachment is completely involuntary and outside their control and happened when they were a kid and took less than a second. The purpose of the attachment at the time was to keep them alive and safe and whole.

The thing inside your head that did the attachment is an amygdala.

You have two of them (one behind each eye) but everyone acts as if you have just one.

It is not in your control what your amygdala has done in the past.

What is in your control is turning the threat off now. Once you’ve done that, you won’t react to the sounds any more. You may not even notice them.

When folks want to get rid of their reaction, it is completely natural and very common that they first go to other folks who say they know about such things but folks often get told to do things that don’t work.

For example, many folks try Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which targets the cortex. They don’t get a huge or lasting effect because the misophonic response and CBT rationalising happen in different parts of the brain. It’s like losing something over there and looking for it over here. Also, from the point of view of your limbic system, CBT is a “No”. This will likely increase the amount of conflict between your rational brain and your limbic system’s experience, so your reaction will, at best, stay the same (and might get worse) because your limbic system has all the power. Saying “Yes” will reduce the amount of conflict inside you, which is what you want.

What’s going on is a defence reaction to a threat. I use the word “threat” because I haven’t found a better one. Your threat is usually not what some folks call a “big trauma”. It’s not necessary to have a threat to life or limb or an assault or a health issue or an accident or a big loss or time in prison or anything like that.

There’s usually just one threat (99 times out of 100) and it’s usually a threat of social standing (which is about who and what you are and your relationship to the world). The highest number of threats I’ve ever found is 3.

Your limbic system treats you being socially threatened the same as you dying because it thinks it means you won’t get resources from your family or tribe or be protected by them. This comes from many generations of evolution long before you entered the scene.

Your threat will be very personal to you which means it’s a waste of time comparing yourself to others, which many folks naturally do.

Some folks know what their threat is and some folks don’t.

If you don’t know, it can be almost impossible to identify by yourself because you’re too close to it and you need an uninvolved person to assist you.

I’m reminded of the fish story, which goes: There are two fish in the sea. One fish asks the other fish:

How’s the water?

The other fish answers:

What’s water?

One way to find your threat is to complain about your growing-up circumstances to yourself or to anyone who’ll listen. Your threat will be very specific to your history. It’s not one-size-fits-all. Your threat is not buried in long-ago memories. I can often talk to folks for 10 minutes and pick out their threats like jewels.

Another way to find your threat is to ask someone who knows you well to tell you what you don’t like the most. Good candidates to ask are best friends or boyfriends or girlfriends or husbands or wives. Do not ask a parent or caregiver because you’re likely to get triggered again and feel bad. Maybe ask a brother or sister.

One way to know when you’ve found your threat is if if you can feel bad thinking about it in the absence of the trigger.

And, for example, if you react to the sounds of eating, your threat does not have to be directly related to eating experiences, but in that case it helps.

It’s:

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One War With Many Possible Fronts

There are many different things that folks can react to.

Folks can have a completely normal childhood and adulthood and install completely normal threats of social standing.

It’s very common that you’ll share the same trigger as others and have a completely different threat.

The following 14 examples are combinations of folks I’ve had either a little or a lot of contact with.

Example 1

Growing up, her parents said to her, over and over:

Don’t eat too fast.

Don’t chew with your mouth open.

Don’t talk with your mouth full.

Don’t shovel food into your mouth.

Don’t scrape the forks and spoons across your teeth.

Don’t slurp.

Don’t eat loudly.

Don’t smack your lips.

You want to have control over your food and not the other way around.

If she exhibited bad table manners, one of her parents would scold her.

Then she got frustrated because she’d ask:

How are we supposed to eat then?

When she heard or saw her parents eating badly, she’d get enraged and yell and scream.

And they’d yell at her for freaking out and look at her like she needed to go to a psych ward.

She started reacting to her siblings and extended family.

It was easier for everyone when she ate in a separate room, so that’s what happened.

If she tries to explain just how enraged it makes her, she’s treated like an idiot, so she stopped trying to explain it.

She can’t understand how other folks are not as upset as her at rude behaviour. She thinks that folks with bad manners and poor self-awareness are partially to blame. She thinks the person making all the loud eating noises must be so consumed by gluttony that they are incapable of being considerate to others.

She feels like a freak for reacting so strongly to something so simple and she is conscious of others’ frustration with her for focussing on sounds they don’t notice.

She’s always been embarrassed by how much other folks’ eating bothers her and she constantly tries to avoid a situation where she might lose it.

As an adult, she doesn’t lash out as bad as she did as a child. She just leaves the room because she doesn’t want others to see her suddenly upset and enraged or plugging her ears. Or she chews and swallows at the exact same time as the other person to drown the noise out.

Loud crunching with lip smacking makes her want to murder.

At work, when she gets customers chewing on gum, she rings them up as fast as she can to get rid of them as fast as she can.

Her threat could be something like: It’s not fair that others can be so rude.

Example 2

When he was a teenager, his parents split and then he lived with his Mom.

During his parents’ divorce, he’d call his Dad at work a lot because he really wanted to speak with him and it was the only phone number he had for him. Almost every time, what he got was a scratchy voicemail greeting which sounded like a bad radio connection with lots of static.

Every once in a while, he’d go to a restaurant with his Dad and it would be weird. He didn’t know what to say and his Dad didn’t know what to say so all he could hear were the sounds of folks eating at the tables around them.

In school, he used to freak out because there was one student who had a pencil that made scratching noises.

The noise of his cat eating drove him nuts and he felt physically sick. He felt ashamed that he felt such hatred towards his pet because he loved it dearly and would never hurt it.

When he went shopping and they played staticky music over the speakers, he had to leave the shop.

His threat could be something like: Dad doesn’t want me anymore.

Example 3

As a child, his Dad used to hurt him.

At dinner, his Dad munched and crunched very loudly. And it bothered him so badly that he would throw his plate across the room so his Dad would send him to his room so he could get away from the table because if he stayed in the room with his Dad while he ate, he was scared he would lose his temper and attack his Dad or hurt himself.

His threat could be something like: I don’t know how to make Dad love me.

Example 4

Growing up, she went to a boarding school and she was bullied by a couple of her classmates and she had to eat in the same dining room as them, three times a day, every day.

As an adult, she can’t eat with anyone.

She wishes something seemingly so little to most folks didn’t bother her so much.

Her threat could be something like: I am not a victim.

Example 5

At school, there was assigned seating for lunchtimes and he had to sit next to the same person every lunchtime for years and that person teased him a lot.

He asked to sit somewhere else but the answer was:

No.

As an adult, he can’t eat with anyone and he thinks he’s crazy.

His threat could be something like: Trapped next to my tormentor.

Example 6

Growing up, her Mom tried to turn her into a sex-object.

She’s triggered by seeing or hearing folks licking their lips.

Her threat could be something like: I’m more than that.

Example 7

Her Dad was an alcoholic and when it was time for the evening meal, he would have just got home from work, so he hadn’t had enough to drink yet so he was on edge, so he would be really violent at the dinner table. The quiet sound of eating would be followed by sudden violent attacks.

When she was in her early teens, she started trying to get away from the dinner table. The folks around her thought she was anorexic but she just didn’t want to eat with anyone and, of course, she couldn’t explain that.

As an adult, she kept earplugs in every coat, in every bag and in her car.

She spent twenty years thinking she was completely crazy. She tried very hard to hide the way she was feeling so she never ate with anyone and she never travelled on public transport.

She worked with children. One day, there was a bunch of children eating at the lunch-table and there was no music or background noise and one of the boys asked her why she was wearing earplugs and she yelled at him to leave her alone and she was immediately not proud of what she’d done.

She wanted to change things for the better so she went to therapy and found it so hard that she quit.

Then she discovered the word “Misophonia” and she was very relieved and comforted because it meant she wasn’t the only one and she didn’t need to go back to therapy or those mealtimes ever again.

Her threat could be something like: The person eating is going to hurt me.

Example 8

Growing up, his parents made him eat with his brother, who was treated like the Golden Child.

As an adult, he had great difficulty eating with anyone, including his wife.

His threat could be something like: I’m a second-class citizen.

Example 9

On the outside, he’s an average Joe. He’s married and employed and has two children and friends.

On the inside, he’s at his wit’s end. Over the last ten years or so, things have gradually been getting worse.

After a bad day at work, he’d sit in his car with the engine off.

One day, he did that and thought about someone at work who really triggered him. It was how this person spoke and their tone of voice.

He got so pent up and enraged that he just had to let it out. So he punched his windscreen. And he punched it so hard that it broke.

And he was surprised because he didn’t intend to do that. He’d punched walls and doorframes before and they tended not to do much.

He told his wife that the windscreen was broken by a rock being flicked up in traffic.

His threat could be something like: You can’t tell me what to do.

Example 10

When she was a child, her mother married her stepfather and stayed married to him for ten years or so. He was extremely verbally abusive and violent and he whistled all the time.

As an adult, she couldn’t tolerate any whistling at all.

Her threat could be something like: Trapped with this oppressive whistler.

Example 11

When he was a child, if he took a few bites with his mouth open, he was sent to bed hungry.

His Dad told him that when he was a child, if he chewed with his mouth open, he’d be hit in the face with a rolling-pin.

As an adult, his wife’s eating noises drive him nuts.

His threat could be something like: You’re not going to get the sustenance you need.

Example 12

When he was growing up, he had a lisp and he was teased about it for years and years.

He had wonderful parents and they organised a lot of speech-therapy for him and his lisp completely disappeared.

Then whenever he heard someone making soft “S” sounds, he went into the flashback and he made again those feelings of being teased and he wanted to stuff some fireworks down their throat and light them and blow their head apart but he knew he wasn’t allowed to do that so then he just wanted to die.

His threat could be something like: I can’t be responsible for something I can’t control.

Example 13

When she was younger, her stepmother would lock herself in the bedroom and throw things and scream and cry for a whole day. She’d be downstairs and had nowhere else to go and she listened to the banging and shouting from upstairs, all day.

As an adult, she moved five times to get away from noisy sounds through the wall.

Her threat could be something like: Trapped in here with this lunatic.

Example 14

He ended a relationship with his girlfriend and a few days later she called him and said:

Guess what? I’m pregnant.

It was the nature of his family and hers that they had to get married.

So they got married and they had two children and he got enraged with his wife’s ordinary sounds of living.

He couldn’t eat with her and he couldn’t eat with his kids.

His threat could be something like: Trapped into a future I don’t want.

Generally speaking, you need to:

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Make Peace Not War

Accept your reaction and don’t deny it.

Many folks say to themselves stuff like:

This is irrational.

or:

This is stupid.

or:

I shouldn’t react this way to something so ordinary.

Whilst it’s completely natural to say such things, they tell your limbic system that it’s wrong, because it interprets any of those as you not paying attention to it when it’s trying to keep you safe. The result will be that it will redouble its efforts and your reaction will get worse.

Instead, you can say something like:

Wow, I’m really triggered. I acknowledge that there’s something in this present situation right here, right now that is reminding me of past danger. I had to react this way back then to keep myself safe, so that’s what I’m doing again now. In my present situation, I am perfectly safe.

Or say something like:

Gee, thanks for reminding me that something in this present situation used to be a really big deal in my past. I know you have my best interests at heart. You can stand down. I am safe now.

You might also have to:

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Fight The Hidden War

If you’re in any kind of distress, you’re also fighting the hidden war of dealing with the message of: you’re defective.

Everyone seems pretty normal to me.

To get rid of your reaction:

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Turn Your Threat Off

To turn your reaction off, you untag your threat by experiencing the opposite of it and there are usually a few opposites to choose from. The most common response to that is “Huh?”.

When you turn your threat off, it will be neutralised and your limbic system will get bored of it and you won’t react the way you don’t want anymore.

Your reaction won’t return unless you re-attach the same threat or a different one to the trigger. That usually never happens.

You can’t talk your way out or think your way out because your limbic system has no language or analytical ability. You can only experience your way out because your limbic system only updates from present experience. There are usually a few ways to do that and it’s usually straightforward once you’ve found your threat. It’s simple but it’s not easy. It’s not difficult either and it’s not painful at all.

Your limbic system has no sense of time. It thinks all the bad stuff happened all together a few moments ago. That means you can change your reaction no matter how strong it is or how long you’ve had it.

Even though your limbic system can untag a threat in less than a second, it takes most folks about a month to change this. Some shorter, some longer.

Some things you don’t have to do:

• You don’t have to make any life-altering changes.
• You don’t have to learn all about brain anatomy.
• You don’t have to try anything really hard.
• You don’t have to believe anything new or stop believing anything old. For example, you don’t have to believe that you’ll get better.
• You don’t have to commit to an amount of time per day to practise anything.
• You don’t have to “improve” anything.

Everything here applies equally to sights if you’re triggered by seeing something rather than hearing something (and the same goes for problematic smells, tastes and touches).

And:

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Fight The War After The War

Other folks are used to you acting in certain ways. Your behaviour is familiar to them. After you change things for the better, expect a very wide range of reactions from others. Be prepared for folks to be angry with you, to not believe you, to not know how to behave around you and to say stuff to you like:

You never had a problem and you were faking it.

or:

You’re fooling yourself because it’s only temporary.

or:

Wonderful! But you didn’t have THAT problem because THAT problem can’t be cured.

or:

There’s got to be an easier way. It’s just not the case that your problem was caused by what you claim it was caused by.

or:

What? You mean I suffered your bad behaviour for all those years for NOTHING?

Anyway, you can:

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Win All The Wars

Misophonia is a sign of a perfectly-functioning brain, even though it may not seem like it.

There’s no cure for Misophonia because it’s not a disease.

Misophonia is a solved problem and you’re not stuck with it. It doesn’t matter if you’re 25 or 65. You can get rid of your reaction entirely.

If you don’t want to change your reaction, it doesn’t matter what you do. If you do want to change your reaction, it matters greatly what you do.

If you’d like help changing your reaction, see if we’re a match.

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You wanted a banana but what you got was a gorilla holding the banana and the entire jungle.

Joseph Armstrong

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