Sound sensitivity

My daughter has an extreme sensitivity to certain sounds. This has come to include most sounds made by members of her immediate family. Particularly her parents. Misophonia is selective. So sufferers can be affected by a noise made by a trigger person, but it seems the same noise made by another person doesn't affect them. Luckily she copes fairly well at school and in the outside world - except when she's with me mainly. I have to be careful how I walk - the noises and the movements I make. People with misophonia can have visual triggers to movements in their peripheral vision too.
As I understand it the reaction caused by a trigger sound is an uncontrollable feeling of rage. This is probably one thing that makes it very difficult for people to understand or believe in misophonia. The rage is not always acted out but I get the feeling the acting out is more common in children. Through belonging to support groups I understand that the feeling of anger is not something that can be helped or controlled.
Misophonia causes misery and ill-feeling in families. This is certainly our story. Sometimes Diana is optimistic about the future and other times she can see no future.

A new blog

A strange affliction - I hadn't heard of misophonia a year ago. Now it blights my life. This is a little-known and hard-to-understand disorder. In its most extreme form it seems to be very rare. It's an internet disease. As it becomes more widely known, people who have been suffering for years suddenly realise they're not alone and there are other people like them. Some people find out by googling their symptoms. This is how my 16 year old daughter found out. She found out and then waited for the symptoms to worsen as the internet said they would. Who knows if that was self-fulfilling? One bright light in all of this is that at least we know what it is.

Hatred of sound. Sound rage. Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome. These are all used to describe misophonia. I don't really understand what it feels like but I see the sudden change of mood, the panic, the need to control her environment, the fear of being exposed to a trigger. And it's not just sounds - movements as well.

Most health care professionals haven't heard of misophonia. There's no reliable treatment. Some people stumble on something that helps, but what helps one doesn't necessarily help another. A lot of research is needed.

I'm starting this blog to give some insight into how this thing impacts on sufferers, their families, and their relationships.