If you’ve ever eaten with me, I probably wanted to kill you.
Before I contact the authorities, let me explain. I’m not a serial killer. I suffer from a condition called misophonia. Small sounds like eating, sniffing, and clicking can trigger such extreme reactions that, at least to me, it feels like a thousand tiny needles are piercing my brain.
I grew up in a time when misophonia didn’t have a name. It was a quirk of character as I sat at the end of the dinner table with my finger firmly planted in one ear. It was a strange trait to add to a long list of other strange traits, including a deep fear of humans. I hated walking on carpet wearing rubber laces and having synthetic materials on the soles of my feet.
For years, I kept my “incorrect” brain a secret from the world, ashamed of the anger I felt toward people who chewed, sipped, sniffed, breathed, and existed. I went to That was at odds with the empathetic version of myself that I so desperately wanted to portray. How can I be considered a kind and understanding person when I want to hit someone on the head who dares to sip their tea?
By the time I was 20, I had told fewer than a few people about my sound sensitivity. Over the next 20 years with her, I expanded that circle of trust even further. All the while, I endured. I endured gum chewing and chipping at work. I sat stoically in my designated movie theater seat, surrounded by people munching on popcorn. Every time an actor puts a mug to his lips in a movie, I cringe. I clenched my fists, curled my toes, and gritted my teeth. I used headphones, earplugs, and my fingers. On one painful bus journey, my neighbor was keen to try all the flavors of Kettle Chips, so I decided to wrap my jumper around my head. I survived for two years in Japan. In Japan, slurping is considered a sign of courtesy, and I was on the verge of ruin or causing a major international incident. every. single. Day.
Then, when I was about 40 years old, the internet gave me a gift. On Twitter, when someone wrote that they were in hell because their colleague was eating an apple at the desk next to them, a thousand voices quickly responded with a chorus of agreement. It turns out that the word for this hell is “misophonia.” My personality quirks, my embarrassing secrets had names. And I wasn’t alone.
It started coming out slowly at first. I told a few more friends and colleagues, but I said it in passing, as if it wasn’t a big deal or something that was eating away at my very soul.
Then I decided to write about it. I’ve never read a book where the main character immediately punches her as soon as she smacks her lips. And by writing about it, I started talking more about it, and by talking more about it, I began to free myself from years of suffering in silence (or rather, suffering in sound). Ta.
Even before this book was published, my book had already led to many “aha!” moments in conversations with other people, and they were wondering about me, about themselves, or about their loved ones. I understood something. A conversation over coffee (drinking carefully) at a friend’s house helped him understand his young daughter. She said her brother nearly knocked over her breakfast table that morning because he was eating cereal that he was trying to write in her birthday card. . I looked at the discarded birthday card still on the table, the letters becoming jagged as the pen dug into the paper, and I felt the girl’s pain.
But I also felt hopeful for her that she would grow up in a world that understood her more. A world where someday there will be movie theaters without popcorn and trains where eating and drinking are prohibited. A world where no one can eat an apple at work without the written consent of everyone present. A world where she doesn’t feel as alone as I do.
I sincerely hope that I can contribute to the creation of this world. Because I’m looking at you, my misophonic friends. I see you and I understand you. But just as you definitely chose not to listen to me, I also chose not to listen to you.
