misophonia: anyone else rage @ certain sounds?

Post Reply New Topic

I can hear the water heater in our basement from the office on the second floor. I hear the air going into the pipe as the water heats up. It drives me absolutely nuts. UUUGGHHHH!! !! !! I have to listen to music in my MP3 player to drown it out.

Misophonia is not comorbid with AS, but possibly with OCD and/or synesthesia:

From Wikipedia: The Dutch study published in 2013 of a sample of 42 patients with misophonia found a low incidence of psychiatric disorders, with the exception of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (52.4%).

It has been suggested that there is a connection between misophonia and synesthesia, a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. The basic problem may be a pathological distortion of connections between various limbic structures and the auditory cortex, causing sound-emotion synesthesia.

Slurping, eating, swallowing, whistling, snoring ... and "toilet noises" (peeing, etc) are all a problem, as are visual triggers like someone jiggling their leg, or the sight of someone chewing, even if their mouth is closed and I cannot hear a thing (lots of background noise). Just the rhythmic motion can aggravate me.

I wear earphones every day from the moment I get on the train, until I get to work (about 50 minutes), and then home. Sometimes I encounter people in the elevator who are chewing gum or slurping a drink. Sometimes people get on the train with food or drink and sit near me or next to me. I also use sound protection in some other situations where the misophonia risk is high. It helps. I have also learned some relaxation exercises from the psychologist who Dx'd my AS - he hadn't heard of misophonia but he was familiar with typical Aspie sensory sensitivity and had some useful suggestions about managing the anxiety and stress.