“Crunch, crunch, crunch.” That’s the sounds of my 12-year-old brother as he scarfs down his dinner, happy and carefree, unbothered by the sounds of others eating at the table. But for me, onomatopoeia can’t possibly convey the horrifying sound of someone munching away at a loud snack. This sounds incredibly melodramatic, and ever since the sounds of people chewing started to affect me at age 14, I assumed my internal reaction was just me being sensitive.
As the problem started to affect me more and more at the dinner table, the issues I had with the sound of eating baffled me, and caused many pointless fights between my brother and I. In fact, the idea for this column came from a quarrel my brother and I had over that very noise of him crunching away. It’s the same story every time: he sits down at a table and starts smacking away, I politely ask him to try to be quieter, one time, two times, five times, ten times, until we both get annoyed and it erupts into a fight. This is a small part of my everyday life, and only certain types of chewing really get to me, so when I’m not experiencing it, it can seem so insignificant. But the moment I start to hear the sound of certain chewing, the problem seems like the most important thing in the moment, and I experience a flight or fight response. Often, physical symptoms of anger appear, and my reaction is immediate.
For about a year after these sounds began to bother me, I had no idea why, and I assumed that I was just overreacting to sounds that annoy everyone. Then, one day, I was in the car with my friend and her mom, and we were talking about that problem. It turned out that her mom had the same issue, and it had a name: misophonia. When translated literally, it means “hatred of sound.” The technical name for it is “select sound sensitivity syndrome.”
According to The Huffington Post, 20 percent of people experience misophonia, with varying reactions, from disgust to rage. Finally finding a name for this issue helped me to deal with it as a tangible problem, and acknowledging that my reaction is coming from somewhere has helped me when it does affect me.
The scientific community has only just started to research this problem, and some early research suggests hyperconnectivity between the auditory system and limbic system, which controls your emotions. Personally, I find that misophonia affects me much more during times of stress, like during the school year. During the summer it is much easier to handle, and it is never a huge problem for me. Finding a name for it was what helped me deal with it the most, as it’s always been a rather trivial problem that only affects me in the moment.
– By Meera Butalia
