Misophonia: The Hatred of Sound

When I was seven years old I cried myself asleep to the sound of my father chewing scrambled eggs in the living room which was right across from my bedroom.

Eleven years later I found myself coming home and writing long goodbye paragraphs to all of my friends because the sound of a random sophomore biting his fingernails in English class somehow managed to drive me past my breaking point, and I was more than ready to die.

I never understood it.

I'm not a very emotional person, in fact most people find me quite stoic. It's rather difficult to make me extremely happy, or sad or angry...

So why was it that the moment someone pulled out a piece of chewing gum, a friend could instantly become my worst nightmare?

Why was it that by fourth grade, I could no longer eat meals at the same time as my family, unless I sat in the kitchen blasting hour-long "battle music" compilations through my wired headphones.

It didn't make any sense.

There was always this scathing voice chanting the same "You're insane, you're insane, you're insane-" through my head over and over again.

Why was it that at nine years old I despised my parents for taking me out to eat at restaurants?

"How can you be so selfish?" "You spoilt brat." "What's wrong with you?"

I tried to explain it to my parents once. We were on "vacation" in Canada, but even vacations had been poisoned by my insanity. I asked them if they could please "Not chew so loudly" because it made me "Very upset", which was quite the understatement.

No. Not upset. It made my blood boil, my pulse elevate, tears would begin to form and all of a sudden it was as if some other entity, some demon, would take over my body and say or think the cruelest of things in order to make the torture go away. But words cannot fully encompass what I feel.

They laughed in the face of my request, and my father decided to chew on his donuts even louder to mock me. So, I locked myself in the hotel bathroom and silently cried on the cold, tiled floor while digging my fingers into my arm until they broke the skin.

I was twelve years old, and still, nothing made sense.

And then the Internet graced me with a label for my strain of madness.

Wiki calls it Misophonia a.k.a "The hatred of sound."

And although I had a name for my crazy, I didn't have a reason why. I've had therapists completely brush it off to the side when I tried to bring it up because this disease was so obscure and so new.

"Try to just ignore it." "Have you tried deep breathing?" "Think of something else"

They didn't understand, and neither did I.

I still don't understand.