heard about a disorder some might want to look into

[DammitJanet]

I think its called misophonia or misofonia. Not sure of the spelling. It was on 20/20 on this past friday night. It is where certain sounds make a person literally crazy. They can even go into rages. And it can start at different ages and it can be only certain people...like mom's voice will irritate more than dad's.

Things like gum smacking or lip chewing or even breathing heavy can bring people to raging.

 

[KTMom91]

I saw it as well. Interesting story. My mother in law has this to some degree...she can't stand gum chewing, sunflower seed eating, ice crunching, slurping, dogs barking...things like that.

 

[DammitJanet]

I wonder if there is a related disorder but it has to do with visual stimuli. I cant play video games like Mario brothers...even the older ones where the characters jumped from limb to limb. I feel like it is me falling. If I see someone on TV fall, I feel this pit in the stomach clench thing and I almost jump.

 

[buddy]

I was laughing my head off when I saw this. I made my parents INSANE when I was younger (still bugs me but I control it) because I could NOT hear the sound of anything pouring, tinkling into a cup or sink or anything that sounded like pee to me. It is far worse than fingernails on a chalk board. Chewing/smacking was very much the same. If a spoon lifts up gooey food and it makes a smacking sound like that too...I just can't tell you what that does to me.

We all just say I am weird.... never in my life would I think it has a name! I never hit anyone, and have totally learned to deal with it. But that really did make me laugh. Other people get bugged that much by certain sounds? (it is very different from how I think of sensory defensiveness.... there is a gross out factor or just a that really makes me crabby factor ....Hard to explain...other sounds of the same intensity/loudness would be ok, Know what I mean??)

 

[DammitJanet]

Actually the actress who is on Regis and kelly has it. Kelly Rippa. She says she has it bad enough that if her husband eats a peach she has to leave the room. Some how she has been able to control it enough to be on camera though.

The kids on the show were in bad shape. Reminded me of some of the kids here who have raged at parents for talking. Maybe its because of the way the sound actually does sound. I know there are a few certain sounds that literally drive me straight up a wall and I wont be responsible for what I will do when it happens. There was one teen girl on the show who simply couldnt handle even hearing her mother breathe or chew, much less talk. They would communicate through a form of sign language on the steps and notes. They would pinky hug and the girl kept her earbuds on constantly so she wouldnt hear her mom. Thats whats odd. She could handle music.

 

[Hound dog]

I've had this issue. Heavy metal music will drive me to the brink of insanity within just a few minutes, certain other types of music has the same effect. I think it's the tones in the music, or at least some of them that trigger it. A whiny child is another one, it's the sound of the whine itself.........and yes some are far worse than others. Katies as a child made me have to make her leave the room so I didn't get physical with her. Many of Travis' verbal tics would drive me crazy......and I mean the furious type of crazy, so I taught him to go to his room with verbal tics. The non verbal ones didn't seem to phase me.

There were certain tones under the age of 6 that would set Travis into what I call autistic zoning out, where he truly went off into his own world and you could not reach him regardless of stimuli until the sound stopped. I actually have this caught on video tape. He got a police car for xmas at age 3 and it's siren worked. If the siren was set off, travis would Zone. When it stopped you can see him snapping out of it. It didn't take me long to make that car disappear. If he did it older than age 6 I really haven't noticed much........but then at age 13 he was diagnosed with absence seizures, so some of them could have actually been the zoning out thing........probably were since some could last 45 mins or more. There were also times when it would trigger him to rage as well. And I've seen this with Alex too.

 

[TeDo]

Janet, I wish I had seen that. There are many sounds that REALLY irritate difficult child 1. The worst are some people's voices that grate on his nerves. He had 2 teachers with "that" kind of voice that he absolutely despised being around them. He'd eventually yell at them to "JUST STOP TALKING". Not a good thing when one of them is the SpEd teacher and he's spending half his day with her. His Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) had that same kind of voice. Probably why he hated going so much....besides the fact that she was an idiot.

 

[InsaneCdn]

This doesn't happen to be a common affliction of teenage girls, does it?
Because... some of it sure sounds like most teenage girls I know in real life... particularly the "mother's voice" one...

 

[susiestar]

I am better now but for years the sound of anyone chewing, slurping, smacking lips/gum, eating made me rage. We just thought it was teh cortisone I was taking for arthritis (truly stoopid doctor didn't bother to try anything else, just HUGE doses of this that did awful things to my developing body). It is better now, but NONE of my kids chews with an open mouth. I started that as soon as they started eating because otherwise I was afraid I would beat one of them to death. Literally beat one to death. As in go to prison.

Hip hop makes me furious. Any kind regardless of lyrics. Not sure thank you has heard it (he hates music mostly) and Jess hates it and so does Wiz. Wiz used to cry in pain from hearing the class sing ANYTHING. Totally refused music class until high school where it was band or choir. By then most kids can sing at least a little, so it was less painful. But off key music is truly physically painful to him, largely because he hears in perfect pitch and if you can get him to sing, sings that way too. We had an audiologist confirm this and write a letter that got him out of music before high school because he would cover his ears and shriek in agony, usually ending up vomiting from pain for the night. You can't fake that reaction.

So this is interesting, thanks!

 

[hearts and roses]

I have it and poor easy child has it...hers is way worse than mine. She becomes completely unhinged when anyone is chewing gum...even if their mouth is clamped closed. She can imagine what sounds like and drives her nuts. I've made people spit out their gum or hard candy before getting in my car. I've always been insane about those little seemingly invisible noises. My mother rubbing her feet together, people just relaxing and moving their feet drives me absolutely bonkers. I was like a pretzel at times to find ways of blocking my view of her feet. My sister chews like a cow, on purpose around me, I don't eat with her at all anymore. slurping of the coffee, gum chewing, eating in general, especially soups and cereals, loud swallowing and breathing .... Yep that's me!

You can imagine just how much more annoying difficult child's tics were for us...her sniffling tic, clearing the throat tic, repeated the same phrase all day and night for weeks or singing the same danged jingle from a tv commercial, yeah, good times for all!


Don't I sound like a good time? Lololol. Thanks, Janet for giving me a label...I'm going to let easy child know there's a name for that!

 

[keista]

Interesting. I suspected son had this and didn't know it had a name. Fortunately not bad enough to rage, but bad enough to not function well. In his case it's a voice thing girl/women voices.

I really can't stand the base ppl have set in their cars these days. Got stuck at a traffic light right next to such a car once and I literally started getting nauseous. Was so bad I wanted to make a left turn on red. Didn't, but sure came close.

 

[buddy]

I suppose it is like anything, it is not a true disorder unless it interferes with life in some way. As a child it did for me. I would fall apart, mom started pouring in another room and bringing glasses out, etc. But I never got rageful like some of those on tv and it bugs me but not to any degree where I couldn't be around the sounds anymore. I would never say I could be labeled with any disorder but I had it enough though that I could understand how if a person was wired differently in any way it could really set them off. I believe it for sure.

Still, I already have a text from my mom teasing me....it made us laugh about me. (not at those suffering of course)

 

[Jody]

I have had this for years and it is not pleasant. I still cannot take potato chip crunching and the noise that it makes when being eaten. Smacking your gum, rattling the chip bag. People can be chewing with their mouth shut and I still can't stand that sound I have to get up and leave the table. My next door neighbors kids screaming. They scream non-stop while playing. I have to remove myself physically from the noise. I can be in a crowded bingo hall with 300 people but the little old lady two rows over that is rattling her chip bag, well it's like she and I are the only ones in the room. It sounds so loud and obnoxious to me that I cannot take it. I will move to the other end of the bingo hall. I have to remove myself from the situation. Recently my very best friend has been bringing doritos to the bingo hall with her. OMG, they are the worse than chips. Everytime she bites down on one, I imagine that everyone in the hall is going to be looking at us, but they aren't its just me. She's a great friend and I just can't move from sitting next to her, but I sit with my hands on my ears in a way I hope is not noticeable to her.

 

[HMBgal]

I have a student like this: the sound of chirping birds. He wears headphones and sings when he hears them, but it took years to get him to the point where we could even get him outside for physical education and his orientation and mobility services. Now that it's springtime...oy! Now, my husband smacking his gum drives me into a quiet rage, but I don't think it's the same somehow...

 

[hearts and roses]

I sit with my hands on my ears in a way I hope is not noticeable to her.

I do that too, Jody. H laughs me off most of the time. The worst is in the movie theater....UGH, I just cannot stand all that munching and plastic crinkling and slurping. Drives me NUTS!! It's gotten to the point where I will wait until a movie has run its course because I can't bear the thought of being surrounded by chewers. I've politely asked people in class to please close their mouths while chewing and it seems to make it worse...as if they go out of their way to be louder (or my ears are just more sensitive to every little sound).

The other night while traveling to the airport with easy child, her boyfriend asked if I had gum. I froze and I turned to easy child and said "Is he okay to give gum to?" and from the backseat, boyfriend just laughed and said, "easy child would kick me out of the car if I made a sound while chewing - it bothers me too!" LOL

 

[Signorina]

Chewing bothers me - but not to the raging point... to the grump snarky point; yes!

But vibrations? OMG, can't stand it. I hate when the heat comes on! H wanted to install air cleaners on the furnace but they required that we run the fan at all times and I said NO WAY> I hate the sound of the overhead exhaust (stove) fan. I hate background humming noises of any kind. H needs to have the radio on while he works. I can't stand it. And if he is listening to the talking heads (radio guys, not the 80s band) I go apocalyptic! I just can't think! I only listen to music when I drive. And if I think I smell something funny while driving, I have to turn the music down to figure out if it's from my car or another.

I also hate having my ears covered. No headphones, winter hats, winter head bands for me. If it's bitter cold, I will wear a hat as a concession but I HAVE to take it off while I drive. I can't drive with a hat on; I feel too out of sync. I was a figure skater in my youth and I couldn't skate with a hat on -- same thing-- I felt displaced! I have no idea why.

 

[DammitJanet]

See...we are difficult child's! When I saw that on the show I was like...oh this is us...lmao. One of the teen girls had thrown her mom into walls, hit her, punched her...everything but not because she wanted to but because it was so hard on her. She would be hitting her mom and screaming at her mom to help her stop at the same time. So sad. I can understand it though. There is something that sends me right over the bend and it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I can feel it in the back of my brain. Right now I cant even remember what makes that sound but when it happens, it makes me go nuts.

 

[Jody]

LOL, no doubt I am/difficult child. Oh another one of the things that drives me nuts is whistling. Just because you can whistle a tune does not mean that everyone wants to listen to it. If I just started singing that loud, it would be disruptive but because they can whistle, they think its okay. I don't want to hear it, your are invading my life with noise that does not have to be and you are gonna make me listen to it. Shut up already. You can probably see that even thinking about it makes me irate. My boss whistles and another girl in the office whistles. Drives me absolutely wild. I am glad when neither one of them come to work.

 

[hearts and roses]

I'll drink to that, I am a difficult child, so what?!

 

[Hound dog]

Jody, I'm right there with the whistling. It can make me furious in short order, and I just want to make it stop. When my mom left her 3rd husband we lived in a duplex that had paper for walls. The old man upstairs whistled the entire time he was awake. Now it would've driving me insane had he been whistling a tune. But noooooooo..........just random whistling noises all day and night. I used to plot the old man's murder in rather creative ways. I was never so glad when we moved. omg!