{"id":18384,"date":"2018-01-30T10:09:07","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T15:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=18384"},"modified":"2018-01-30T13:23:09","modified_gmt":"2018-01-30T18:23:09","slug":"my-voice-misophonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2018\/01\/30\/my-voice-misophonia\/","title":{"rendered":"My Voice: Misophonia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Picture this: you\u2019re settling into your CPR class where the teacher has the explicit rule of banning gum from his classroom due to kids being irresponsible with the disposal. You relax; finally, you can go through a period without hearing someone crack or chomp on their gum. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0However, that\u2019s when everything goes awry; you have a substitute and she doesn\u2019t care to enforce the rule. Suddenly, in the midst of a video, the first crack sounds from right behind you. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Someone has began to chew gum and it is absolutely <\/span>obnoxious<\/span><\/i>, the downtime between the popping being that of wet, squelching noises as teeth grind the gum. Involuntarily, you find yourself in tears after a couple minutes, desperately snaking your headphones up through your zipped up jacket to avoid the teacher\u2019s reprimands for using electronics in class. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Music is turned on, soft enough to partially block the noise while still allowing you to pay attention. The rest of class is agonizingly slow as you miss several answers and have to get them from your table partner, all with the gum chewer behind you none the wiser to the emotional rollercoaster you\u2019ve gone through. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The bell ringing is your savior and you nearly run from the room, getting away from the horrid noise as soon as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0How this entire scene plays out seems to like an overreaction, right? It\u2019s just a little bit of <\/span>noise,<\/span><\/i> why would anyone have such an agitated response?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \"17c9aa609c17502548f51e24838ed50c.jpg\"\u00a0Well, that would be due to the disorder known as misophonia. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Misophonia is defined as \u201c<\/span>a disorder where people have abnormally strong and negative reactions to the ordinary sounds humans make, such as chewing or breathing.\u201d This disorder can be developed at any age, though it mostly starts to appear in late childhood and early teenage years. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Everyday sounds such as these when heard by someone suffering from misophonia can result in a fight or flight type of response that can lead to feelings of panic, anxiety or rage. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0People with misophonia usually realize how excessive their response is and, in turn, they tend to feel out of control of their emotions whenever it gets triggered. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Some symptoms are: irritation or disgust turning into anger, becoming verbally aggressive towards the person making the noise, being <\/span>physically<\/span><\/i> aggressive towards objects or the person making the noise or taking evasive action to escape the source. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Sometimes people even mimic the sound as it helps them feel better (for example, mimicking how someone\u2019s mouth moves when they chew gum loudly).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The most common triggers are eating sounds, followed by loud breathing or nose sounds, and the trio of horrid sounds is rounded off by finger or hand noises.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0However, misophonia isn\u2019t entirely limited to noises: repetitive movement such as someone bouncing their knee can set a person off as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0As this is a relatively newly identified disorder, there aren\u2019t any specific treatments available. Studies show that ways to improve your environment are by using earplugs or headphones to drown out the noise, seeking a therapist, practicing self-care and even explaining your situation to family and friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0From one misophonia sufferer to another: here\u2019s to hoping we can someday relax when someone snores or chews their gum with their mouth wide open.<\/span><\/p>\n

Erika Brandenburg
\n<\/strong>Reporter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Picture this: you\u2019re settling into your CPR class where the teacher has the explicit rule of banning gum from his classroom due to kids being irresponsible with the disposal. You relax; finally, you can go through a period without hearing someone crack or chomp on their gum. \u00a0 \u00a0However, that\u2019s when everything goes awry; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":18395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2217,2109,3],"tags":[2100,2336,1407],"class_list":["post-18384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-voice","category-opinion","category-tartan-news","tag-erika-brandenburg","tag-misophonia","tag-my-voice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/loud-noise-762345.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-4Mw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18384"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18400,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18384\/revisions\/18400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}