Misophonia

Chomp, chomp, chomp, the crunching of food with a wide open mouth; the sound of it can drive some people absolutely insane. Are you one of these people? It doesn’t just drive you insane, it fills you with anger! Here's some news for every one of you who feel this, what you're feeling is really a medical condition.  

                Those determined to have a recently recognized condition called misophonia are driven to frenzy and rage by certain little noises such as chewing, slurping and swallowing. These sounds are more than simply irritating to misophonia sufferers. Starting when they are youngsters, the condition causes outrage, uneasiness and dread when a trigger sound like smacking gum is heard. Obviously, there is not a cure for it; it is only a part of life that these individuals need to manage.

 I had no clue that these simple noises, that people hear regularly, could bring about such a ruckus in their brains. However, experiencing a couple of personal stories of individuals feeling these emotions, it truly seems like they need to rip a few heads off when a trigger noise is heard.

I've never had this issue, I never minded at all, really. I am almost certain that my brother experiences misophonia, however. Growing up I’ve shown signs of improvement at it, yet I’ve generally been the one chewing with their mouth open or slurping their beverage down loud and heedlessly. My brother used to get mad and frustrated at me when I did this. In light of different sufferer’s encounters, I can unquestionably say that my brother suffers from the same "illness," if you will, as them.  

This is what my brother, who I mentioned before, had to say about the subject, when I informed him that he was a part of the group of newly recognized sufferers:

I'm not sure that I experience this or not, but ever since I was a kid, I've generally been very irritated by certain sounds that people make (he made sure to let me know that I was the biggest contributor of these people). I used to try and eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever it was, as quick as possible. I couldn’t look at people when we were eating or it would drive me even more insane. I have to admit, I really did want to punch him (me) in the face plenty of times due to his noisy eating.

As you can see, he wasn’t very fond of me doing these actions around him. But, the truth is, I tried so hard to not eat like this. For as far back as I can remember, I would always try to focus on keeping my mouth closed while eating, and I’ve definitely gotten better at it, but I still lapse sometimes, and even the love of my life reminds me to chew with my mouth closed.

This has always been my reaction; you don’t chew with your mouth open do you? You don’t know what it’s like to have your nose so stuffed that you can’t breathe out of it at all, hence chewing with my mouth open. I have to get air somehow when I am eating. You just don’t even know.

I’m not being negative when I share this; I am doing it in hopes that for anyone who reads this, that they will think about what others are going through before they say something. No one knew how hard it was for me to chew with my mouth closed, I really couldn’t sometimes. And I never thought about how much it bothered my brother, it’s now an actual illness, and you can’t get mad at someone for that. Just remember, you don’t know what they’re going through. Think before you judge.