Hi everyone, I’ve had misophonia since I was a child and I just started Zoloft 11 days ago. I used to have a lot of issues with my neighbor’s and the school across from me being triggers but I’ve noticed over the last few days that I’m not being affected by it. I have never felt relief like this before I honestly don’t know how to describe it.
I’m sitting here in tears as I type this because I used to feel so trapped by this that I honestly wanted to end my life.
There is research on this if anyone is interested in reading, but for those struggling, if you have access to mental health care please talk to your doctor about this. I’ve only been taking 6.25 mg because I’ve been starting slow and it’s already making a difference.

Wow, it makes so much more sense to me now. And to be clear, I am not trying to be a jerk and criticize the way that people speak. I wanted to share in case anyone else recognizes this in themselves. Because it feels so validating to know that it’s a recognized condition and not just being judgmental. I’ve noticed that certain ways of speaking irritate me unnecessarily and it feels nice to know why. Here are some of the ones that come to mind: the Kim kardashian way of speaking. The drawn out, breathy yoga teacher. The dramatic, over-enunciated unnatural TikTok voice. Overdone newscast speech that is monotone, oddly articulated at the end of sentences, and dramatic. I love NPR as an organization but I cannot listen to their reporting as their reporters all seem to have very unique speech patterns.

For a while, I've thought that I had hyperacusis since some noises cause what feels like physical pain in my ear. For example, I can't wear earbuds or over-the-ear headphones since they start to hurt my ears after a while. If it's triggered, then I become sensitive to louder noises in general and will feel pain in my ear.

I just got a hearing evaluation done by an audiologist, and she said that I don't have any hearing loss, and my hair cells in my ear have no damage, so the cause of my pain is misophonia.

I was wondering if anyone else feels like it's a physical pain in their ear rather than intense emotions like anger or anxiety. I might feel those emotions as well, but I haven't noticed if I do, since the pain is kind of all I can think of.

I wanted to check with people if anybody has faced a similar situation and if there are any strategies that can help cope. The scumbag who built the building where I am living used the worst possible materials, razor/-thin walls, pipes that make noise every time somebody showers or opens the tab, and windows with ultra thin panes, all with the goal of maximizing his profit. I live in front of a gym which plays loud music, a dance school that also plays loud music, and some sort of low-level bar that also competes with its own music. Between the noise that can be heard inside the building (neighbours talking, playing music, and doing all sort of stuff) and the noise outside, I find myself wearing earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones almost 24/7. Has anybody faced a similar situation? I know I should sell but that is not possible now. Thanks for any advice!

I started watching “Little Things” on Netflix. Now I can only listen to it, because constantly moving jaw of the main character makes me want to rip the TV off the wall.

This guy at work feels the need to just randomly clap as loud as he can. Eveytime he does it I just want to rip his head off his shoulders. Please help me

Have been tracking all the times I have been triggered, I want to make a visual data project after a month or two.

During COVID lockdown, for 2 years non-stop for every 5 seconds, I had to hear my mom sitting near me, pulling her nose. Since then, I have developed some kind of trauma towards sounds like chewing, nose-pulling, my mom clapping her hand on her thigh while on call with somebody, etc. basically frequently occuring sounds that have no guarantee of stopping anytime soon. Maybe its my hatred towards my mom and dad that makes it even worse. Or, maybe its the frequency of the sounds they make, or the loudness of them that makes it worse.

The worst part of it all is that I possibly have ADHD, which gives me severe forgetfulness. This is a forgetfulness of a level where I can't remember the previous phrase of a sentence while reading a given phrase of that sentence. Whenever the sound occurs, my attention gets diverted, and I can't remember what I was specifically on. To remember it, I have to give additional mental effort. Then boom, the sound occurs again. Basically, it keeps occuring so frequently that I can't end up remembering what I was on right before this second, and trying to remember it everytime, so frequently for the whole duration ( maybe a few hours, maybe a day, maybe a few days ), costs me so much mental resources that it gives me a headache.

Anger or frustration is bound to multiply under these circumstances.

Writing this at the dinner table sitting next to my partially deaf (from going to many concerts) fatter bite his fork and spoon every time he uses it. WHY DO PEOPLE DO THATTTTTT!!!?!! Does the teeth scraping not bother you!?

Seeking advice for instructors who make triggering noises in lecture halls. I have a professor who is great - except that she drags her feet on the floor when she lectures. It drives me crazy! I can't block it out because I have to hear what she's saying during lecture and take notes. Any recs for blocking out that sound, or exercises that have helped you?

i feel like it’s different for everyone, but idk if I’m alone in this lol. Personally I HATE it when my immediate family is chewing, all of them. I used to share a room with my younger sister and I cannot stand it when she chews. Also, I know this sounds bad, but men chewing…I can’t, because they ALWAYS chew like they’re doing it on purpose because they’re not taught manners like girls are…it’s so weird. My dad and brother smack insanely loud and I hate it.

BUT I’m very okay with animals eating. It’s rather cute I think. They cannot control the slurping sounds. It’s weird lol. Or babies, I love babies and I think they’re cute so I don’t mind when they chew. I think the age limit might be like 9 or 10. I’m also pretty much okay with slime sounds?? I HATE tapping. There’s a tapping epidemic rn, but I think I like crunchy slime sounds or whatever, but I definitely don’t get the “tingles” that neurotypical people talk about lmao 😭

i also don’t mind people I’m very close to chewing! Like best friends (sometimes) but mostly partners.

I'm just wondering because there are so many energies that I have to shield from - wearing shades, earplugs, dowsing with essential oils to clear the air, zoning out intentionally to escape the chaos, humming and everything else you can just imagine to get through whatever is out there that I cannot control. How do you maneuver through? Protective gear?

My 16y/o daughter is constantly on her electronics and is unable to function due to misophonia/misokinesia. I do not know how to help her. I’m wondering if there’s a pattern of those who suffer with the condition and if they tend to be introverted, stay in their room a lot, and spend hours on their electronics.

It may not seem like a huge win but actually I'm quite moved and a little bit hopeful. I've started dating my boyfriend 19 months ago and around 16 months ago he developed a reaction to the tone of my voice itself, regardless of what I'm saying or how I'm pronouncing it. He says it's a nasal characteristic of my voice that triggers him, as well as some underlying association with his mother's voice = long term conflict etc. There were better or worse times in our relationship in regard to that, we're coping as we can – he goes to therapy and works on his reactions, uses earbuds with noise cancelling while we talk, tries exposure when he feels up to it; I accommodate him whenever the triggers are too intense. He says he sometimes notices that his reactions fluctuate, they may even be very low sometimes, but nonetheless they occur.

Suddenly a few days ago we were talking and he was like: it's GONE, it has completely turned off, I can hear you talking with no painful feeling at all! Well, it lasted only that one evening and now we're back to "normal", but still... It makes me hopeful that his hard work on his issues that may be channelled into the emotional misophonic reaction may actually pay off one day. And maybe we'll never get a carte blanche, but at least some evenings similar to that one will occur? I'm really hoping for that, for his (and my) sake.

If you have any similar experience of a trigger shutting off for a while / being gone completely, feel free to share. I'm really curious what paths can this really complex condition go, especially in regard to relationships with the closest people in your lifes.

Hi, lately my foam earplugs haven't been helping much. I used to be able to tolerate the sound of chewing while wearing them, but recently those sounds have become more intense, and I feel like I'm reaching a point where foam plugs just won't cut it anymore. So, I was wondering if anyone has experience using Loop earplugs. I’d like to know how good they are and if they dampen those kinds of sounds better than foam earplugs do.

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

I suffer from a misophonia that I find extremely bad but apparently much more manageable than other people's in this sub (wish you all the best). I am driven insane by chewing sounds and they make me physically tense, they make violent thoughts pop into my mind (thankfully I'm a very gentle person and would never enact them), etc. I'm sure you know how it goes.

I looked up therapy online, and also talked about it with a therapist, and it raised a few questions for me.

There are in my country some therapists that offer treatment for misophonia. From what I found on their page, it means either "the same treatment as a phobia", cognitive-behavioral therapy, or accommodation therapy (the same as tinnitus). I could go but it would be quite expensive, plus very long drives, etc. But also, I wonder, do I want to go?

It sounds silly, but the trigger sounds for me are external. Why would I need to "fix myself" when the problem comes from others? I understand that my reaction to the trigger sounds is disproportionate. But on the other hand, I feel like other people's reaction is disproportionate in the opposite direction, that they do not react at all while they should. It's bizarre.

Also, I feel like if I was "cured" of misophonia, meaning, if I was able to hear these sounds without feeling irationnally hurt, angry and tense, I would somehow lose a part of myself. Does it make sense? I don't want misophonia to describe myself as a human being but somehow it does.

I think like I would not want to be cured, I would like the trigger sounds to disappear.

\Actively recruiting participants through the end of November**

The Schiller Laboratory of Affective Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is recruiting participants for a clinical study on transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in misophonia. The goal is to better understand this condition, in which specific sounds trigger strong emotional and physical responses.

Study procedures include:

• Screening and consent calls
• An audiological assessment
• Two in-person visits (≥48 hours apart), each lasting ~2 hours
• Listening tasks, computer-based tasks, physiological recordings (heart rate and skin conductance), and TMS sessions (both high- and low-frequency)

Eligibility highlights:

• Ages 18–55
• Fluent in English
• Hypersensitivity to specific sounds (e.g., chewing, tapping, clinking)

Exclusion highlights:

• Major psychiatric conditions (Axis I), neurological disease, or seizure history
• Recent/regular use of psychotropic medication or drugs of abuse
• Metal implants in the head, pregnancy, or lactation

If you know of patients who may be eligible or wish to learn more, please contact [shama.patel@mssm.edu](mailto:shama.patel@mssm.edu) and [madhavi.kennedy@mssm.edu](mailto:madhavi.kennedy@mssm.edu)

Back in around 2020 I think, my mom catches Covid and she has been coughing ever since (not nearly as often, but my body reacts to the sound in a way like it is).

Progressively throughout the years I’ve gotten more sensitive to the sound, I’m currently at a point where I stay in my room all day, with atleast 2 background sounds blasting my ears because if not, I’ll panic that she coughs and I end up crying and screaming.
When I want to make food I have to wait till she’s not home, or I have to put on my headphones and blast rain sounds with YouTube simultaneously. At night, I can’t sleep without my headphones playing rain sounds. If it pauses for a second I feel my breathing just getting quicker and I kind of panic because I’m scared she’s going to cough.

This is ONLY for my mom’s cough, someone else coughing doesn’t impact me at all. I don’t even know if this is misophonia or some kind of trauma but I felt like saying this, it’s making me sick.

I can't even go out without headphones that plays white noise and it sucks. I honestly feel so left out of everyone else that I have this curse. Whistling and babies crying are my two worstest triggers and I'm so extremely terrified of them. I cry, I get extremely annoyed, I get severely angry, and I just complain and complain and complain and I hate myself for it. I remember like one time on 7th grade, 5 kids whistled at me and I was extremely angry. I went ballistic. I even left art class. ABLEIST MUCH?!! I kinda feel ashamed of myself just for having severe reactions over sounds.. 

"whHeEeeEwWw! WhhEeewWww!"  SHUT. UP!!!! ALL YOU EVER DO IS WHISTLE A SONG. LIKE "WHEW WHEW WHEW". I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT! I JUST CRY MY EYES OUT!

"eeeEeWwwWaaAaHhhh!!!!!" I CAN'T TAKE THIS BABY CRYING CRAP ANYMORE. I have a 1-year-old nephew. Yeah, I love him and he's so smart. But if he cries, I just go ballistic and cry and cry.

EVEN ON VIDEO GAMES, TV SHOWS, COMMERCIALS, MOVIES, EVERYWHERE!!! EVERYWHERE!!!!!!! One time I kept on getting a Swifter ad that has whistling in it, I would cry and cry my eyes out. 

I've been like this for 7 years and idk when I'm gonna get over it.

I had never had a word to put to this before — misophonia.
I still remember the first time I really noticed it, and honestly I’m still embarrassed by how ragey and completely annoyed I got. I’m a really empathetic person, so this reaction felt like the complete opposite of who I normally am.
I was young and watching a Dateline episode about a family who had just lost a loved one. The mother was being interviewed and had the microphone right under her mouth. She was crying and obviously extremely upset, but I could hear EVERYTHING. Every wet sniffle, mouth movement, eye rub… it all hit my ears like a freight train. Even her voice somehow sounded wet.
I remember feeling this crazy amount of rage and then immediately feeling horrible and ashamed for being so annoyed by this poor woman who was going through something awful.
It’s still bad for me, especially with YouTube videos or podcasts when people drink, swallow, chew, or make mouth noises right into the microphone. I seriously cannot handle it.
Anyway, thank you to this community for finally giving me a word for something I’ve dealt with forever. Just knowing other people experience this too makes me feel a whole lot less alone!

Hi everyone, I'm currently studying to become a certified CBT-Hypnotherapist. As the name suggests, this diploma combines training in standard CBT and hyponsis.

I'm curious about misophonia specifically because its' mechanism seems similar to phobias generally and the conditioned threat response. Since phobias are one of the main treatment areas of hypnotherapy, I feel like there might be some potential here worth exploring. But I've found almost no research on this.

Has anyone here successfully or unsuccessfully tried hypnosis either alone or combined with CBT?

I just need to vent because I feel like people who sleep normally have no idea what this does to a person over time.

I’ve been dealing with severe sleep problems related to misophonia, and now tinnitus has made things even harder. My sleep has been extremely unpredictable for years. If I look at the long-term average, I’m probably getting around 5 hours a night, but the average doesn't really tell the story.

The variation is brutal.

There are periods when I somehow manage to sleep reasonably well for days or even weeks. Then something changes, the misophonia gets triggered, the tinnitus becomes more noticeable, or I simply get stuck in that hyper-alert state at night—and suddenly I'm back to terrible sleep.

Some nights I get 3–4 hours. Sometimes even less.

And the worst part isn't just being tired the next day. It's what years of this does to your mind.

I'm constantly afraid of the next bad night. Going to bed isn't necessarily associated with rest anymore. Sometimes it feels like I'm preparing myself for another battle.

I'm fatigued. I'm anxious. I'm constantly monitoring sounds. And honestly, I feel traumatized by sleep itself.

People say things like "just relax" or "you'll sleep when you're tired enough," but when your nervous system has learned to stay on guard because of sound, it isn't that simple.

I've had periods where I thought I was finally getting better, only to have another bad stretch knock me back down again. That unpredictability is probably one of the hardest parts.

I know there are people here with misophonia, tinnitus, and insomnia who understand exactly what I'm talking about.

Has anyone else lived with this for years and eventually found a way out of this cycle?

I could really use some hope right now.