Why is it that we can we shut our eyes but not our ears? I think it
would be great to be able to turn the volume down or mute sound altogether. If
this were possible, I don’t think I’d leave the sound automatically on all the
time. Or perhaps I’d leave it on very low. I know I’d turn it off completely
under certain conditions. After all, if I am not speaking with someone or
listening to music, why do I need to listen to extraneous noise?
Since I don’t know of any animals that can stop hearing
at will, I suspect there’s some kind of survival aspect to always-on hearing. I
get it, if you’re prey for some other larger or capable predator, it’s best to
have the earliest warning possible. That unexpected snap of a small branch
coming from inside the nearby thicket could be enough of an advance alert to
avoid becoming dinner.
But now there aren’t too many predators lurking about
silently waiting to get close enough to pounce upon us. I suppose a myriad of
taxis and other vehicles on city streets simulate some aspect of the pry/predator
scenario, but it would still be possible to safely navigate the city without
hearing.
It would seem that evolution takes a very, very long time
to effect big changes. Unfortunately, we cannot close our hearing any more than
we can stop from developing wisdom teeth and appendixes. Of course, most people
probably don’t think of the inability to turn off hearing as an unnecessary carry-over
from more primitive times due to evolution’s slow moving feet. But then, not
everyone has the same tolerance for the constant bombardment of noise that
continuously assails our eardrums.
Personally, I cannot think straight when I’m in a noisy
environment. Incidentally, sudden unexpected sounds that startle me also cause
me to see that sound. I see it as a flash of white. And no, I’m not nuts; this
is a real phenomenon and it even has a name: synesthesia. But let’s get back to
the superfluous assault of vibrations hitting our eardrums.
I hear too much. Or perhaps, I’m unable to filter out the
portions of what I have the ability to hear but have no need to comprehend.
Rattling, tapping, scraping, squeaking, ticking and/or crackling noises, even
very low ones, are maddening to me. It turns out, this isn’t something that
merely annoys me for no good reason or is just a quirk of my personality. This is
an actual disorder (like I needed another one) that can be found in the DSM (Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and it too has a name: misophonia,
AKA “hatred of noise.” OMG.
Misophonia causes one to have a negative emotional
reaction to a particular sound, one that elicits an automatic physiological
flight response. Yes, folks…if you chew with your mouth open I may run
screaming from the room. The textbooks say that the disorder “disrupts daily
living and can have a significant impact on social interactions.” Tell me about
it.
I can get angry, indeed very much so, by common everyday
sounds such as other people eating, breathing, sniffling, talking, sneezing,
yawning, snoring or coughing. The sounds people make seem to be worse for me to
bear than those sounds not caused by people or other living things, although the
sound of a crackling water bottle in the car’s cup holder will always get a
quick correction from me.
How do I feel about this? I feel awful. When an offending
noise is made by another person, especially when they’re doing something completely
normal and possibly essential for life (like breathing!), I cannot tell them
that I’m going bonkers inside. I wish I could. They might not like to hear it
or understand why the hell I’d even take notice that they sneezed three times in
a row, but unfortunately, this is something I can’t control. Again, this isn’t
something I can learn to get used to or should have grown out of by now. This
is real.
Many people are repelled by the sound of fingernails on a
chalkboard or the sound of a knife scraping across a ceramic plate. Those
sounds can be very annoying and the reaction people have to those sounds gives some
small indication of the reaction I have to a much wider array of noises.
However, no one is really put-off by a request to stop running
their fingers down a chalkboard. In fact, they may laugh at your reaction
knowing that the sound they’re making bothers most people. So asking someone to
stop scraping their fingernails across a chalkboard is most likely what the
person wants you to do, it lets them know they got to you (hopefully in a
playful way). So you don’t really run much of a risk of them being annoyed or
angry with you. But if you tell someone (abruptly and not so very subtly) to
stop chewing with their mouth open or making some other harmless and
unimportant sound, they may just decide you’re a jerk.
It’s not just
people that make the problematic noises.
I recently moved to a new house. When I first visited the
property and after I started living there, I was very aware of the noises in
the environment. I made note of a few things like the sound of a dog barking in
the distance, the sound of someone running a lawn mower or other machine, and
the sound of some heavy equipment being used a few houses away.
The comments I got back from other people suggested that
they thought I was being too sensitive to what they considered to be normal
noise levels and normal neighborhood sounds. It also felt as though they might have been annoyed
with me for even noticing the sounds of the environment. There may have been
some degree of “you can’t always get what you want” being put forth. And that would
be true, you really can’t always get what you want… but at times like this, I sometimes
feel that people believe I am perpetuating a game, a game in which I enjoy
being the person who is too sensitive to sounds. I may also get the impression
that they think I am overacting on purpose. This is not the case. Trust me, nobody
would choose to be misophonic.
Below are some links that deal with misophonia and
explain it in terms as it relates to people in general.
I didn’t really know who Kelly Ripa was, but I watched an
ABC News video in which she explained her experience with misophonia and I
thought she did a great job explaining it to the interviewer. The entire piece
was excellent but I couldn’t watch it past the part where the guy has to leave
the room when his friend deliberately triggers his sensitivity to certain
sounds. It made me sad, I related to his reaction all too well.
I had absolutely no idea that other people experienced this.
And although it's strangely comforting to know that they do, it validates that there’s some
further errant behavior going on in my brain.
Labels: misophonia, sound rage
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