Misophonia is a rare psychological disorder that afflicts less than 200 000 people in the United States. Derived literally from Greek, "miso" is hatred of and "phonia" is sound. People afflicted with this disorder have a peculiar sensitivity to certain sounds. When exposed to these sounds, the most common of which are chewing, lip smacking, pencil tapping, and yawning, the afflictant usually experiences the following:
Or, if the condition is more severe:
Unfortunately, I have Misophonia. The disorder has negatively affected my life in many ways.
Namely, I cannot eat with people, go to the movies (popcorn is a very noisy snack), be in a
quiet room, or even chew with my tongue (I can hear the noises I make as well). The only way I
can combat this is to wear headphones almost every minute of the day so that I don't have a
panic attack. I have a very severe form of Misophonia, and as those who have studied it will say
it only gets worse with time, because of the nature of the disorder. I can confirm this to be
the case; since I developed it four years ago the range of sounds that bother me has been growing
at an alarming rate. I used to be able to eat with people with headphones on, but now I can't even
see people eat without feeling nauseous at the least.
Because of this worrying rate of growth, I decided to take it upon myself to figure out a solution.
The term Misophonia is only 2 months older than I (coined on June 18, 2001), so research on it is extremely
limited. Currently, the only way people can cope is to either flee the stimulus or get therapy. Obviously,
this isn't ideal. If I could devise a program that could target the frequencies and it ends up working,
it would be a tremendous help to me, and those who are also afflicted. Perhaps this could be the next
stride in aids for misophoniacs!