This is my worst nightmare.
This is the worst. It’s all the bad noises.
It’s all the bad things.
No! Nope! Nope! Nope! Nope! Nope!
I’m sweating. I'm very uncomfortable.
Im Mark Stetson, Producer for Mashable, and I have Misophonia.
- [Dr. J] It literally means, “Hatred of Sound.”
I have a visceral, negative reaction anytime I hear someone eating, slurping, smacking their lips.
- [Dr. J] The problem is not that sound that that person is making.
The problem is that sound when it gets into your neurological system
and the way that your system reacts to that sound.
As a video editor, and I have to edit people talking, sometimes hearing them go,
“(lip smack) And, uh….” or “(lips smack) Yeah, so…”
It’s a weird tick that people have that, it’s what they do before they start talking.
I have to get up and leave my station.
When I get triggered, it’s not something I can necessarily control.
It just happens before I am aware that it’s happening.
People often say that they feel like they’re crazy because people will say to them,
“Oh, get over yourself. Just knock it off!
You’re just making a big deal. You’re just blowing things out of proportion."
And the person who is having the reactions, which they can not help,
They can not control these reactions.
If they could, they would.
So I realized, just recently, it was an unconscious decision,
that I had made years ago, to stop ordering soup and to stop ordering spaghetti in restaurants.
I figured if I don’t order it, I’ll just avoid it, entirely.
My wife has to deal with the brunt of my Misophonia,
because we’re around each other all the time and eating together a lot.
I try to be very conscious of chewing, especially since I have a jaw that clicks,
so I know that it makes noise if we have anything that is particularly chewy.
But, like, if we're having soup, I know that that's a big trigger for you.
It sounds like that sound reverberated times a million in my own brain.
And while I'm hearing it, it is also putting spikes into my brain.
My body immediately tenses up, my shoulders go up.
Like, I see you hunched down a little bit.
I see you glare at me or smile like you’re trying to not say something mean.
You know, sometimes I do it to annoy you just because I can.
But mostly, I’m trying to be aware that it’s like nails on a chalkboard to you.
You know me, I like to torture you.
Are there things that I do that trigger your Misophonia?
When we started dating, my brain would go,
"I feel pain. What she is doing is making me feel this way way.
There must be something wrong with her."
And then it turned into, "There must be something wrong with me."
Once I heard the word “Misophonia,”
once I understood that it was a thing that other people had that I could put a name to,
it was like finding out that I was already part of a club that I never knew existed before.
Suddenly, the volume got turned down a little bit
and now I can more objectively acknowledge the sound,
acknowledge that I’m having the reaction to it,
and then, like, let it go.
- [Dr. J] People can learn ways to dial it down.
One of the tenants of CBT is that
what you think and what you feel and what you do are all connected.
So, if you change one of them, it will automatically affect the others.
I am gonna watch some ASMR videos,
and I am going to comment as to what I find soothing, what I don’t find soothing.
Oh, Jesus Christ. Ok!
It’s "ASMR - Mouth Sounds."
(ASMR artist talking softly) Ok!
(ASMR artist talking softly) The saliva moving in her mouth between words,
(ASMR artist talking softly) that’s what’s driving me nuts!
Ear eating?
(Subtle, distinct mouth sounds) Ok…that’s…ok, goodbye!
We are now entering into the next echelon of Misophonia hell:
Mukbang!
Mukbang is where people eat ungodly amounts of food.
This is my hell.
(sloppy lip smacking and chewing) No! This is all the things that I hate.
(sloppy lip smacking and chewing) Ok, this is bad, this is so bad!
- [ASMR Artist] Here we go!
Ok! Ok! I have to stop.
Oh my god, it’s so bad. It’s so bad.
All of my muscles are tense and contracted.
And I am sweating. And I am very uncomfortable.
One of things I try to help people develop is a sense of, "How can I use my superpower here?
I hear things that other people don't hear. Where in the world around me can I use that?"
As a video editor, being sensitive to sound is great.
Because it really allows me to hone in on
bringing the sounds that are good and eliminating the sounds that are bad.
So, I have found ways to rewire my brain to, hopefully,
get to a point where I no longer hate those sounds
or those sounds no longer give me the negative visceral sensation that they do.
Maybe they can start giving me more positive sensations.
And If I can rewire my brain that drastically, to love the things that I hate,
what else is possible as far as us being able to
rewire our brains for the sake of living a more peaceful and loving life?