r/misophonia

I’m from the Southern United States. Recently moved to an Appalachian area. My triggers are usually inconsistent but there are some things that I have ALWAYS had that absolutely make me go into instant nuclear rage mode.

Even as a southerner I don’t speak in these ways.

Does anyone else with misophonia or sensory issues get irrationally triggered by certain dialects or speech patterns specifically?

Mine are VERY specific and it’s not about hating people — it’s the actual sound patterns/pronunciation changes that make my brain feel like it’s short-circuiting. Certain dropped consonants, altered grammar structures, or heavily modified pronunciations genuinely make me feel physically agitated and unable to focus on anything else being said.

For me, Appalachian dialect features (like dropping ending consonants/sounds), some Dutch/Netherlands English pronunciations, and some AAVE speech patterns trigger it the most intensely. Once I notice it, my brain hyper-fixates and I can’t “unhear” it. It is gratingggggggg.

Examples:

- “He be working” instead of “He is usually working”
- “I been knew that” instead of “I’ve known that for a long time”
- “finna” instead of “fixing to/about to”
- consonant drops like “ol’” for “old”
- “aks” instead of “ask”
- “I seen him” instead of “I saw him”
- “goal” → “go”
- “whole” → “ho”
- “folder” → “foder”
- “accurate” → “accrate”

I know dialects are culturally and regionally tied, and I’m not trying to insult anyone personally. I’m more curious whether other people with misophonia experience this specifically with speech patterns/language the same way people react to chewing, clicking, repetitive sounds, etc.

It’s weird because it’s not ALL accents. Some accents I actually love. My brain just reacts extremely strongly to certain pronunciation structures and I’ve been this way my entire life.

It’s exactly what it says😂 I try not to be too hard on him because he just grew up chewing with his mouth open and so did his parents. In most scenarios I can manage it like if we have something on the tv or we are in a restaurant where there is other noise to blend with the sound, but sometimes I just enjoy a quiet meal. Sometimes even in a restaurant if we are there with friends I feel embarrassed because he will be the only one at the table doing it, and I’m sure our friends aren’t as bothered by it as me, but I have to intentionally not look at him to manage it in those situations.

I’m actually making this post because he just sent me a voice note over Snapchat (we live separately) and he was either still eating or finishing his meal, and every 2-4 words he was chewing or like ‘cleaning’ his teeth with his tongue (this cleaning sound often bothers me way way more than chewing) and I could only manage to listen for about 12 seconds before I thought I was going to smash my phone on the ground.

This might sound absolutely crazy, but it’s happening right now and I have to ask. I mostly get triggered by the sound of our familys Dyson vacuum and my parents snoring. When I hear the vacuum, I like to just plug my ears with my hands. I’ll plug them for let’s say 15 minutes, and I’ll unplug them to find out the vacuum stopped 10 minutes ago. But I SWEAR I heard that high pitched bastard through the whole 15 minutes. Another example: My parents snore in the room next to me, and they “are” right now. Both of my parents are at work and there’s no way that that’s what I’m hearing. BUT I HEAR IT. It’s 6:32 am and I’ve been fully sobbing for 5 hours because I can’t sleep. It’s like my ears are picking up any slight vibration and my brain is perceiving it as the snoring and it’s unnecessarily triggering me. Does this happen to anyone else? Even if I have my white noise machine AND fan on, it’s like my ears and brain are looking for this noise, like my brain is saying “THIS NOISE IS BEING MADE RN” and I can’t stop thinking about it until I actually hear it. Then I hear it and lose my absolute shit. Then I hear it long after it’s gone. I literally slept in the backyard yesterday because I was about to genuinely start screaming.

I feel really embarrassed.

In my uni class (very small class of around 6) there’s 1 girl that chews her chewing gum so loud, smacking her lips and popping bubbles and it absolutely goes through me.

I have asked her to stop a couple of times before in the past because it really bothers me but today was just unreal.

We were in the middle of a mock test and all I could hear was the smacking of the chewing gum and the wet mouth sounds, the tutor asked her to stop and some of the others mentioned it too so she stopped for around 5 minuets then continued again. The tutor even put music on the drown it out for me. I ended up walking out the class saying I can’t listen to it any longer and needed a minute. My heart was racing, I had tears in my eyes and my palms were really sweaty.

I don’t like being vulnerable around people, especially strangers. I am good at controlling my emotions but I couldn’t today. I left the class still feeling really overwhelmed and emotional, it took me a while to calm down. I now feel really embarrassed, like I’ve overreacted in front of everyone but it literally felt like torture. Especially because I have asked her to stop multiple times and told her how much it affected me. I’m absolutely fine with everything else but I cannot cope with the gum. She also did not apologise when I came back in and continued chewing how she wanted, luckily the class was a little louder by then so I could drown it out.

I’m really anxious about returning to class next week. Im not someone who will sit and accept shit behaviour towards me but this really got to me and I didn’t know how to react. I feel it’s deliberate, inconsiderate and rude. Im paying a lot for my education to become a nurse and i genuinely will not be able to concentrate or continue the class if nothing is to be done. I’m kinda pissed at my tutor too for not asking her to spit it out.

I also feel like if multiple people asked me to stop something and I could see how much it affected someone especially physically I would stop, but she does not.

What can I do?

Before he had those teeth removed, I would only be triggered if he was cleaning himself too long. Usually I just walked off or asked him to quit.

After his dental work I figured aw he’s healing and getting adjusted to his mouth but it’s been months and he’s constantly making the most irritating sounds known to mankind.

He is a complete lap dog and sleeps in our room. I’ve tried ear plugs at night but during the day it’s … incredibly hard. I’m not a violent person but I’m so scared of what I could do. When he starts up I get up and leave but sometimes I can’t and I have found myself yelling at him (before this I probably only ever yelled at him 2/3 before in his life). I feel so guilty and ashamed. I love him but truthfully I don’t know how long I can keep him unless I get better at handling this. I don’t want to ever hit him and I would prefer to see him go to a better home than stay with me if that were to ever happen.

But he’s my baby, I’ve had him for over six years.

Today, I notice if he starts making the noises and I turn my head he stops. It breaks my heart that I’ve made him react like that but unfortunately as soon as I turn back he goes right back at it.

Hello, this is my first time writing, and my English isn't very good. I've suffered from misophonia almost my entire life, but it reached an unbearable level when I was 20, to the point where I couldn't continue my studies. Now I'm 32, and I've tried to go back to school, but the problem persists to the point where I'm unable to study. I live in a small house with my family, and I don't have my own room. In a Muslim country, as a woman, I'm not allowed to study outside the home. The only explanation I can give is that this is hell, and I'm being punished. The only solution I see is for me to leave this earth.

so gross I hate it so much. just like rapid pace wet smacking. and the worst part is, it doesn't even work! this is no more effective than saying a random word or the animal's name! in fact, the large majority of the time that I see people do this, the animal doesn't even look their way and completely ignores them. I love animals and people always tell me that their cat or dog lets me pet it when it doesn't allow anybody else. and never once have I made this awful sound. it doesn't accomplish anything

Because I've been in a house full of 15 people for 3 days and "have seemed fine". What's even more frustrating is that he's a psychologist and I'm a therapist, and we *should* intricately know how damaging it is to tell someone what they do/don't have simply by infrequent observation.

What he doesn't see is the tears, the anger, the panic attacks, the anxiety, the relationships that have been ruined over the course of my life because of this. The amount of therapy I've had to do around it. Just because I don't outwardly show my triggers doesn't mean I'm not suffering. I have been screaming internally so often this trip and I've had to use all my coping skills and medications just to try and stay sane (15 excluding 3 anxious whiny dogs and a baby).

I just feel so fucking annoyed that someone would say something like that to me, especially someone in my family. I only see him about once a year but clearly he knows about my brain better than I do. I told him how invalidating that was and he tried to fight me on it. My mom told me to let it go but she doesn't understand what this diagnosis means and how much all of us have to get through to simply survive.

I feel like no one aside from us who have it are going to understand. I should just stop telling people entirely...

I am making a purchase of either Bose or Apple Earbuds next week, hopefully get a good deal in the UK Bank Holiday sales.

I suffer with awful misophonia and was all for getting some Bose buds but have been watching lots of reviews on YouTube today and I am now absolutely torn between the Airpod Pro 3 and the Bose QuietComfort ultra (2nd gen) earbuds. It seems like there are huge pluses for each with the Bose better for Music listening and audiophiles (having an EQ) and ANC being their biggest boon, most saying these are comfier to wear and stay in the ear better, but a slightly higher price. Whereas I use an iPhone17 so connectivity should never be an issue, the AirPods have conversation awareness which I don’t think Bose do, good transparency, better battery life, waterproof if submerged and slightly cheaper price tag.

I also suffer horrendously from anxiety and depression so struggle making decisions like this incase | get something wrong so please Help me out folks, I need to make a decision and STICK TO IT!!!

Recently saw 2 youtubers claim to have misophonia, apparently "the disorder where you dislike chewing sounds".

Obviously most people dislike chewing sounds, and we know the feeling from triggers is completely different. (These influencers have not spoken about any other trigger sounds, so I am led to believe that they are misinformed on what misophonia is).

I am worried that this misinformation is going to make it even harder for people to take us seriously, my misophonia is literally disabling for me, it is not some quirky thing.

I have an extreme hatred for neighbours who stand in the garage right next to my window and yell obnoxiously loud when talking. They're usually talking to somebody standing right next to them or on the phone. It's so unnecessary. Only people who lack education and home training behave like this. They have no decorum or civic sense. They don't think for a second that they're disturbing people in proximity to them.

Hello, it's my first time posting on here, but I figured it would be a good idea considering you guys get what it's like to have misophonia. I'm not 18 yet and living with my parents so I try my best to deal with everybody's nasty noises, but today I was having a really hard time dealing with smacking noises and my dad licking his fingers when we were eating. I already sucked at handling this shit, but he flipped out on me and called me psychotic and mean and said I looked retarded (idk if that's bad to say sorry) with my headphones on that I use to try to manage it, and it made me feel awful. My mom came and talked to me later, so hopefully I'm getting therapy soon, but does anybody have any coping ideas that would help a little bit other than breathing exercises? I just can't focus on anything other than eating and mouth noises and it's driving me and everyone around me insane.

Why is it the social norm? Why can't we evolve past it?

I can’t stand certain English diminutives like “belly” or “tummy” or “yummy” ( weirdly enough I have no issue with “booklet”) but in English they are incredibly easy to avoid. However, in the language spoken by my mom, diminutives are everywhere, even in normal words like “keyhole” and “Christmas tree”. I cannot stand the way diminutives sound in the language because they sound childish and add two whole vowels to the word. It disgusts and irritates me to no end. I avoid most media (movies, social media) with this language especially when women speak because they are five times more likely to use diminutives and therefore make things sound overly baby-ish, cutesy and sickly sweet.

It has interfered with my daily life because of how much it disgusts me but at this point there’s probably nothing I can do so I will try to just endure.

I was seven, maybe eight, the first time I cried at the sound of someone eating. It was a family day out. We were in the back of the car, somewhere between home and wherever we were going.

My mum had packed a lunchbox, sandwiches wrapped in foil, a bag of crisps each, biscuits divided up between me and my siblings. The kind of car-journey lunch every family in the country has had a thousand times.

I felt the panic before I knew what it was.

The lunchbox came out. The foil was unwrapped. The crisps started crunching, three sets of jaws working at slightly different rhythms in a small enclosed space I couldn’t get out of.

I remember pressing my fingers into my ears so hard it hurt.

I remember the tears coming and not being able to explain why.

I remember my mum turning round in the front seat and asking what on earth was the matter.

I had no answer. I didn’t know. I just knew the sound of my own family eating made me feel like I was being attacked.

That was the start.

I didn’t have a word for it for the next twenty-five plus years. I just had a list of sounds that ruined my life, and the dawning realisation that nobody else seemed to have the same list.

The ticking of the clock in my grandparents’ house was loud, deliberate, mechanical.

Every visit to their house was an exercise in trying not to hear it, which of course made me hear it more.

I’d sit at the table watching the second hand and feeling my whole body tense with each click.

The dripping tap in our kitchen at home that nobody else could hear from the other rooms. I could hear it through walls. It would keep me awake at night.

I’d lie there and beg whoever had used the sink last to please come and turn it off properly, but I never said it out loud because by then I’d already learned that complaining about sounds was something you got told off for.

The breathing of strangers on quiet buses. The sniffing of someone with a cold. The way certain people chewed gum. The hum of fridges. The buzz of strip lights.

And mealtimes. Always mealtimes.

For a long time, my main strategy was leaving the room. I begged my parents to let me eat my food upstairs. Pleaded was the right word.

I would have done almost anything to be allowed to take my plate to my bedroom and eat it alone, in silence, without the sound of the rest of the family chewing around me.

Sometimes they’d let me.

Most of the time they wouldn’t, because it wasn’t normal, because it would make me weird, because dinner was meant to be a family thing.

I understood why they said no. I just couldn’t make them understand why I asked.

My siblings worked it out, of course. Children always work out what gets a reaction, and once they realised that exaggerated chewing made me cry, they did it for sport.

Open-mouthed bites.

Loud slurps.

Fake munching just behind my head.

I’d sit there with tears pouring down my face and my mum would tell me to stop being sensitive and them to stop winding me up, and the whole table would go on as if it was a normal evening, which for them it was.

The word “mental” got used about me a lot. Not to be cruel. Just because nobody had a better one.
Why are you crying?

Because they’re chewing.

That’s mental.

And I’d have to go with it, because I agreed. It did seem mental.

From the outside it must have looked completely deranged. A child sobbing because someone was eating food.

I had no defence. I had no explanation. I had no idea this was a real thing happening to a lot of children, all over the world, in silence, none of them with a name for it either.

It was the early nineties, and one Christmas I got a Sony Discman. My whole life changed.

I was probably eight or nine. It came in a box with a pair of headphones, alongside a compilation album. I’d been begging for one for ages.

It certainly was an upgrade from my dad’s Walkman.

Within an hour of opening it I had headphones over my ears and music playing, and for the first time I could remember, the world had a volume control that was my very own.

I wore those headphones constantly.

School bus, family meals (when they let me get away with it), car journeys, sitting in the living room while my siblings watched television, lying in bed at night when the dripping tap, the boiler or the next-door neighbour’s voices would otherwise have kept me awake.

Music wasn’t even the point.

The point was that I could pick what went into my ears instead of having the world pour in uninvited.

I think about that Discman a lot now. I still wear headphones every single day. Technology has changed.

Bluetooth, noise cancelling, brown noise apps, but the principle is exactly the same as it was in 1995. A sensitive nervous system needs a way to control its inputs, and headphones were the first thing that ever gave me one. 

I’m in my late thirties now. I know the word.

“Misophonia”

A neurological condition. Real. Researched. Recognised. Not a personality flaw. Not weakness.

Not being mental.

The cruellest part of having it as a child is that nobody could name it for me.

Not my parents. Not my teachers. Not my GP. None of them had heard of it because the word barely existed in mainstream conversation until the last decade or so.

We were a generation of children quietly losing our minds at the dinner table while the adults around us called us oversensitive and moved on.

If you were one of those children, I want you to know something I needed someone to tell me thirty years ago.

You weren’t being dramatic. You weren’t being difficult. You weren’t broken. You weren’t mental.

You had a nervous system that picked up on more than the people around you.

The cost of that has been enormous. The world wasn’t built for you, and nobody handed you the tools you needed.

But the tools exist now. The word exists. The community exists. You’re not the only one.
You never were.

I am a UK healthcare worker, two years sober. I write more things like this.

Let’s start by saying, I love my dog as if I gave birth to her myself. Same with my cat. They both, like my husband, are the lights in my life. Despite the anger I show in this post, I keep my reactions solely to myself, and I do not share this aggression towards my pets in the slightest. I just NEED to vent about this. I also have no idea of this is the right place.

I physically cannot handle sounds from my beloved dog, or any pet for that matter.

The sound of her licking is the most rage inducing experience in the entire world. Give her water? Oh my fucking god. I literally just had like a break down or some shit because she was drinking water in the most loudest, vomit inducing way ever in a quiet room. I just cannot handle it. It’s made me gag, it’s made me scream into my pillow, slam on my forehead to just, IDK I CANNOT STAND IT IS ALL.

This isn’t just the drinking, no, it’s borderline every single sound, don’t get me started on the sound of her nails. No amount of nail trimming, well I’m started now, no amount of trimming seems to prevent the sound of her nails on her kennel, hard floors, carpet, etc. It’s not even like “nails on a chalkboard” it’s like I’m being genuinely tortured. It gives me a headache, it makes me irrationally angry, but I can’t react or do anything because I know that I’m not supposed to BE this SENSITIVE, over someone simply existing. I try to ignore it, but it’s next to impossible. Id have my headphones, but moved and they were lost in the process, will buy new ones eventually…

Her whining, yes it makes me horribly uncomfortable and upset, is probably the most tolerable sound. It’s just as painful, maybe even more, but at least there is a reason. I can actually cater to whatever shes asking for. But it’s just hard.
Her panting, her fur, her eating, everything is like, a sensory(?) nightmare.

Sure I could give her away, but even though her mere existence of sound is something from my nightmares I just love her. I love her so much. She’s pretty, she’s so so good and kind hearted, and she is smart and fun. I see her like my own daughter. I keep my reactions hidden from her, I know she doesn’t understand SHES why I’m freaking out, but I still respect that girl deeply, and I’d like her to only see the best of me.

My cat equally drives me insane, but in many less ways than my puppy. I don’t have much to vent about with my cat, and I think that’s just because he’s a tiny little guy, the sounds from him are much quieter. I can plug my ears and breathe, and step away. I cannot do that as easily with my dog because I can hear her through the walls. But I do try to exit the room before I get to the point of nearly causing head trauma because of it.

I’m sorry this post is dramatic, but maybe someone can relate. I don’t want advice, just needed to talk.

Brand new here, so I apologize if this is the wrong place for this. Feel free to delete/downvote.

I've started dealing with misophonia over the past 3-4 years. It started with my being very irritated by a coworker's loud/gross eating sounds, but its gotten increasingly worse. I have to wear noise-canceling headphones when anybody is eating near me, unless there's enough ambient noise, or I'm actively engaged in a conversation with somebody who isn't eating.

It sounds to me like someone who is eating is going at their food like a wild, out of breath, slurping animal, or like a garbage disposal full of drywall screws. In reality I know that they're just eating normally, but I've found myself snapping at my girlfriend a couple of times for having the audacity to eat Chex Mix within ear shot. I play Dungeons & Dragons with my friends every once in a while and the past two times have been absolute hell with 5 other people sitting around me with various snacks. I put earphones in but it's embarrassing and still doesn't help completely.

I've been going through a loop of medical professionals, with my therapist suggesting I talk to my primary physician about this, my primary physician referring me to a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist referring me back to my therapist. I just don't know what to do at this point, and I hate it. If there's anything else I can try, I'd be willing to give it a shot.

I need to get this off my chest someplace. I fucking hate the sound old people make when they have no teeth. It's just constant opening and closing of their mouths, and it makes this moist popping sound. I CANNOT sit beside an elderly person who does that, or it just might make me lose my mind 💀 I've only come across two that do that but two is far too many. I don't hate old people for this, that'd be crazy. But I can't be around some. Another think older folks do that sets me off internally is sucking their tongue over their teeth. We all know what that sound is: the type you do when there's food in your teeth. IDK why, but some of them just make that noise for no apparent reason and I loathe every second of it.

I am sorry because english is not my first language but I just really need to rant.

When I was a child, around the age of 13 maybe, my parents would fight a lot, and I would hear them, especially my mom who would scream at my father all the time. One day I was listening to music on my computer with earphones, and I started hearing my mom who started talking loudly at my father, and I just couldn’t bear it anymore, that I turned the volume to the max so that I could stop hearing her.
Since that day, every sound that would come out of my bedroom (my bubble) would trigger me, except for the sounds of nature like birds, or storm, I also don’t mind lawn-mowers or cars passing buy. Everything else is a trigger : the tv, the music, the talking, the doors slamming.. Every sound that comes piercing my safe bubble is so triggering.
My family would mock me and tell me that it was just bratty behavior, my mom would purposefully turn up the volume of the TV when she would see me triggered.
I am almost 30 now, and when I am at home I am constantly wearing headphones or earphones with white noise. I used to wear earplugs all the time but I can’t tolerate them anymore.
I have spent more than half my life with misophonia, it pulled me into very dark places, I had suicidal thoughts for many years, struggling to understand why I was this way?
Today my misophonia is just part of my life, headphones and earphones are my daily life, I am so used to it, it’s not a huge problem anymore but it’s still there, every single day. Not a day off.
Today I just had a big ugly cry, just thinking about it, I was just a child, who couldn’t bear to hear their parents fight anymore, and it’s so unfair that I have to live with that for the rest of my life.

Sorry for the rant, I am so ashamed by that that I don’t talk about it to anyone. Thanks for reading that far. Its comforting to know that I am not alone.