The Holiday Season Often Proves to Be a Nightmare for Individuals Living with Sound Sensitivity.
One young woman anticipates spending time with her relatives over the holidays, but admits a key strategy she'll endure is by using her noise-cancelling devices - notably for the holiday meal.
For her, the holidays is a especially challenging season as the noises of people eating, slurping and nose-blowing make her feel profound anxiety.
"I get this wave of sudden panic, my every muscle will just tense up and it seems as if I'm in peril, and I need to stop these noises."
The individual has lived with this condition from a young age and for her that makes the Christmas time "incredibly overwhelming".
Misophonia is an intense sensitivity to specific noises, notably sounds coming from individuals.
The condition is widespread amongst adults. Experts found a significant portion of people are affected by it.
Frequently it's noises linked to mouth, throat or facial movements that lead to discomfort, including examples such as chewing, heavy breathing, and pen clicking.
A Source of Dread
Lottie says: "I face so many different triggering sounds at the holidays and that can be anxiety inducing and make you dread it.
"Those close to me are supportive, but I'm very conscious that I don't want to spoil the mood. It's like a constant struggle of enduring my distress to guarantee the event goes smoothly."
So it's clear why the supposedly joyous season can rapidly become a living nightmare for sufferers.
Sounds that may be considered normal, like someone drinking champagne, rustling a roll of wrapping paper, or tucking into a Christmas dinner can trigger a strong emotional response that can even cause them skipping events entirely.
The student, a young adult, who has dealt with misophonia since aged 10, states her strategy is to listen to music to get through dinner. Typically, she would often retreat in a different room to escape problematic noises.
She says her condition is more pronounced around people she's closest to, so the holidays is always "hard".
"There's an expectation to spend time with loved ones, and I wish to, but it's exhausting on all levels.
"It's like this uncontrollable anger takes hold, which can feel embarrassing, or I'll feel panicked and burst into tears and then panic will take over.
"To others it appears as if I'm being unreasonable and dramatic, but it's hard to explain unless you've experienced it."
Three Ways to Handle It
If you suffer then there are various strategies you can attempt to manage the situation, as suggested by clinical psychologists.
- Visualise Something Else: Imagination is essential. Attempt to link the particular sound affecting you with something completely different. As an illustration, try to envision someone's noisy drinking is just a sink draining water. This technique is to retrain your mind that the sound affecting you poses no threat.
- Try a Competition: Have a bit of fun and make the irritating noise into a competition involving the source. As an example, if someone is crunching loudly attempt joining in. Through participation, instead of feeling like the sound is unwanted, you become an engaged person. And the competition element should help redirect your focus and make you a little less affected.
- Develop a Narrative: A further strategy is to try to create a little story about the reason someone creating the sound is behaving that way. Imagine if someone was sniffing, perhaps they're not in good health or could be emotional. The idea is altering the perception of the sound. While the sound stays the same, your understanding of it changes from being aggravating, to feeling a slightly more compassionate about it.