Do you have very strong feelings when someone is chewing or eating food loudly or breathing heavily around you? Are those feelings something close to rage? If you’re saying to yourself, “yeah, this sounds like me” then science says you might have a legitimate brain abnormality.
I suffer from this problem. If someone is eating next to me and I’m not also eating, then the sound of their chewing drives me up a FUCKING WALL. And it isn’t just that I don’t like the sound, I legitimately hate it. I want to punch them in the face because of it. Thankfully, I finally have confirmation that this is an actual condition called “misophonia” and I’m not just a weird psychopath who hates my wife, but only when she chews.
According to the Daily Want:
Brain scans show that people who find the sound of chewing, breathing, or numerous other conditions unbearable have a genuine brain abnormality.
People with misophonia – as the condition was named in 2001 – can respond with an intense ‘fight or flight’ reaction.
Researchers at Newcastle University found a difference in the frontal lobe in misophonia sufferers, suggesting it is a genuine condition where medical opinion in the past has been sceptical.
They also found people with misophonia experienced an increased heart rate and sweated when they were confronted by a trigger sound.
The difference lies in the ‘emotional control mechanism’ that causes their brains to go into overdrive on hearing trigger sounds, the authors write.
Dr Sukhbinder Kumar, from the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University, said: ‘For many people with misophonia, this will come as welcome news as for the first time we have demonstrated a difference in brain structure and function in sufferers.
You’re not kidding, Dr. Kumar, this is welcome news to me. It is a relief to be honest. Now, if you please excuse me, I need to go to my doctor to see if I am eligible to apply for a handicap parking sticker.