Whistle While You Work... Or don't

I cannot abide the sound of someone whistling. I have a theory that the only people who whistle are people who can't whistle. It's a horrible noise and frankly should banned alongside noisy eating, loud breathing, tapping, nail biting, mouth noises of any kind... I could go on and on.

Now, I used to think that this was just me. That it was perfectly normal to be driven to absolute distraction by the noises other people make, to not be able to concentrate on anything but the noises other people make. It is very much not normal. It also has a name, and we all know, if it has a name, it's easier to deal with. The name of this particular beast is Misophonia.

To quote Wikipedia:

Misophonia, literally "hatred of sound", is a rarely diagnosed disorder, commonly thought to be of neurological origin, in which negative emotions (anger, flight, hatred, disgust) are triggered by specific sounds. The sounds can be loud or soft. The term was coined by American neuroscientists Pawel Jastreboff and Margaret Jastreboff and is sometimes referred to as selective sound sensitivity syndrome.

People tend not to take you seriously when you suffer from something like this. They either mock you for reacting or complaining or they go out of their way to make the noises you are triggered by, in order to wind you up or get a reaction from you. I guess in a way, it's understandable, people like to tease each other and I guess they really do think you are just overreacting. It's not a well known condition and as per anything else that is mental health related, people often fail to grasp what it is about and assume that it is something you can just "get over". Believe me, if I could, I would.

There have been many times when I have had to leave a room because of the sound of someone eating, had to move seats in the cinema because someone was chewing, had to move to a different train carriage because someone was tapping. It's not just that the noise is unpleasant, it is the effect it has on me. I feel completely uncomfortable, I can't focus on anything but the sound, it fills my head and makes me feel panicky and agitated. I have to get away from it or at the very least, block my ears. I can often be seen sitting in meetings with a finger in my ear to counter the sound that someone next to me is making.

Headphones are a blessing. I don't think I could get through a work day without them. An office is a hive of noises, both that people can control and those that they can't. Some days it can be an aural assault. For those days, only really big headphones will do. The cinema is a place I can't really enjoy much anymore. A combination of my anxiety and the absolute inability for cinema goers to STFU and not add their own soundtrack of whispering, crunching, feet tapping and texting has made watching films a way less enjoyable experience for me. My huge lack of concentration doesn't help either... I'd rather wait for it to come to Netflix.

Exposure does help though. The more I am made to face whatever sound I have an issue with, the better I get at tolerating it. But it is just that; I am better able to tolerate it. I don't "get over it" and I certainly don't learn to like it. This is a very difficult thing to explain to "normal" people and I sometimes think that I must sound like I am a hypochondriac but essentially, all of these issues go hand in hand. A heady mixture of depression, anxiety, OCD and noise aversion, I guess they all belong to the same family. Christmases around their house must be fun.

Unlike the other mental health issues that I have, Misophonia can't really be treated. CBT may help and as I mentioned before, exposure to noises can be slightly helpful. This is the one of the things that I experience where I do feel the most helpless. Last week, the fire alarm in my building was going off and would not turn off or reset, it appeared to be broken. The noise was deafening and really affected me. I didn't know what to do, so as my boyfriend did all the sensible actions of an adult, I held 2 cushions to my head and repeated the mantra "please make it stop, please make it stop."

As I type this, someone nearby has started to whistle. The low, tuneless, horrendous sound produced by someone who cannot whistle. Headphones straight in, disaster averted. In a world that never seems to be quiet, all I can do is hope that I become more tolerant. Or just turn up the volume. After all, loud music never hurt anyone...