16 apr 2012

back in september, someone sent me this link www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06annoy.html and asked if i knew anything about it. i couldn't believe it. i thought he was mocking me but when i asked why he sent it and he said because he thought his kid might have it and he just wanted to learn more about it. still, i was stunned because this article describes me to a T and not that i am surprised to learn that i am crazy. heavens no. i know i am crazy. what literally stunned me is that actual people really have this literally identical issue and the actual issue really has an actual name and real scientists literally study it. srsly.

wikipedia calls it 'hatred of sound' and describes it as decreased sound tolerance, which is putting it a bit mildly. there are entire classes of sound that i cannot bear and if i cannot get away from the source, i get mildly upset which can escalate to seriously angry.

i thought it was just eating sounds, because if you read that article, it's focused on eating sounds, but turns out that misophonia is broader than that and encompasses all the complaining i do about humming, whistling, popping gum, jingling change or jewelry, the sound of a spoon clinking against a bowl, and alison krauss's singing.

once when i was a kid, i was sitting on my bed counting my savings from my piggy bank. i remember it very clearly because the sound of the coins against each other was making me extremely uncomfortable. i had to muffle them with the bedclothes. now, someone jingling change in their pocket drives me mad. on the other hand, the sound of change in a cash register drawer doesn't bother me at all.

a band called postal service has a song containing a high-pitched tone. i'd heard the songs on a CD in the car and liked them, so i copied the entire postal service album to my ipod, but when that sound came into my ears, i could not get the headphones off fast enough. it was awful. one of my coworkers eats his lunch from a stoneware bowl with a metal spoon. clink. clink. clink. i have to put on headphones and listen to white noise just to calm down.

the reverse is that there are some everyday sounds that i completely adore. some people's voices are so soothing i almost forget to listen to what they are saying. i love the sound of a pencil softly scritching on paper or to listen to someone type or the sound of walking on gravel or cinder. i love in the movies when the sound is really magnified and you can hear things like someone putting on a tee shirt or tying their shoes. of course, if one of my fellow movie-goers is scrabbling around in their popcorn bag and munching on popcorn, that completely ruins the entire experience.

* sigh *

yeah, i am crazy. i get that. sure. that's fine.

i'm just glad to know it's not random crazy. it's real crazy - with a label!