I am often frowned at for my intolerance of certain things, noisy eating, heavy breathing, the dog licking himself, the repeated calls of "Mum, mum, mum, mum," when I'm unable to answer (brushing my teeth mainly). I literally had to move seats on a train once because a girl sitting behind me was chewing gum with her mouth open. I asked my mother to call me back once when she rung me at work whilst eating an apple. I hiss at the dog to shut up when he's licking himself - I don't mean once, I mean like making a meal of his own fur. I listened to a radio show recently and the men that were speaking on it must have been close to the mics and had dry mouths, they clacked out every word, it made my skin crawl.
This is not an exaggeration, the feeling I get when I hear any of the above (apart from the "mum" calling, unless it's first thing in the morning) is that of me wishing I could actually tear off my own skin and gag the offending personage. So you can imagine my relief when I was alerted to the condition known as Misophonia, which is literally "hatred of sound". It's not every sound, but apparently, sufferers normally have a set of "trigger" sounds - mine being things normally to do with people's mouths, chewing, licking, silly noises, heavy breathing. Which funnily enough, I have just realised, could be linked to the fact that I have an almost odd obsession with people's mouths... An internet source states that misophonia is thought to be a neurological disorder which is characterised by negative experiences resulting from specific sounds. Could my issue with people's mouths be the reason behind my hatred of certain sounds? I don't know what it is about mouths, I really don't. But when I used to watch soap operas, I would instantly be irritated by someone with an unusual mouth - extremely pouty lips or overemphasis of the formation of words when speaking. Once something like this became apparent to me on a character, I was unable to let it go and would often complete ignore what was going on in favour of boiling with rage over the ridiculous cake-hole that was being flexed in front of me.
Sex & The City is one of my absolute favourite shows, but the way that Cynthia Nixon would eat in almost every episode seemed to be almost deliberate: She ate with her mouth open. I found it so irritating, that I sometimes looked away when there was a lunch scene with her in it.
No way would it stop me watching it, and I still heart Miranda ... I just couldn't have brunch with her.
This is not an exaggeration, the feeling I get when I hear any of the above (apart from the "mum" calling, unless it's first thing in the morning) is that of me wishing I could actually tear off my own skin and gag the offending personage. So you can imagine my relief when I was alerted to the condition known as Misophonia, which is literally "hatred of sound". It's not every sound, but apparently, sufferers normally have a set of "trigger" sounds - mine being things normally to do with people's mouths, chewing, licking, silly noises, heavy breathing. Which funnily enough, I have just realised, could be linked to the fact that I have an almost odd obsession with people's mouths... An internet source states that misophonia is thought to be a neurological disorder which is characterised by negative experiences resulting from specific sounds. Could my issue with people's mouths be the reason behind my hatred of certain sounds? I don't know what it is about mouths, I really don't. But when I used to watch soap operas, I would instantly be irritated by someone with an unusual mouth - extremely pouty lips or overemphasis of the formation of words when speaking. Once something like this became apparent to me on a character, I was unable to let it go and would often complete ignore what was going on in favour of boiling with rage over the ridiculous cake-hole that was being flexed in front of me.
Sex & The City is one of my absolute favourite shows, but the way that Cynthia Nixon would eat in almost every episode seemed to be almost deliberate: She ate with her mouth open. I found it so irritating, that I sometimes looked away when there was a lunch scene with her in it.
No way would it stop me watching it, and I still heart Miranda ... I just couldn't have brunch with her.
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