#misophonie

Misophonia (Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome, Select sound sensitivity syndrome, sound-rage): Misophonia is a disorder where people have abnormally strong and negative reactions to the ordinary sounds humans make, such as chewing or breathing. The physical and emotional reactions to innocent, everyday sounds are similar to the “fight or flight” response and can lead to feelings of anxiety, panic, and rage. A person’s reaction can be so powerful it interferes with their ability to live life normally. Since misophonia is a newly identified health disorder, treatment options are still limited.

It started when he was around 10 and at first his father was his only object of trigger. Gradually, he noticed he could not stand to hear him breath or eat. He was glad they rarely had dinner together

Then it started to spread outside the family sphere. Lily knew she should never sniff around Severus or he would have a panic attack.

School was a nightmare, but he was fortunate to discover and create many spells to block the sounds away. His two worst triggers were breathing and sniffing. Many times he had panic attacks in class and hat to get out to cry out in the corridors

Many times he spent hours crying and punching the walls after being to close to another student and having heard him breath or shew. The rage was consuming. Severus already had problems with eating properly, and the fact he could not physically attend meals made it even worse

He used misophonia attacks instead of self harming most of the time

Sometimes it was so terrible he thought he would hit his head against the walls until he passed out

As the years went by, he learnt to control it and found many copping mechanisms. He mainly avoids people and casts a spell of his invention on his students during classes

Minerva was the first person to find out and spoke with Albus. They gifted him with a beautiful pair of special muggle sound reducing devices. It's one of his favourite gifts

Harry Potter's breathing was his personal hell

He nearly got into a physical fight with Guilderoy who liked to enter the staff room out of breath, pretending he'd been up to something very important

Minerva was a very distinguished person and he was even able to have a drink with her without problem. She did not know how much it meant to him

Like many people with Misophonia, he also had problems with textures. He would always wear the same clothes to feel comfortable, could only touch specific fabrics and liked to wear gloves outside not to touch anything that would trigger him

Potions didn't require mouthing spells and it was something he loved about them. Preparing ingredients also made many "clean" sounds.

The Dark Lord's voice was a constant challenge

Albus was once told not to enter his office before he had finished the five lemon drops in his mouth.

Because some people would like to listen rather than ripping their ears off and writing a tumblr post.

Whatever some people may say, getting stressed and angry over random noises does not make you a bad person.

Regarding misophonia, I think that in my case, meals are the worst. However, I found a way of avoiding finishing my meal in tears.

I was with my family preparing lunch when suddenly one of my relatives stops working and begins eating a fig. Noisily. After a few seconds I ask him “excuse me but can you keep on working instead of eating ?” And I had the stupidity of adding “Noisily so by the way…”. Everyone immediately started mocking me and my brother added “At the end, your thing makes us suffer more than you”.

No. NO. Don’t EVER say that again. You NEVER tell someone who suffers from Alzheimer’s “you forgetting things is much more painful for us than for you”. You NEVER tell ANYONE suffering from anything this kind of things. You don’t KNOW what I feel, you don’t realize that I suffer everyday, at every single meal, every single time someone puts something in their mouth. As I told that fig-eating moron the day after, “if you don’t care about my problem, you don’t have to say so or eat noisily on purpose : I can already hear very well that you’re not making any effort and I think that’s enough tank you”.

First off, I’m not even being mean. I ask politely, and if you didn’t know I had misophonia, you would just think I want some peace and quiet like any « normal » person.

Secondly, you know I have misophonia. I explained to you recently (like a day ago) how it works, I told you how much it stresses me out. So just try to be a little comprehensive, I don’t know ?

Thirdly, between one who enjoys a noise and another who gets PHYSICALLY stressed over it, do you really think it is NORMAL of you to say « oh don’t mind her breaking down, just keep on making that noise it’s funny ». Like what ???