Ben Lamberton can’t recall exactly when he began to experience misophonia, but one distinct memory comes to mind.
“[It was] around late childhood, going on teenage years,” explains Lamberton, a masters of audiology student at the University of Queensland.
“A beloved family member developed chronic asthma, and they began coughing quite constantly, sometimes in the middle of the night.
“I remember just recoiling and wanting to run away or lash out in anger.”
Misophonia is a chronic condition characterised by a reduced tolerance to, or hatred of, specific sounds. Common noises such as chewing, sneezing, humming or pen clicking can cause strong emotional reactions and automatic nervous system arousal for people who suffer from this little-known disorder.
“I remember quite distinctly with my family members at the dinner table, chewing noises, anything associated with eating or drinking, [would cause me to] recoil, and I would sometimes react quite violently as a teenager,” Lamberton says.
“Thankfully I don’t do that any more, but maybe that gives a sense of how threatened I felt by what is quite innocuous.”
American neuroscientists Pawel and Margaret Jastreboff coined the term “misophonia” in 2001, derived from Greek words meaning “hatred of sound”.
Despite growing awareness around the disorder, which can co-occur with other conditions including autism, ADHD and OCD, it is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), so is not supported by diagnostic frameworks, and research on what causes people to become intolerant to certain sounds is limited.
One study published last year found people with misophonia may struggle with “affective flexibility”, a skill that allows them to switch attention between emotional and non-emotional information, and may have a tendency to ruminate, particularly on emotional stimuli.
Other research suggests people with misophonia have an overactive anterior insula (the brain’s emotion centre) and hyper-connectivity between the ear’s sound processing centre and parts of the brain. Potential auditory factors, such as heightened hearing, have also been explored, though most people with misophonia have normal hearing sensitivity.
Overall, researchers suggest misophonia is a complex neurological condition, with more work needed to understand who is affected by it and why.
Melbourne-based psychologist Michelle Harris started researching and treating people with misophonia a decade ago.
“I had a client [who] couldn’t understand why he would get so incredibly angry – like red-faced angry – with his beautiful fiancé, who he just adored, [when she would] eat,” Harris explains.
“I then started to research what this might be.”
Harris describes misophonia as an intrusive and overwhelming condition.
“For a sufferer, that noise that they hear, could be likened to a jackhammer for us … it becomes the only sound they hear in a room.”
Triggering noises elicit a fight-or-flight response for people with misophonia, and can lead to aggressive outbursts, anxiety and avoidance. Many sufferers report poor mental health and struggle with relationships and social interactions as a result of the condition.
Harris uses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in the first instance when treating misophonia to help people understand their thoughts and behaviours, and any factors compounding their stress and reactions.
Some will then continue with hypnotherapy she says, to learn how to disconnect from the specificity of sounds.
“There are lots of sounds that are happening around us all the time that we get used to,” Harris says.
“Part of the work in hypnosis is then just to make that clicking of a pen or the noises people make with their mouth or chewing or tapping on a keyboard, background noises … something that is just daily noise, not a focus that needs to instigate a reaction.”
Orofacial sounds – sniffing, coughing and sneezing – are Lamberton’s worst triggers, and he, like many people with misophonia, has a stronger reaction to noises made by people he is close to.
“I think [my family] have come to accept this is a real challenge for me but as a kid, I didn’t really feel that supported,” he says.
“I think my most difficult problem has been not feeling immense shame, and finding ways to communicate it without feeling like I’m just a complete burden to those around me.
“It seems like a major first step is putting it on the table [and saying] this is happening. Where do we go from here?
“If more people are comfortable in sharing their experience, then perhaps that will extend into increased research and management measures.”
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