The misophonia It is a mental condition due to which a person suffers negative emotions, thoughts, and physical reactions when exposed to certain sounds. Although it is not classified as a psychiatric disorder, its symptoms can be very harmful to the lives of those who suffer from it..
The negative reactions suffered by people with misophonia are much stronger than those that someone without this condition would have in the presence of the same sound. For example, a particular noise can cause the individual to become enraged, panic, or feel deeply sad. These symptoms appear recurrently.
Despite not being classified within the manuals of mental disorders, misophonia can seriously interfere with the development of daily life of the person. For example, individuals who suffer from it habitually try to escape from the noises that bother them, even though they have to avoid pleasant or important situations to do so.
Today, not much is yet known about this mental condition, nor has a standardized method of treating it been developed. However, in this article we tell you the most important facts about misophonia that are currently known.
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The main symptom suffered by people with misophonia is the presence of exaggerated emotional reactions to some everyday noises, which for other people are not important or which can simply be somewhat annoying. Each individual with this pathology responds to different stimuli and does it differently..
Thus, an individual with misophonia may react with anger or fear when he hears its "disenchanting" sound, while another may feel extreme sadness or displeasure. In more severe cases, more intense responses such as anxiety attacks may appear.
The sounds that trigger the response in people with misophonia also vary completely between different individuals. For example, one may react to the noise someone makes when chewing, while another would feel negative emotions to traffic or the squeak of chalk on a blackboard..
In very extreme cases, the person may even suffer depressive episodes, suicidal thoughts or generalized anxiety if they have to be constantly exposed to their triggering sound..
Another of the most characteristic symptoms of misophonia is that people who suffer from it are aware that their negative emotions are totally exaggerated and make no sense. However, this knowledge does not help them to control their feelings, which wake up automatically..
Often, people with this condition go into "fight or flight" mode when they hear its triggering sound; and their automatic response is either to rage and try to make the noise disappear, or to escape from the situation they are in. This can bring you all kinds of problems in your everyday life..
Interestingly, in most cases, individuals with misophonia feel more intense negative emotions when the triggering noise is produced by someone close to them..
For example, the chewing sound of a stranger may seem simply annoying, while if a relative does it, the reaction will be much greater..
This often causes them to become extremely irritable when someone in their environment makes their triggering sound. Because of this, their relationships with others tend to worsen over time..
One of the most serious symptoms of misophonia is the appearance of irrational thoughts about the intentions of the people that produce the triggering sound..
Patients with this disorder may believe that people around them are making noise just to annoy them or make them feel bad, even if there is no evidence of it..
Due to this symptom, individuals who suffer from it tend to be highly suspicious of others, to withdraw, and to avoid social contact as much as possible. Fortunately, paranoia does not appear in all cases of misophonia, only in the most serious ones.
Because there is not much research on misophonia, it is not known exactly what can cause this disorder. However, there are some theories that point to some of the possible causes of the problem. Next we will see the most important.
Extreme aversion to certain sounds tends to appear early in an individual's life, usually during childhood or adolescence.
In addition, the symptoms usually get worse over time, unless the problem is intervened directly. Because of this, some experts believe that misophonia has its origin in childhood.
According to psychological currents such as psychoanalysis, when a person suffers a traumatic event in their childhood, the consequences can be seen throughout their adult life.
In the case of misophonia, it is possible that the individual suffered a very unpleasant experience related to the triggering sound.
This early experience need not be present in the mind of the individual, who may not even remember it. Still, every time you hear the triggering sound, your emotions will skyrocket as if you were facing the real danger that you suffered from as a child..
Certain neurological studies conducted on people with misophonia show that some areas of the brain tend to be slightly different in these individuals..
For example, it seems that the areas related to attention and impulse control may be less developed than usual, and the auditory areas may be excessively developed..
This combination could be the main cause of the symptoms of this pathology. The person would perceive certain noises more intensely than usual, and would be unable to divert their attention from them. At the same time, her emotions would skyrocket without her being able to do anything to control them..
It is believed that there may be a certain genetic component in the appearance of these brain disorders. However, it is also possible that the structures are different due to certain specific experiences of the person during their development, so this cause would not have to rule out the previous one..
Some specialists believe that misophonia cannot normally be considered a disorder, but rather appears as a consequence of another psychological problem that has not yet been detected.
This is consistent with the fact that aversion to sounds is often correlated with pathologies such as depression, anxiety or bipolarity..
However, the relationship between misophonia and other mental disorders is not entirely clear. Therefore, more research is needed on this before any definitive conclusions can be reached..
Not all people are equally likely to suffer from misophonia. Next we will see what are the main risk factors for this psychological disorder.
Neuroticism is a personality trait shared by all those individuals whose emotions are extremely strong and change easily..
Thus, someone neurotic will have more intense feelings than normal, and they will go from a positive to a negative mood in a simple way.
In relation to misophonia, people with high scores on this personality trait are more likely to experience negative emotions in the presence of a particular noise. In addition, your feelings will be much more powerful and uncontrollable than those of someone with greater emotional stability..
It is important to note that it is possible to suffer misophonia without having this personality trait; but the chances of doing so are much higher in the case of a neurotic person.
Research on misophonia suggests that women are significantly more likely to suffer from this disorder than men. It is not known exactly why this occurs, although some theories have been developed that try to explain this phenomenon.
The most widely accepted is that the brain anatomical differences between men and women make them more sensitive to certain stimuli, such as noise. In extreme cases, this increased sensitivity could lead to disorders such as misophonia.
As we have already seen, people with misophonia have serious problems ignoring certain triggering sounds that provoke negative emotions..
Therefore, individuals with problems to voluntarily control their attention are more likely to end up developing this disorder.
Thus, it has been seen that in some cases attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is related to the appearance of this pathology.
Despite not being considered a psychological disorder in official diagnostic manuals, misophonia can cause all kinds of negative effects in the lives of people who suffer from it. In this section we will see which are the most frequent.
The clearest consequence of misophonia is the recurrent appearance of negative emotions. Depending on the severity of the symptoms, this can be a simple annoyance, or it can become something that threatens the long-term well-being of the person.
In the most severe cases of this disorder, individuals who suffer from it may end up developing problems such as depression, generalized anxiety, social phobia, or agoraphobia. In addition, symptoms such as inability to enjoy anything, or even thoughts of suicide, may appear..
Many of the triggering sounds of misophonia are related to other people or social contexts. Due to this, individuals who develop this disorder may end up avoiding getting together with others, so as not to have to face the negative emotions that these noises unleash in them..
On the other hand, extreme aversion to certain noises also tends to make those who suffer from it very irritable and aggressive. This means that, in many cases, others do not want to be in their company either, so their social relationships deteriorate even more..
Depending on the specific triggering sound for a person with misophonia, this problem may prevent them from carrying out their day-to-day life with ease. For example, if a person feels extreme anxiety when listening to traffic noise, over time they are likely to avoid taking the car or even leaving the house.
The consequences of this avoidance can be very varied depending on each specific case; but they can often cause problems such as job loss, or abandonment of pleasant activities that can expose them to triggering noises.
As we have already seen, the negative emotions suffered by those who have misophonia appear automatically and uncontrollably. Due to this, individuals with this disorder tend to acquire a pessimistic view of their own inner world after a while.
Thus, these people generally end up developing low self-esteem, a lack of self-confidence and an inability to work on their own goals. In addition, they usually also feel great frustration with themselves, because they do not feel capable of managing their emotions.
There is no standardized treatment to solve the symptoms of misophonia, since this condition is not considered as a psychiatric disorder.
However, there are different techniques and approaches that can help solve it and improve the quality of life of patients who suffer from it..
Cognitive behavioral therapy is usually the first approach used to treat a patient with this disorder. In this procedure, the objective is twofold: on the one hand, it seeks to reduce the intensity of the emotions that appear when listening to the triggering noise by means of a technique known as "cognitive restructuring".
On the other hand, the psychologist helps the person to face little by little the situations that trigger this response. This is to help you function properly in your daily life, even if the symptoms do not go away completely..
We have already seen that some experts believe that misophonia has its origin in some type of childhood trauma. For this reason, psychoanalytic therapy can be very indicated to find the underlying problem and solve it..
This therapeutic approach focuses on examining the first years of the person's life, in order to find what could be the cause of the symptoms experienced in the present.
Once found, the psychoanalyst helps the individual to re-focus, which usually makes the symptoms disappear.
The psychoanalytic process can be very long and complex, but many people have benefited from this type of therapy to treat problems such as misophonia..
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