Nothing is helping your Misophonia - so what now?

If you are reading this, you may be feeling frustrated, hopeless and miserable about the constant battle you have with Misophonia (also known as extreme sound sensitivity). Briefly, sufferers react with extreme emotions to common everyday sounds like breathing, chewing, eating or neighbour noise - especially music, DIY or dogs barking. The emotions are usually anger, rage, panic or disgust. They can be so overpowering and unpleasant that they make the sufferer want to lash out, avoid the person/situation or isolate themselves completely.

Does this sound like you? Maybe you have tried:

• earplugs or headphones

• distracting yourself

• avoiding triggers

• exposure to triggers

• telling yourself to ‘just ignore it’

• talking therapy, such as CBT

  
  

  

  Misophonia - you don't have to suffer!

However, none of these things have worked, and you continue to endure the distress of mealtimes or even avoid being with your loved ones, isolating yourself from day to day life in your own home, or sitting and eating apart from school or work colleagues. Your relationships may be suffering too, as well as a sense of shame within you : are you truly broken for good?

It's important to recognise that you have not failed and you are not broken - you just haven't found the right approach yet. Your nervous system is reacting to sounds in a way that you don't fully understand - yet. So, it follows from this that you cannot give it what it needs!

It is also vitally important to be aware that it is very rarely the sound that is the problem - as much as it triggers you. It is what the sound represents. To your nervous system, this usually means "I am not safe", even though logically this makes no sense at all.

Often, when sufferers try using coping strategies, they are working at the level of the symptom: the sound itself. You tell yourself to tolerate it, block it out or talk about it in a more positive way. I am not suggesting these things don't help at all - coping strategies enable many misophonia sufferers to adapt and get on with their lives.

But what if you started to focus on the REAL problem? If you could get to the root of what is really driving your misophonia?

Many of my clients struggle with other issues. In my experience, misophonia very rarely shows up as an isolated symptom. Recently, I have seen people with extreme social anxiety, a history of traumatic experiences in childhood, low self esteem/confidence, and chronic long-term anxiety. It is very hard to control your response to the trigger noise when you hear it, but when you start to heal other parts of yourself, and make improvements in your whole life, you are offering your nervous system a real opportunity to heal, feel safe, nourished and supported.

Many people hide away in isolation, wearing earphones and wishing they had more connection with their loved ones IF ONLY they did not have misophonia! What if there really was a way you could do this in spite of your misophonia? What if your tendency to put it at the forefront of everything really could be changed? Many clients with misophonia become very obsessed with it, they worry about hearing the sound before they have even heard it. They worry that they will be triggered, it will be awful, they won't be able to cope and it may be better to just stay away from that person/event.

There is hope for change when you begin to fix the root of the problem, and gently help your nervous system to feel safe.

This is exactly the work I do in my clinical practice. I gently help you explore what lies beneath your conscious awareness, helping you to clear old emotional blocks, beliefs and patterns. I then help you to build resilience and self-belief in any situation of your life that needs it the most. I help you feel safe at the deepest level, and hold a space of compassion for you in your journey.

If you want to get in touch with me to discuss how I help, please click on this link Work with me/contact.

I also produce 3 videos per week over on my Youtube channel where I aim to support sufferers. The link is here