A Misophonia UK information leaflet. Ref: M001.3 [revised Apr 2010] What is mis ophonia?

isophonia is a recognised medical condition where the sufferer may develop a hypersensitivity to everyday noises, most commonly other peoples eating and breathing sounds. This can trigger extreme feelings of rage or panic, or even imagining doing violence to the maker of the sound. M The condition is also calleds elective sound sensitivity syndrome(SSSS or 4S). Where the reaction is particularly strong, it is sometimes calledphonophobia. Y es, but everyone has sounds they dont like Thats right. For instance, most of us ca nt bear the thought of nails screeching across a blackboard. But clinical misophonia is different. People with the condition often end up alienating the people they are closest to. That can, and does, lead to break-ups and divorce, unemployment and even an inability to leave the house. Children are particularly vulnerable to misophonia, both as sufferers themselves, and as the target of a parent sufferers misophonia. So what are the symptoms? We find that a common age of onset for misophonia is around 8-12, although symptoms can appear at any age. Sufferers tend to start noticing a particular feature of a loved ones breathing or eating habits. They become obsessed by the sound(s), and hypersensitive to them. That sensitivity can then spread to other noises made by that person (or another person) or the actions with which they make the noise, or even an anticipation of it. The reaction can encompass rage, panic, fear, a desire to flee, a desire to do serious violence to the maker of the sound, or all of those emotions wrapped up together. Needless to say, the reaction is out of all proportion to the nature of the trigger. People are often triggered most by those they are closest to. What about the fam ilies and friends of people with misophonia? We realise that it can be very dist ressing to be told constantly that the way you eat or breathe is disgusting, or even particularly noticeable. Most people with misophonia realise that too. They know that they are the one with the problem and that usually their trigger person (ie the person making the sound) is only behaving normally. But when they are having a misophonic reaction, they are powerless to engage in reasoned debate. That is why it

is so important for sufferer and trigger person to talk things through at a time when the sufferer feels relatively safe. Ive never heard of misophonia before. The term misophonia (miso = extreme dislike or hatred and phonia = sound) was only coined in the early 1990s by American scientists Pawel and Margaret Jastreboff. Of course, people had the condition before there was a name for it! We think that doctors simply diagnosed the symptoms as a form of anxiety. However, misophonia has such pronounced symptoms (even though they can vary from one individual to the next) that it is clearly more than anxiety alone. Internet