Driven CRAZY by the sound of chewing
ON VALENTINE’S Day, Jan Noble’s husband, Murray, didn’t book a romantic dinner for two in a quiet restaurant.
He has more sense than that. A trip to the cinema was a much safer bet. And he definitely didn’t order any popcorn.
The reason? Jan cannot bear the sound of him chewing his food. It drives her into a violent rage.
For the record, poor Murray has impeccable manners and is no noisier when he eats than anyone else.
But full-time mother Jan, 48, suffers from a crippling condition called misophonia. Meaning ‘hatred of sound’, it is a sensitivity disorder that causes sufferers to be driven to distraction by certain noises.
For Jan it’s just one sound that triggers an extreme response: that of her much-loved husband eating.
Jan, who lives with Murray, 47, and their children Louise, six, and Cameron, four, has suffered with misophonia for six years.
‘Normally it takes something pretty extreme to get me angry,’ she says. ‘Yet I only have to think about the sound of Murray chewing his food and I feel furious.
‘Hearing anyone else eat doesn’t bother me at all, but with my husband it’s like a terrible panic comes over me. We have the radio on or the TV turned up during meals to reduce the risk of me hearing him.
‘If I do, God help him. My face goes scarlet, my heart pounds in my chest and I feel a strong urge to launch myself at him. It’s terrible.’
Other sufferers can have a wider repertoire of trigger sounds that cause them to react with degrees of stress and anxiety, ranging from irritation to rage.
Offending noises include someone breathing, chewing gum or typing. For some, the mere thought of hearing a sniff or a throat being cleared can make them sick with anxiety.
Emily Yarranton-Green, who lives with her electrician husband Paddy, 26, and their 18-month-old son Reggie, has suffered misophonia since her teens. She can’t bear to hear anyone eating — including Paddy, who she glares at so venomously at meals that he often ends up throwing his food into the bin.
‘I also can’t stand hearing him breathing at night and the noise of him swallowing drives me crazy,’ she says. ‘It frightens me because I start to feel murderous towards him even though I know it’s me being unreasonable and not him.’
Care worker Emily, 28, also feels tense just thinking about the sound of someone eating crisps.
‘I’ve come close to snatching them off strangers — I glare, fantasising about grabbing the bag and jumping up and down on it.
It’s as if the noise burns my insides. My heart pounds, my toes curl and my fists clench.’
What Emily and Jan describe when is the evolutionary ‘fight or flight’ response that is triggered in humans when we feel in danger.
In misophonics, there is no threat yet the adrenaline-fuelled reaction is triggered when they hear certain, otherwise innocuous, sounds. No one knows what causes the condition, but experts suspect it is less about the problem sound and more about the context in which it became an issue.
Clinical psychologist Dr David Holmes describes the disorder as an ‘audiological over-response’.
‘At some point, the sufferer made a strong negative association with a certain sound or sounds, which now trigger an extreme response,’ he says. ‘In terms of neurology, this has a lot to do with how the brain processes sound. When we register noise, the amygdala — a very old, primordial part of the brain that does a lot of the work in processing the feeling of fear — is stimulated.
This means you can sometimes end up tuning into a particular noise with an inappropriate fight or flight response, which then becomes your set reaction.’
Sound signals are processed by the thalamus, a part of the brain that acts like a switchboard for sensory information. It sends the signals to the amygdala.
There are two routes to this part of the brain: one is a direct path prompting an immediate emotional response to a sound. For example, a horn prompts fear and makes you jump out of the way.
The other route goes via the medial prefrontal cortex, which is a more advanced part of the brain allowing for a considered interpretation of the sound.
‘It seems someone with misophonia processes certain non-threatening sounds without firing up the medial prefrontal cortex,’ he says.
‘Sufferers then feel a desperate urge to make the noise stop or run as far away from it as possible.’
The first time Jan reacted badly to Murray was when their daughter was a newborn. ‘She’d just gone to sleep and we sat down to our first meal alone since having her,’ she says.
‘Murray started to eat and the sound of him chewing seemed so much louder than I’d ever noticed. I turned on him, furious, demanding to know why he was eating so horribly, convinced that he was doing it deliberately to upset me.
‘With every mouthful I was asking “What’s wrong with you?” This red mist seemed to descend on me. He was shocked and upset. He couldn’t understand what was happening.’
Jan believes that as a new mother she was tired and emotional, which exaggerated her response. But, she says: ‘From that day on it’s been an enormous problem.’
For Emily, the problem is so acute that she’s thinking about medical help. ‘I’m worried my GP will think I’m being ridiculous,’ she says.
Sufferers are often prescribed Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). This often means exposing them to the sounds they struggle with, while helping them rationalise their response.
Audiologist Jacqueline Sheldrake has diagnosed several patients with misophonia. She says she can help with coping strategies, such as using another sound to cover the one that is causing the problem.
She adds: ‘You need psychological input to help reverse or reduce some of the emotion attached to the sound in the first place or it will always be a problem.’