Do NOT smack your food anywhere near me...

Misophonia.  Heard of it?  I hadn't before my daughter found the term and its definition last night, and diagnosed herself.  She suffers from first year med student disease even though she is still a senior in high school.  WebMD is dangerous at her fingertips, self-diagnosis can have her dying in the amount of time it takes her to hit the search button. But that is a whole other topic. This time her research made sense! Sadly, it also started me thinking about whether or not I had the same issue. To rewind the tape just a bit, let's define misophonia.  Literally, it is the hatred of sound. In actuality, it is the hypersensitivity to background sounds or visual stimuli usually ignored by other people. Worse than the sensitivity to the stimuli and being unable to block it out, is the negative emotional response to the trigger.
When I say negative emotional response, it probably has you thinking that it's no big deal. So what if a sound pisses you off?  Get over it. Not quite, ass clown. This is way more than hating the sound of a car honking outside your window at 3am. This is an emotional flood of rage and panic for the sufferer. The fight or flight instinct kicks in with brute force and with adrenaline pumping and heart pounding, you either want to run far and fast or physically attack the person making the noise. Think it's no big deal?  Imagine the social implications for a person afflicted with this disorder. My kid will just wear her earbuds at dinner to avoid hearing chewing of any kind. Other people, forced into situations with dinner companions may become so distraught by the sounds they can't muffle or disguise, they begin to decline all subsequent social invitations.  Isolation is no joke.
Relationships are often difficult for those with this issue.  They can become strained and sometimes come to a screeching halt because the offending party doesn't see a problem with what they are doing, no one has ever bitched about it before. Getting disgusted with someone like this is easy to do. You feel targeted and picked on and it gets really old really fast. Because you don't understand the physical and emotional stress this person is feeling and that, sadly, you are a huge factor. They want to be able to tune out, but they can't, pure and simple.

Crunching, sucking, chewing, smacking, swallowing, silverware scraping teeth, gum chewing and popping, slurping, water bottle squeezing, tooth sucking, saying aahhh after drinking, nail biting, and/or flossing.  Imagine if any of these things could set you off on a murderous rage? Loud breathing, yawning, snoring, throat clearing, sniffling, coughing, humming, and/or whistling. What if you couldn't stand to be in the same room with any of those sounds?  Limiting doesn't even begin to describe it. Stifling, isolating, stressful, tormented...those are a few words you could use instead.
Chewing sounds always bugged the shit out of me, even as a child.  I just thought my parents were very disgusting chewers with horrible table manners. Fingers jammed in my ears, I ate my dinner every night with my blood boiling.  Once in a while, I'd use my headphones to drown out the god-awful sounds. I even had terminology for each method of chewing. My dad simply chomped...like his life depended on it. I had assigned my mom a fancier term for what she did with her mouth, muhlatting.  Onomatopoeia at its finest. I'd have sworn they did it on purpose, too, just to annoy me. Why not?  Kids are fun to piss off, don't deny it. Their reactions are priceless!
When I first noticed my own daughter didn't like chewing sounds, it was a point of pride for me. I thought that she would have lovely table manners and shun the nasty sounds that I've heard others make over the years.  Well, to a degree. It started as just chewing sounds, then escalated to swallowing sounds, sucking sounds, crunching, and talking with any food in the mouth.  Yes, that is a gross habit, but it happens to the best of us, particularly when people insist on asking you a question the very second after you shoved food into to your gaping maw. You asked for it at that point.
What I am attempting to do today is educate you dumbshits about something very real and extremely hard to live with for both the sufferer and their family and friends. You probably have someone in your life dealing with this very problem right now and they frost your fucking cookies, don't they?
Before you get angry with this person, ask them what it feels like when they hear those sounds. If they tell you that they want to drive a stake through your eye when you make those sounds, take them seriously. The rage they feel is quite real and  it makes them feel terribly guilty but they cannot help it. Nobody wants to be this way. Being with people, sharing meals, close proximity, or a fun conversation are all natural desires. Desires that have to be suppressed by those who have misophonia. It can be lonely, and it is definitely miserable. Try to be understanding with that person, unless you want that stake in your eye. I know I don't. Are you friggin kidding me right now???