Misophonia: a condition that drives some people crazy when they hear certain sounds
No, you are not people who are deliberately intolerant. You are not snooty and picky people, who if you hear someone making a little noise while eating soup, you lose patience.
It's not your fault if all of this happens whenever you hear someone chewing food. It is all "the fault" of an anomaly in the frontal lobe of the brain that makes you "different" from a person who has no such anomaly.
Within the field of medicine, this type of condition has a specific name: Misophonia.
via webmd.com
Those who suffer from misophonia show an emotionally exaggerated response to hearing a specific category of sounds. Among those that trigger a reaction of intolerance, there are undoubtedly the noises caused by chewing, but also the sounds of other people breathing, yawning, or whistling.
For a long time, misophonia was considered simply a matter of character, but some more in-depth investigations have revealed a difference in the brain structure of those who suffer from it compared to a "healthy" individual.
The difference lies in the frontal lobe of the brain, connected precisely to the processing of sounds. In fact, misophones develop a state of anxiety and experience a significant increase in their heartbeat in the presence of sounds that they find to be intolerable. Parallel to physical discomfort, there can also be verbal attacks on the person who emits those sounds.
Now that the disorder has been appropriately identified, perhaps there can be a pharmacological treatment, aimed at moderating this emotional response, especially in those who experience severe discomforts when having to deal with misophonia.
But how to understand if you really suffer from misophonia or if you are simply intolerant of those who chew food loudly? This video should give you an answer --- if you are not at all comfortable listening to the sounds contained, well, it is very likely you are misophonic!
