Hearing Things
In case you’ve been hiding on a distant, deserted island with no wi-fi — or, are a contestant on Germany’s version of Big Brother — you may not have heard that there is a global pandemic currently taking place. The COVID-19 coronavirus has suspended life as everyone knows it, pretty much indefinitely, and nobody knows what things will look like if, and when, we come out the other side. In the middle of last week, after much hemming and hawing that was largely ineffective, and then some negative public feedback courtesy of the media that WAS, my penultimate boss was given the authority to grant permission for all staff who could, to work from home.
Having just been set up for telecommuting on Monday in anticipation of this decision and having never worked from home before, the whole experience was very exciting, and I am so thankful that I have this option available to me. And not just because I’m afraid of this new virus that has literally swept across the globe in record time. You see, I suffer from Misophonia, and working from home means that I get to avoid my daily commute.
As our cities have continued their sprawl and now cover more and more ground than ever before, the daily commute has become something that millions undertake routinely as they travel to and from their workplaces during the week. Commuting is not really that big of a deal. Except, for some of us, it is. The two trips I take daily on public transit, one in the early morning, and one in late afternoon, are possibly the most stressful parts of my day. Though the bus trips themselves last no longer than half an hour each, either one — or on a very bad day, both — can cause me intense physical and emotional distress. This is thanks to Misophonia, a condition that I have been living with since I was about eight years old.
Misophonia, in case you haven’t heard of it, is sort of hard to define. Technically, it isn’t a psychiatric illness, but it is also not considered a physiological malady, either. What it is, ultimately, is a high sensitivity to certain sounds. These sounds, which we call triggers, can vary greatly between Misophones. The most recognizable triggers are the sounds that people make when they are eating. I think these triggers are also the most relatable to anyone who is able to hear, because most people in the world have been annoyed by eating sounds at some point in their life — the slurping of soup, the smacking of lips, and the chewing of food with the mouth open are all behaviours we’ve endured from those around us. But, before you remember how much you hate the squishing sound of your best friend eating a banana and think you must therefore have Misophonia, there IS a difference between the irritation that the general public feels at these sounds, and the type of response that a person with Misophonia experiences.
What makes Misophonia different? Well, let me try and describe it to you. I think this is pretty standard for Misophones across the board, but please keep in mind that I’m speaking from my own experience, which I’ve had validated through conversations and connections with other Misophones online. The one thing that makes Misophones different from the general population is that when our auditory sense is keyed up by a sound that we are triggered by, we experience what can only be described as Rage. I capitalize the word here because it truly IS pure, unadulterated Rage.
No, we don’t instantly jump from easygoing and mellow and minding our own business to the Incredible Hulk in 2.4 seconds. But, the comparison is not too far off the mark. Normally, I am quite shy, reserved, very introverted, and with huge empathy for living things — I am vegan, and can’t stand harm done to animals, to children, to women, to anyone vulnerable and unable to protect themselves. Everything from a sweet love song to the bittersweet final chapter of a novel to the latest pro-LGBTQ commercial makes me cry. But, when I am riding the bus at the end of the day, and am listening to music on my headphones to block out the usual sounds around me, but then someone sits near me and starts talking on their cell phone so loudly that I can hear exactly what they are saying over the volume of my iPhone… well, my inner self becomes quite angry, and my imagination, very very violent.
Public transit is really the only aspect of my daily routine where I have almost no control over the environment around me. When it comes to my home, and my work-space at the office, and even the few forms of socializing I’m willing to participate in, I’m usually able to nullify the potential for my illness to rear its ugly head. Either I avoid situations where I know I’m at risk of encountering triggers, or I cultivate my surroundings in a specific way so as to make the possibility of triggers as close to nil as I can. But with the bus, which is a necessary form of transport for me as I do not have my own vehicle, I have no idea and no control over what I will encounter from day to day. And worse, if something sparks a Misophonic reaction in me during my commute, there is essentially nothing at all I can do about it. I am trapped, with no choice but to remain as such, and it’s that feeling that intensifies the effects of my triggers to such uncomfortable degrees.
Some of my most common triggers when I’m riding the bus or light rail train (LRT) include the sorts of things that I imagine most transit-takers don’t even notice happening around them. People squawking into their cellphones, listening to music so loud I can hear it crackling through their earbuds or headphones, even just talking loudly with each other are enough to shatter my calm. And if I’m already stressed from other things happening in my life, then everything is that much worse, and that much faster.
There are two older ladies that occasionally ride the bus after work at the same time as me, and they like to talk very animatedly with each other. I get anxiety when we approach the bus stop where they typically board because I know their presence will quickly destroy any hope I may have had for a calm and peaceful trip.
Although these two ladies always sit at the very front of the bus, and I am usually quite far towards the very back, and although I am listening to music on my headphones at considerable volume, I can still hear the tone, the cadence, the rise and fall of their voices and their conversation as if they were perched right inside my head, squatting square between my ears and shouting to each other over the short distance. No matter how hard I try to avert my focus, I’m unable to. They are all that I can hear. And, after the first few minutes of this, when my chest has tightened so much that it’s difficult to breathe, when my head has started thumping with fury, when tears of frustration have begun smarting behind my eyelids because they just won’t shut up, that is when I feel it… and what it is, is hate.
I don’t know these ladies. Not their names, their ages, the depth of their friendship with each other, what they do for a living. They look absolutely harmless. They look like the kinds of ladies who work in your office, who share photos of their grandkids, and who always bring hot stuff to the potluck while all their lazy coworkers contribute are chips and dips. These two companions could possibly be the warmest, most generous humans on the planet, the sort of women I would love to volunteer alongside in our joined quest to make the world a better place. But, at that exact moment, there on that bus, when all I want is quiet, when the only sound I welcome is the regular rumble of the trundling bus, I am instead overtaken by this unbidden tidal wave of black rage crashing through my veins, and I really and truly hate them. I hate them so much that I actually feel nauseous with it. I hate them almost more than I hate Donald Trump. And, if I could, I would very roughly haul them to their feet and then throw them from the bus, preferably through a closed window that would shatter immediately upon impact and leave them cut and bleeding and pitted with gravel on the road.
THAT is Misophonia.
Imagine spending your whole life abhorring violence, knowing that you would only use physical force against someone in the most extreme scenarios, to protect the life of a child, a lover, or yes, a beloved pet, but then finding yourself imagining how good it would feel to slam someone’s face into the hard plastic and smelly fabric of the bus seat, or take a knife and slice so deeply through the throat of someone that their head hangs by a few thready sinews, or feel the painful connection of your fist against the side of a stranger’s head as you deliver blow after blow after blow. These are all things I have imagined doing to people whose actions are triggering me during my commute. And, while I know for absolute certain that I would hurt myself before I would touch the hair on anyone else’s head, it causes me immense guilt and shame that I have these thoughts, that I get such pleasure in the moment from fantasizing about these barbaric actions.
When I experience a misophonic response to a nearby triggering sound, my amygdala is swiftly hijacked, its controlling levers overtaken by a force I cannot name. The flight-or-fight instinct that we still carry from our primitive lives of thousands of years ago is quickened, and the rest of my body responds as it would if I was actually caught in the midst of a calamitous event. Most times I can leave a scene as soon as — or even before — I am triggered. I’ve had a few decades to practice the skill of quickly assessing a situation with a glance and being able to tell whether or not it is going to be a good time. But, on the bus, that option doesn’t exist. Sure, I could ring the bell, disembark, and wait to catch the next ride. In fact, I’ve done that, and more than once. But the likelihood of there being a similar trigger that causes just as negative a response on the next public transit vehicle to come along is so high that there’s little point, and all I’d be doing is just extending the time it takes for me to get home. My only option is to close my eyes, clench my teeth, and turn my music up as loud as it will go… so loud that it hurts. That pain is better than the alternative.
Being able to avoid these potential sessions of intense emotional and physical agony is the only bright light in an otherwise terrible and stressful time in all of our lives. I am so thankful for this small blessing of getting to work from home, not only for my ability to contribute to lessening the curve when it comes to the spread of COVID-19, but also because the strain of living with Misophonia often drains me of my capacity to properly, levelly, responsibly, handle other negative stresses that arise. If I had to deal with the terrible unknowing of how the next several weeks will play out and what the world will look like on the other side of this pandemic, while also having to fight the negative assault of my Misophonia on my mind and body, I’m not sure if I would be able to survive.
