Misophonia

Misophonia: Beyond Sensory Sensitivity by Scott Alexander at ACX

Misophonia is a condition in which people can’t tolerate certain noises (classically chewing). Nobody loves chewing noises, but misophoniacs go above and beyond, sometimes ending relationships, shutting themselves indoors, or even deliberately trying to deafen themselves in an attempt to escape.

So it’s a sensory hypersensitivity, right? Maybe not. There’s increasing evidence - which I learned about from Jake, but which didn’t make it into the article - that misophonia is less about sound than it seems.

Misophoniacs who go deaf report that it doesn’t go away.

I immediately wondered if there was going to be an overlap with autism, and several people in the comments had examples from their own experience that this is so. As I have suggested before, connections between obsessive-compulsive disorder or personality, autism, schizoid personality disorder, a wide range of sensory and vestibular issues and Lord knows what else are going to be repeatedly rethought and rejiggered over the next decades, rather like a kaleidoscope. 

A lot of these are things we always thought of as "just a quirk," with no particular meaning, such as "my mother always complained that we chewed too loudly no matter how quiet we tried to be.  I'm still self-conscious about it." Yet one result of greater and greater communication, especially with the rise of search engines, is that we find patterns. 

But it would explain some of research - why the phenomenon can persist even without the noise (eg in deaf people), why context matters so much, why it’s worse with close friends and family (you’ve already told them you have misophonia, so insofar as their continued noise indicates they don’t care about you enough to stop, it’s easier to be sad and angry about them).

We also suddenly recognise that we have mild versions of a condition, something that has always been an inconvenience and irritation, but fairly easy to work around.  Sometimes knowing this suggests a solution, sometimes nothing seems to help despite our improved understanding.