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The "Butterfly's Whisper" Blog

Welcome to my blog. I hope by sharing my own misophonia experiences, others who are frustrated with misophonia sensitivities will discover that they're not alone. I also hope that people who may not have misophonia will gain some insight about what it's like to have this condition.

Please feel free to post any comments or use the "Contact Us" page if you have any questions/comments you don't want to post online.

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Another day, another trigger...

2/22/2015

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One of the nice things about my new house is that my bedroom has an eastern exposure, so my body naturally gets up early - even before my alarm. Given that the routes to work are either bumper to bumper traffic on a highway or the stop and go local routes with traffic lights, being able to leave early in the morning is a good thing. I'm not normally a morning person so it's good be able to get on the road as early as I can.

I thought that getting into the office early would also be a good thing. Fewer people usually means fewer misophonia triggers. Unfortunately, the coworker who sits behind me also gets in early, so the buzzing of his speakers playing music softly is even more noticeable in the quieter environment. (Very similar to how triggers stand out more when in a quiet environment like a library.) It was like ice picks piercing my ears - and the I/T guy whistling while working on various computers in the office space was even worse. (Sigh.) I'd love to be working in an environment where I don't feel like I have to blast my earbud music the second I walk in the door.

I miss the days when I didn't have to share a workstation surface with a coworker. It's bad enough when my coworker bangs a ream of paper on the worksurface to align all the pages - the vibrations traveling all the way to my end so I have to work with my arms raised (very tiring). Every now and then she'll have teammates from her projects visit her, which creates additional distractions... Earlier this week, the CAD Manager sat down to talk with her, all the while banging the short end of his cell phone on the counter surface, sliding his hand down the phone until it reached the bottom, picking it up again between his two fingers, flipping it so his fingers were now at the top, hitting the phone on the countertop.... Over and over and over. I wanted to smush the phone down so it laid flat on the table or snatch the phone out of his hand and throw it across the room. It was so freaking annoying!

This is a person who I try to sit as far away from when we're in the same team meetings in conference rooms. He just can't keep his hands still. He's either clicking his pens or flipping them around his thumb.

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Happy (belated) V-Day!

2/15/2015

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Wow! Time certainly has been flying lately. It's hard to believe that I've been living in my new house for two weeks already. It's been quite a blissful experience. No music blasting from neighbors. Occasionally I'll hear a small dog barking a few doors down or an airplane flying overhead but for the most part, I love living in a house. Time will tell but I don't think I'd ever go back to apartment living. 

Unfortunately, my cockatiel was being quite nudgy this morning. For some reason, even when he was on my shoulder, he was whining endlessly. I wasn't sure if it was because he was hungry or thirsty, so I put him back in his cage with his food and water, which quieted him for a while but then he started whining again.  When it got to the point that his whines were going to make me explode, I gathered my laptop and writing stuff and left him with the TV going. Hopefully he'll get the whining  out of his system by the time I get home. Despite the blissful quietness of my new place, his whines are still big enough triggers to drive me away from my abode.

I did have an interesting revelation last week during a manicure/pedicure. (My hands and feet were quite beaten up after the move.) Normally, the sound of nails being clipped is a big trigger for me, but I noticed during my treatment that the clipping sound wasn't as bothersome. (Yes, it was a bit annoying but not too terrible.) As soon as the technician next to us started clipping the nails of another customer, I couldn't scramble to put my earbuds/music in fast enough. It got me thinking.... Perhaps why I was more bothered by the other customer's nails being clipped than my own was because when my nails were being clipped, I could FEEL them being clipped at the same time as hearing the sound. I think my brain was able to make a connection between the tactile sensation of the clippers and the aural one whereas there wasn't that secondary correlation when the other customer's nails were being clipped. My brain was better able to process the clicking sound of the clippers when it had the association of the tactile sensation as well. Perhaps part of my misophonia sensitivity has to do with the brain not getting complete sensory information to associate with certain actions.

Just another one of my misophonia mind wanderings...
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Moving on up (again)...

2/5/2015

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After a huge deadline at work this past Friday, this weekend was a whirlwind of activity in that I moved into a house on Sunday.  For those of you who wondered how I could deal with such a horrific downstairs apartment neighbor, moving to a new house with no shared walls/floors/ceilings was my (drastic but effective) solution.  Although the neighbor had been fairly quiet for the couple of weeks leading up to the move, as soon as the movers left Saturday evening (after packing my place up), I think they knew I was leaving and started blasting their Bose system. So, I picked up my bird,  slept on an air mattress in the new place, and didn't look back. It was heaven!

Even after they moved me (an all-day event on Sunday), I found myself still in apartment mentality. Even though my neighbors didn't care about being considerate with their noise, I was always hyper-aware of any potential noise that I created. (Eg. Walking on hard surfaces with heels or dropping something heavy on the floor.) So, as I unpacked Sunday and occasionally dropped things, I caught myself thinking about if the people downstairs heard it and reminded myself, "THERE IS NO ONE DOWNSTAIRS ANYMORE!" (Hooray!!!) Yes, it was quite a strange feeling walking down the stairs for the first time after the move Monday morning. A good feeling, but strange.

So, although things seem to be coming together in my new place, I'm still struggling with my misophonia in my workplace environment. On top of the coworker behind me who ALWAYS plays music out of his speakers with the volume down instead of wearing headphones (creating a constant buzzing like a mosquito noise throughout the day), yesterday, the coworker who shares the cubicle with me decided to

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    About the Author

    Emlyn Altman has been suffering with misophonia for over 40 years, even though she only found out about the actual medical condition much more recently. As frustrating as the condition has been over the years, her heightened sensitivities across all the senses considerably influenced her talents within the visual fine arts (particularly sculpture), music (singing, piano, and many other instruments), writing, and culinary backgrounds, as well as professional achievements as an architectural lighting designer. Her goal in developing this website is to promote more awareness about misophonia and help other sufferers as well.


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