One of the things I've learned about myself, especially after learning about misophonia, is that I realize how proactive I am with trying to mitigate exposure to triggers. Usually that means when I first walk into a restaurant, I stop and scope the room to figure out where would be the least stressful place to sit (taking into consideration locations of stressors such as tables with noisy conversations or restless children, people fidgeting, tables in crowded areas or circulation paths, etc.) Same goes with scoping out a room where I'm attending a meeting or class. Usually I sit as close to the speaker/screen as possible and away from people who may be eating. Yesterday I took my proactive thinking to a new level...

I went to a sales rep's office to attend a regular professional development class being held during lunchtime. I don't like lunch meetings because more often than not, the box lunches serve mini bags of potato chips or wrap their sandwiches/cookies in crinkly cellophane/plastic. What I did happened even before I entered the classroom... When I walked in the door, there wasn't anyone in the reception area but I happened to notice a bowl of mints on the reception desk. In the middle of the sea of individually wrapped mint rings, there was a little box of gum. I grabbed the gum - not because I was interested in freshening my breath or wanted to chew the gum myself, but because my immediate thought was to prevent anyone coming in after me from taking the gum and chewing it during the class. 

It's funny... I've never been presented with a situation like that before. I could've just as easily left the gum where it was and take my chances but that was a risk I didn't want to take. As it was, despite sitting in the front row of the classroom set-up, I still had to put my earplugs in so not to be distracted by the crinkling bags of people eating their box lunches surrounding me, but at least I didn't have to worry about people chewing/popping gum on top of that. 

So after the typical PNW (Pacific Northwest) days upon days of drenching rain, yesterday I woke up to a beautiful sunny morning and went to a local writers' MeetUp. It was wonderful to sit in the cafe, waiting for the others to arrive, feeling the warmth of the sun beating on my cheek and shoulder through the window. I thought about how much I'm looking forward to the writer's conference in Hawaii that I'll be attending this Fall - where I'll also be spending three extra days to attend a memoir writing workshop taught by award-winning memoirist and novelist Luis Urrea. (The workshop is limited to only 15 people, so I know I'll be getting a LOT out of the program).

Looking back at the past week, I've still been struggling with this persistent cough that I've had since the Christmas holidays which doctors haven't been able to figure out. (I've seen four doctors a total of seven times and will be seeing two more specialists over the next two weeks and none of the nine medicines they've prescribed seem to help). Misophonia-wise though, I still have the same daily triggers created by my coworker's need to eat every two hours. Yes.... I know so many nutritional programs say how important it is to eat every couple of hours to keep the metabolism going, and crunchy apples and yogurt cups (which she seems to want to scrape every last drop from the container) are healthy foods to eat, but does potato chips (or whatever she's eating from that large crinkly bag) really support that rationale too? 

I also had a very uncomfortable moment at a major client meeting this week when one of the Owners (the clients of my company's client) sitting next to me started rubbing her stocking'd legs over and over and over... It's hard to describe the sound of it, and the repetitive motion doubled up the misophonia triggers that action created, but I was fortunate to take advantage of a brief moment when everyone was looking away from our direction so I could quickly insert an ear plug in the ear where that scratchy sound was emitting. (I swear... To me it's just as bad as nails on a chalkboard, even if the sound is much softer. The sound and feel of hosiery is one of my earliest (if not THE earliest) misophonia triggers I've experienced back when I was a kid.)

That's one of the difficulties with my new job as an "Owner in Training" for my company. Whereas in the past, I was just one of many "cogs in an engine," and able to mitigate misophonia triggers listening to earbud music while working at my desk: now I've got the bigger responsibility of being the face for my company so it's harder for me to mask potential triggers - especially during the moment they occur. This is definitely going to take some creative thinking on my part for how to deal with this new misophonia challenge...

This morning was quite rough getting up and going. Being under the weather with a never ending cough for nearly six weeks has been running me down. I already look forward to the weekends to recoup from the work week stresses, but I took Advil PM last night because an old knee injury was acting up and I also treated myself to a little night cap before going to bed. Let's just say it was probably one of the deepest sleeps I've had in a while... That is until my bird decided he was very antsy to get out of the cage this morning and started to whine every 10 seconds. He's one of the only misophonia triggers I have in my abode that can drive me away from the comfort of my own home. 

So, despite my being very annoyed at him for setting off my misophonia this morning, I was thankful he did so that I could get my butt out of bed and go to the writer's meetup near where I live. (I'm hoping that this group can get me back on track with regular blog updates and finishing up my memoir manuscript. I've also made a few new friends in the group too.)

Today's meetup group was small (only three of us), but I did get into an interesting discussion with one of the people.  He started to share some of his frustrations with where he is in life (compared with where books and articles say a person should be), and it got me thinking about my life too - particularly how I feel misophonia may have interfered with where I am now.

Don't get me wrong... Professionally, I have been quite successful in life - despite many of the challenges I've experienced along the way, along with the ones I'm dealing with now as an "Owner In Training." Where I ​