This past week was an unusual one... In a good way! Last Monday was the final day for the junior person in my office - a big source of my misophonia triggers. The rest of the week felt a bit strange... I can't say why, since I've been alone in the office before when she took a week off here and there for vacation. It was just so heavenly to not have to cope with her eating triggers or scramble to put on my earbuds to mask some of the other triggers she created. Maybe internally I was experiencing a sense of renewed peacefulness knowing she won't be coming back.

The past week was less stressful in not having to deal with her additude when she couldn't comprehend why I wore my earbuds. Never mind the fact that I only put them on when she would trigger my misophonia, but not once did I ever ask her to stop. My reasoning is that she had just as much of a right to eat at her desk or do the other things that would create trigger sounds, so I would cope as best as I could without asking her to change. It's a shame she never truly understood the compromises I made so as not to impose on her work environment. I never once requested that she alter her actions to stop making trigger sounds. Yet she had no qualms telling me off when my wearing earbuds meant she had to get off her butt and walk the 10' to my desk instead of being able to speak to me from across the room.

I can't say the week was completely trigger-free though. Typically I like to keep the interior door to the office open, which usually isn't an issue since the only other unit on the floor is a person's condo. This past week though the condo was having renovation work done so they kept their door open and often the contractors would be in the hall whistling. (Man... Between creative people fidgeting and contractors always whistling on job sites, sometimes I feel like I chose the wrong profession for my condition.) Oh well. I don't think I'll ever be in a trigger-free environment. I'll always have to deal with triggers as best as I can with whatever the situation presents.

My time alone at the office will be short lived though... A new summer intern is starting tomorrow and she seems very sweet. It will be interesting to see if the trigger-free office will remain that way.

Wishing you all a memorious Memorial Day.

Wow! Has it really been nearly three weeks since I last posted an update? Where has the time been flying?

So much has happened since I last posted: revelations, new developments, and SSDD stuff. The first week of May I was in Vegas for a hospitality design conference. It was great to meet up with old friends/colleagues and be back in a desert environment again. It revealed that my coughing issues that had been tormenting me since Christmas was a direct result of my tree/grass pollen allergies here in the PNW. (Even more of a reason why my goal for the upcoming year is to connect with new clients down south so I can move back to Vegas and start up an office location there).

Trigger-wise during the conference, I experienced the SSDD triggers that I normally do whenever I travel or am immersed in crowded events: whistlers, fidgeting anxious people at the airports, eating noises... I just do the best I can with mitigating my exposure to the triggers or wear my earplugs most of the day so people don't have to see me inserting them into my ears. One evening I got to a restaurant before a friend and when the host tried sitting me at the end of the bar right in front of the bathroom doors and directly underneath a speaker, I was proactive and asked him to be seated elsewhere. He put us at the other end of the bar - right where the servers went in and out of the kitchen - but I still felt it was better than the distraction of people bumping into me trying to go in and out of the bathroom.

A little over a week ago I went to a new misophonia meetup group that started near me. It was fairly small (only three of us) but that's understandable being that it was the very first meeting. I've only been to one other meetup before (the UK Misophonia Meetup group)  which seemed to be a more casual meeting, but I liked the fact that the organizer of this new group put a lot of thought into the meeting structure. It was nice to hear everyone's experiences with misophonia as well as to be able to share mine with people who truly understood what I experience on a daily basis.

The most exciting misophonia happening for me though was the resignation of the junior designer in my office. Even though she knew about my misophonia, many times she would say to me, "I don't understand why you have to wear earplugs or listen to your music so loud." Let's just say I won't be missing her frequent eating noises every couple of hours (potato chip bags, scraping yogurt cups, dropping handfuls of nuts onto her desk, eating crunchy apples, clinking her silverware on the china bowls when she ate her oatmeal in the morning... etc.) There will only be about a week of having the office to myself until our summer intern starts, but I'm looking forward to savoring the quiet environment during the time I have.

One other goal I have this weekend is to make my travel plans to go back to NYC for Father's Day weekend so I can see the opening screening of Jeffrey Scott Gould's misophonia documentary called "Quiet Please." 

I'm long overdue for a blog update and as much as I want to write a lot here to make up for that (including all the wild misophonia triggers I had to deal with during a conference trip this past week) but in all honesty... This is going to be a short entry (mainly because it's a Sunday, and my birthday, and I spent over eight hours of the day at work of all places). I just want to go home and enjoy what few hours are left in my birthday.

I will just briefly note that in the past week+ that I haven't written in this blog, I have been amazed by the number of customer representatives (nurses, sales representatives, hospitality staff, etc.)  I've had to deal with who chew gum while working with customers. It baffles my mind. Putting aside my misophonia discomforts with the sound of gum chewing, it's not very professional to me.

​Just saying...