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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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The importance of how a message is delivered...

3/12/2013

3 Comments

 
As much as moving to my new desk location has improved my exposure to triggers at the office somewhat, unfortunately it by no means has been a perfect solution. In fact, the move has added a trigger... My new neighbor on the other side of my partition has a habit of drumming her fingernails - not the pads of her fingers, her nail tips - on the hard wooden surface of her desk. I don't even have to see the motion of her drumming (which is one of my visual triggers). The rapid tack-tack-tacking of her fingers drumming over and over sends my nerves through the roof... She actually knows it bothers me but it's a very unconscious action for her. (Sometimes she even catches herself doing it and,  when I'm not wearing my headphones, I hear her apologize from the other side of the wooden partition.)

Luckily, I work at an architectural design firm with a huge library of material samples.  This afternoon, when she started drumming her nails again, I walked down the material library aisles until I found a bunch of thick, soft, velour swatch samples and brought them up to her. I asked if she could do me a favor and put a couple of the swatches on her desk so I won't hear the "tacking" sounds of her nails drumming. I think because I asked her nicely and with a smile, she didn't feel like I was attacking her with my request. She even got a kick out of the fact that I brought up a bunch of different colors from which to choose. (She actually took all of them.) It's amazing how well such a simple solution worked.

I think that's something we sufferers need to remember when asking people to be understanding about our triggers. Sometimes, our annoyance about triggers is so great, that we might come across as too curt when asking someone to stop a trigger. If we're too abrupt/annoyed, it might come across more like a demand than a request. How we ask someone to stop can affect people's response to us. By no means is that an absolute though. Many times when I lived on the east coast, I politely (even sheepishly) tried to ask someone to stop and they wound up doing it even more. I do think that there is something to the saying, "You get more flies with honey than with vinegar" though.  If I hadn't taken a few minutes to walk down to the materials library to collect myself before asking her to stop, the tone of my request might've come across harsher than I intended. I'm not the best with counting to ten before reacting but maybe that's something to consider when addressing nearby misophonia triggers.

When she and I talked about it, she said it helped that she knew about my condition ahead of my asking her to stop. I know it's very hard for us to discuss our condition in the workplace but perhaps taking that proactive step in helping educate our colleagues while our minds are calm can help us when addressing triggers as they occur. 
3 Comments
Catherine Barber
3/14/2013 07:47:08 pm

Phew! It makes me feel SO lucky that I'm 'just' a cleaner. I can work to suit myself, in quiet places with no other people around - and I can move off if there is anything annoying/triggering happening or about to happen. And of course I can wear all the earplugs and headphones and whatever that I like, with nobody to mind this! Being stuck in an office, at a desk, would be a nightmare for me - along with the constant obligation to have to interract acceptably with other people - whilst having to be bombarded with all their impact-sounds and movements. Yuergh!

Reply
Emlyn Altman link
3/17/2013 02:50:33 am

You're lucky that you've been able to find a profession that allows you to cope with your misophonia as well as you do. I guess I'm lucky that my move to the Midwest enabled me to find a firm that's as understanding about this condition as I can hope to get - even though I'm still bombarded with triggers.

I've heard so many accounts of people with misophonia who have to deal with work environments that aren't so understanding or flexible as ours. In fact, years before I even knew about misophonia, I read an article about a shopkeeper in the UK who was being driven crazy by people whistling in his store. I actually clipped it because it was the first time that I had ever heard of anyone else who hated whistling like me. After learning about misophonia (about six years later), I tried searching the internet to see if I could reach out to him, only to discover another article that said he sold his store because he couldn't take it anymore. I wonder how many other people may have given up like that because their work environment was so unbearable.

There are days that I sometimes wonder if I should've chosen another profession - usually at past firms where I worked for/with bullies in coworkers. (That's a long story onto itself.) It was during those frustrating times that I remembered my advisor in college ( professor of sculpture) who was very upset when I told him about my pursuing a career in architecture. He was very upset that I wasn't going to continue my sculpting as a professional artist. Looking back, maybe being an artist who could set up my studio however I wanted might have been a better way to control my surrounding environment.

But there's no sense in living in regrets... My life has had many interesting twists and bumps in the road. All I can do is take each new hurdle in stride one day at a time and keep pushing onward in my quest to find relief from misophonia for myself and others. :-)

Reply
Catherine Barber
3/17/2013 05:39:42 am

Amazing thought..... my cleaning being seen as a 'profession' (!) Still, I do feel very lucky I discovered it and have been working in this way for the last 30 years. Downwardly-mobile, I know, as I suppose my background is what one'd call educated middle-class and I went to college. But it's temperament that has had to be considered first: whatever my education/background I just didn't have the temperament or aptitude to survive any 'white collar' job for very long. And certainly not anything high-up enough to entitle me an office of my own.


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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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