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.
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.
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