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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.

Contact ME

Bad news, good news...

1/7/2014

3 Comments

 
Well... My gut feeling about last month's "review" that was not a review was right on the mark. I was laid off this afternoon. (Their actual words were that my "employment has been terminated." Bleah!) As bummy as it is to be laid off, I'm actually happy to be out of there. They expected me to do the work of three people with no additional dedicated help. I was completely set-up to fail. (I should've known when my two predecessors - who I was hired to replace - quit because they were overwhelmed.)

Anyway, as much as I liked working with most of my coworkers and helped design some fun projects, I'm glad not to be subjected to work triggers anymore. NO MORE WHISTLING! (YAY!!!!!) No more soda cans opening or silverware clanking on soup bowls. No more people chewing crunchy foods or tapping feet/fingernails/pens/etc in meetings. No more candy wrappers being opened near my area. But most of all... No noise of feet clopping on the floor above my head. Last week, I came into the office a little after 6 a.m. and was the first person there. The next person who came in walked through the lobby, proceeded to go upstairs but instead of going to the far corner of the room where his desk is, I heard [STOMP, STOMP, STOMP...] ten times above my head, like someone trying to get snow off of his boots. His desk is nowhere near the area above mine and instead of knocking anything off his boots at the entry vestibule like a normal person, I was bombarded with that racket from above. I swear he was doing it deliberately, knowing how sensitive I am to sound. (The whole entry area was dark except where I was working and we made eye contact when he started to go upstairs, so he knew I was there.) Whatever... As much as they tried accommodating my misophonia, the overall building's environment was not condusive for any kind of noise reduction. I pretty much had no hope there, on many levels.

But as I said earlier... All is good. I don't have to burn myself out anymore (to the point of insomnia or, when I could fall asleep, dreaming about work). I can go back to my dedicated workouts (something I stopped because I was so overwhelmed at work this Fall), maybe even do some consulting work so I can have better control over which (and how many) projects I take on. I'll definitely use this time to also work on my memoir so that, hopefully, I can finally wrap it up after my trip to London next month for the fMRI study. (Of course, over the next couple of weeks I'm going to have to be even more frugal than ever in preparation for the trip.)

Perhaps I will even take this opportunity to investigate other career paths. I've always enjoyed teaching graduate school students, in addition to speaking at professional conferences. I love seeing students achieve that "aha" moment when they get the concepts of the lesson. Their creativity and enthusiasm energizes and excites me. It makes me remember why I became very passionate about lighting design and 3D visualization in the first place.

Many people have told me I'd make a good professor, and I'll admit that during the past year and a half while I've been exploring my misophonia, I've come up with many ideas for potential misophonia research studies. Perhaps this layoff is a sign that I need to start pursuing that route...

At least I ended the day on a very enjoyable note. I had a very long hot stone massage already scheduled for this evening. (It was something I bought at the beginning of the year at a charity silent auction, but the car accident prevented me from enjoying it sooner.) It was very relaxing and just what I needed. Couldn't have picked the timing of that appointment any better - even though I scheduled it over a month ago!

Yes, 2014 should be a year of new beginnings and even greater possibilities... We'll see what happens!

3 Comments
Jim
1/7/2014 01:00:25 pm

Emlyn, I'm really sorry to hear about this. Hopefully, they at least gave you a reasonable severance package. Don't sign anything unless it's accompanied by a nice check.

I hope there are plenty of professor offers out there in your field. And you have a great trip to look forward to taking.

Reply
Bonnie link
1/9/2014 09:36:04 pm

I have found that some of the best "decisions" in life are the ones made for us. This may be one of the best decisions you never made!
Hugs!

Reply
Emlyn
1/11/2014 02:27:29 am

Thanks, Bonnie. I can always use a good (virtual) hug. LOL!

And you're right about the decisions made for us... If it weren't for my getting laid off from my previous job and moving to the Midwest for this last one, I never would've found out about Misophonia. :-)

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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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