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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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What a beautiful day...

6/12/2014

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One of the things that I like about being in the Midwest is that when the weather is good, the days are very beautiful. Barely a wisp of a cloud in the bright blue sky... A gentle breeze blowing... Wonderful! It's days like this that I can get very contemplative with my thoughts...

The past couple of days I've been corresponding with a few readers of this site, particularly about the last couple of posts where I talk about my Mindfulness Cognitive Therapy sessions. Something to note though... I don't see these sessions as ultimately curing me of my misophonia. I still believe it is a neurological condition that will require much more than practicing mindfulness meditation. No... I'm seeing these sessions as a way to help take better care of myself and try to make my symptoms less severe so that I don't feel like I have to "flee" as much, or avoid altogether, trigger situations. I've learned so much about myself over the past couple of weeks - especially how my putting my career before anything else (ultimately stressing me up the wazoo), may have needlessly exacerbated my misophonia. 

I think back to when I was at school and even though I worked hard, I made an effort to do many extra-curricular activities too, which may have been why my symptoms were less severe. I still had school stresses, but I had fun outlets with which to release them. Even my very first day of grad school, when the professors gathered us all in a room and told us, "Don't even think about doing extra-curriculars, even work study. You won't have the time!" I *MADE* the time. That semester I had seven classes, but I not only was a welding teaching assistant in the school's shop building (having welded for three years as an undergrad), I also sang in the choral society AND did theater tech work for one of the other performing arts groups. It was a lot on my plate, but I think it's what saved me from having severe misophonia symptoms back then.

In the past dozen years, I've put work before everything and now I know that was a BIG mistake! The therapist pointed out how so many medical conditions are caused - or significantly worsened - by stress. All my weight gain and sleepless nights could have been avoided if I spent more time doing things I enjoyed or having fun. These past couple of months, doing my own thing as a lighting consultant (until I found a company where I'd really be happy) has given me the downtime break I needed to "reboot" myself. I'm looking forward to wherever I end up as an opportunity to start over and take better care of my life. If I don't... Who will?

So while my quest for relief may not reveal a cure for misophonia in the near future, every step I take along this path towards relief teaches me more about misophonia, and I hope others as well. Perhaps my journey will help someone else - a doctor or researcher perhaps - get one step closer to finding a cure!      :-)

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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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