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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 happens in Vegas...

6/8/2014

4 Comments

 
... doesn't necessarily stay in Vegas (at least where my misophonia is concerned.)   ;-)

Last week was quite a hectic week at my annual lighting conference. (So, what else is new?) Unfortunately, the red-eye flight back to the Midwest late Thursday night completely wiped me out. (Am I really getting THAT old?) I got back to my apartment just before noon and I was out cold until about 2 a.m. Saturday morning. Let's just say that the rest of Saturday was more of the same.

Traveling for conferences is the same ol' thing with me, although I did try to do some of my Mindfulness thinking on the plane. (Try being the key word here.) When I got to the hotel, I was almost at the front of the line when I heard the cracking and smacking of a guy popping his chewing gum behind me. Let's just say that taking a deep breath and holding it for a count of five doesn't work too well when you're inhaling the air from a casino floor. (BLEAH!!!) When I finally made it up to my room (which didn't happen until a couple of hours later because this particular hotel charges a $10 fee for checking in before 3 p.m.), I tried again to decompress with some breathing exercises while lying on my bed... That is, until housekeeping opened my door and THEN said "housekeeping," which totally caught me off guard. (The housekeeping guy complained that I didn't put the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, to which I pointed out that my room did not have a Do Not Disturb sign. Duh!)

Later that evening, I enjoyed a relaxing drink with a mentor/colleague at the top of the Stratosphere (for which he designed the interior renovations). I'm telling you, the view of the lights across the city, all the way to the mountains, really touched this lighting designer's heart. I finally was able to relax after a LONG day of typical traveling triggers.
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Tuesday I went to the conference and walked the exhibition floor a bit. (Talk about glare bombs! It's amazing how many manufacturers think the way to impress lighting designers with their new LED products is to blind them! Kinda hard to design lighting if you can't see anymore. LOL! It was great bumping into colleagues, some of whom I hadn't seen in YEARS.

Later that afternoon, I sat in back-to-back presentations: the first was a keynote speech by Senator Gephardt, who talked about the benefits of lighting for our well-being, followed by two panel sessions, one on healthcare issues related to lighting, the other relating to hospitality lighting design issues. I tried to be proactive by sitting at a table directly in front of the speakers, but unfortunately... although I picked the "perfect" seat that faced forward, there were gentlemen on either side of me that were closer to the stage, and therefore in my peripheral vision. One wouldn't stop clicking/tapping his pen, the other wouldn't stop typing on his cell phone. (Whether he was texting or writing emails, I couldn't say.) I tried visually blocking the triggers with my hair and holding my hands up (like I was resting my head on my hands, elbows on the table)... I must've looked ridiculous. In the end, I also wound up having to put earplugs in because two people at a table to the side were having a conversation on top of the presentations. I so wanted to walk over and ask them to take their conversation outside, but I didn't. I just closed my eyes, took a couple of deep breaths, and tried to focus on the presentation again.

The rest of the conference was just rush, rush, rush... Going to seminars, leading a national committee meeting (I was just made chair), meeting with companies, checking out the (blinding) products... I actually looked forward to the ends of the days, when I could just stretch out on my bed and relax. (Normally, I'd try to take a couple of hours to enjoy at a spa or at a show, but there wasn't any time on this trip. Looking forward to the next visit back to Vegas though.)

I did have an interesting experience on one of the plane legs back.  It was the first time in a while that I was flying coach again, so the crampedness of the seats was especially uncomfortable. The plane was packed like a sardine and although I was in a window seat, leaning away from the arm rest, the arm of the guy next to me was hanging over my seat, so the hair on his arm kept brushing against my arm. (I can't stand when my own hair falls and lands on my arm, let alone somebody else's arm that keeps brushing against mine.)Normally when that happens to me, I put a magazine between my arm and the other person's. For some reason, the constant pressure of a flat, hard surface is less annoying than the light brush of hair against my arm, but given the incident I had on a metro bus back in DC, I tapped the guy on the shoulder and said that I didn't want him to be offended by my putting the magazine between us, but I have a medical condition that makes me super sensitive to certain tactile feelings.  He looked at me and said he wasn't offended. In fact, he was very nice about the whole thing. (What a relief! I don't know what I would have done if I pissed him off. They overbooked the flight so there was no where else for me to go.)  Hopefully, next time I travel I can save up enough to fly first class again. Those seats are AWESOME, especiall!  :-) 


4 Comments
Judy Krauthamer
6/10/2014 11:52:52 pm

Congrats on being named Chair!

Reply
Emlyn link
6/11/2014 11:14:28 am

Thanks, Judy! I've imagined myself being chair, but never thought my work responsibilities would allow me the opportunity to do so.

Should be interesting... :-)

Reply
Demian
8/28/2014 04:21:14 am

I had a similar experience on a plane when a 9-10 year old boy kept brushing my arm with a blanket and then eventually the blanket was over my arm (which was not even on the shared armrest.) Unfortunately, I did not get a good reaction from his passive aggressive mother when I asked VERY nicely if he could keep his blanket to his own side of the armrest. She switched seats with him and proceeded to invade my space with her arm, as well as elbow me in the side and arm as much as she could get away with. I ended up wedging myself as far toward the window as possible and trying to sleep. It was the most unpleasant and uncomfortable flight I've ever had. I think my misophonia really affects my perception of people, and really makes me hate everyone, even people I haven't met.

Reply
Emlyn link
9/6/2014 11:11:07 am

Hi, Demian. I truly empathize with what happened to you. I've had many experiences where I try to politely ask a youngster to stop doing something that's triggering me, only to have the mother become very defensive about a stranger talking to their child. I do my best to talk in a way that doesn't come across as scolding, but more like a polite request to an adult in simple language that a child can understand. If a parent then asks me what I said (if they didn't hear me), I try to explain that I have a medical condition and that the whistling (or whatever the trigger was) hurts my ears. As long as I'm polite, speak calmly and intelligently, usually the parent understands (and sometimes even tries to explain it to their child too.)

I find who are traveling to be the worst though. They're already stressed out and wind up being very unsympathetic. What the mother did to you was rude and just plain obnoxious. The last time I flew, I experienced a similar type of inconsiderate person. Before we took off, I asked if it would be okay for me to close the window blind (since everyone around us had theirs closed.) She said no, because she had a medical condition and needed it to be open. (I can only assume it was claustrophobia.) When I noticed that some people across the aisle were shifting seats with the people behind them, I asked if it'd be okay for me to switch window seats with them, to which they said only if the woman next to me would switch too. (I guess there were two people together who were just switching seats so that they could be together.) Since her moving with me wouldn't solve my problem with wanting to close the window shade, I said that's okay, I'd stay where I was. That's when the woman angrily reached across me to shut down the blind. When I stopped her and tried to explain that I too had a medical condition, she was very mean to me and yelled at me to not touch her. It was embarrassing. I felt like it was unfair that I could be respectful of her condition but she wasn't respectful about mine. I wound up wedging myself as close to the window and ignored her the whole flight.

I swear... Flying really brings out the worst in people! :-(

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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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