Good news. Well, kind of.
First, your affliction has a name. Which is always comforting. Some psychologists call it misophonia, which means fear of sound. Which doesn’t quite capture it.
I know because I have this misophonia business going on in my noggin big time. It’s not a fear of sound. It’s a rage-inducing irritation.
These are the sounds that get to me: chewing, especially the way people do it in (particularly New York-based) movies where they smack lips and teeth together while talking and waving a salad fork; foot tapping and leg jigging; sniffing; heavy breathing; nose whistling and vibrating mechanical devices (pool filters, air conditioning and so on).
On the sniffing thing, what is it with people aged approximately 23-43 and this thing for sniffing as they make important points. It seems to have emerged as a thing…noticed same?
Also, according to a study by Northwestern University, an inability to filter “irrelevant” sensory information is