Misophonia And Ptsd-help!

[sharky]

I suffer from PTSD of severe physical abuse and some sexual abuse from when I was 13 and 14. It took me three years to tell anyone about it, and the person I told ended up also physically abusing me a year or two later.

It has now been seven years since the initial trauma started, and I'm not exactly sure when (I can't really recall when most of my symptoms started happening) this Misophonia started to bother me. I assume it happened around the same time, because I don't remember ever having problems with the sound of people's mouths when I was a small child.

I don't know how the sound of people chewing, breathing, the sound of people's saliva in their mouths when they talk, or the sound of crinkling plastic (like a water bottle) is related to PTSD. But what I do know is all of my PTSD symptoms continue to get worse and worse, even when I think they can't go any further, and my Misophonia gets worse to. I can't be in the same room as someone that is eating, even if they are twenty feet away. This has been the case for at least a few years now. But recently I instantly start to get hateful and mad and on-edge to the point where now I feel immediate physical rage building up in me and I want to scream at the person that is the source of the sounds(usually my boyfriend since I'm around him most). Also, things like someone shaking there knee or picking at their nails, etc, really bother me and I can't focus on anything until it stops. In school I use to get really hostile towards people who chewed gum in class.

Does anyone suffer from both Misophonia and PTSD? Or are these two completely unrelated things and it just happens to be a coincidence?

 

[wife of]

Sounds like a form of hypervigilence which can be a big part of ptsd..

 

[BloomInWinter]

It is the generalizing out of avoidance. I have this, too.

 

[sharky]

What does that mean that it is the generalizing out of avoidance?

 

[BloomInWinter]

Sorry, ran out of time to explain.

For me, it begins by a traumatic event. There is something in the environment going on during the event that I don't necessarily consciously remember, but somewhere in my brain an 'association' has been embedded.

So, it's not just

Bad Thing = Heal Memories of just 'Bad Thing'​

Instead, my brain instead filed away....

Bad Thing + (smells + sights + tastes + sounds + tactile sensations + emotions going on at the time) = Avoid these (especially combinations!!!) or 'bad thing' could happen again.

My brain begins doing this:

1. Stop thinking about 'bad thing' and avoid memory.
   
2. File away the 'environmental cues' that were present then, or > get reminded of bad thing, so conclusion = avoid those, too.
   
3. Avoiding those cues isn't perfect, so some slip through anyway > triggers memory of bad thing > re-traumatizes me again = stronger avoidance of being near or even thinking about cues (avoidance)
   
4. Something I'm trying to avoid gets noticed by my brain automatically ANYWAY (dumb brain!!!) > makes me think about the cues > triggers fear response > begin being afraid of the cues = cues now generalized in my brain to make my system react as if the cues ARE the bad thing happening all over again, and I have an anxiety attack.
   
5. Now, new 'cues' of what was going on when I had that anxiety attack = new cues to avoid = more avoidance, isolation, and agoraphobia. More agoraphobia = progressive constriction of my social activities, places, & people.

One of mine is the sound of clinking glass.
I didn't realize it was causing my anxiety to skyrocket, and since I lacked that awareness, I just got mad at family members clinking glasses and tried avoiding it. (Subconsciously)
Then, facing this sound through in vivo exposure, doing it over and over....and allowing myself to 'go where the memory takes me' identifies the original sound (bar glasses) and the big one (my dad's pipe being banged on his glass ashtray.)

The treatment to conquer this fear of clinking glass was repeated 'imaginal exposure' by sitting comfortable, relaxed, then imagining the pipe hitting the glass ashtray over and over, allowing the triggering to happen, then continuing to tell myself 'It's JUST a glass ashtray and pipe. I am safe. Nothing bad is happening now. I am ok.'

 

[sharky]

Thanks a lot for the input! My one question though, is I don't think I associate the noise with something bad happening to me. I just get really really hostile towards the person making the mouth noises or the person tapping their foot or twiddling their thumbs, etc. And the person who annoys me the most of all is my boyfriend. He HAS to carry a bottle of water with him everywhere we go because I can hear all of the little noises in his mouth while he talks and I freak out, and having the water helps him wash it all down for a short period of time. I even use to get aggressive and say in a snooty way, "Your tongue is just too big for your mouth."

You also said you use to just get mad when you weren't aware of why it was making you mad. And my trauma comes from a previous boyfriend... So... Maybe it is associated subconsciously with the bad memories since my current boyfriend is my big 'enemy' when it comes to this really strange 'trigger'. However, I never immediately associate those things that bother me with the trauma, but it took me all seven years to realize all the things in my life that WERE caused by the trauma and half of those things I never associated with the trauma either. So I wouldn't be surprised.

So, to explain to my boyfriend I'm not absolutely insane, should I mention this might have something to do with PTSD? I have yet to see a specialist because I'm still not fully at the point where I want to talk to a stranger in person about what happened.

Finding this website last night makes me feel a lot more comfortable and I'm really thankful for finding so many people that have similar problems. It's the first time I've ever had ANYONE give me positive feedback, and can relate somehow.

Again, thank you so much for the insight.

 

[BloomInWinter]

I never associated these noises with my traumas, because of the mental defenses I had put up blocked me from being consciously aware of them.

A low level imaginal exposure for eating sounds...a trigger I share...is to sit and imagine that sound over and over again, but instead of blaming your discomfort on the person making the sound, just listen inward to what your body is telling you. Keep saying 'it's just a person eating. I am safe. I am ok.'

You could also record it and loop it continuously with headphones until the emotional response normalizes.

I am ashamed of how angry and stressed I'd get over even the sound of my daughter eating. It is good to share that this is an issue that has nothing to do with our loved ones, and stop blaming them.

Don't give up. Every trigger you can chase down will free some constricting bands around your quality of life that you never knew were even there. It's hard, though.

 

[sharky]

The recording and replaying sounds absolutely awful, ha ha. But I think that maybe it's necessary and it definitely sounds like it could work. I think within the next few days I will give it a try. Thank you.

 

[BloomInWinter]

It's rough...but when it extinguishes, you'll know it. Hang in there.

 

[sharky]

So... I decided to be bold for once when it comes to this stuff, and I told my boyfriend that I think my 'Misophonia' symptoms might be hyper-vigilance and there's a good chance it is related to my PTSD. He said he knew someone with hyper-vigilance who 'acted crazy' and when they went into a fast food place once, the guy freaked out and had to leave because of all of the sounds. He then said that he doesn't think I have hyper-vigilance and he doesn't really think it's related at all to PTSD.

I kind of felt like an idiot, and I know he didn't mean it, but I felt a little shot-down too. I get the feeling he wants to avoid talking about PTSD, and wants to deny that a lot of the things I do are very possibly a direct result of PTSD.

I feel so trapped. I know I haven't been professionally diagnosed, but from EVERYTHING I've read up on PTSD (including all of the threads I have read on here) the only other explanation is that I'm clinically insane or I'm just not real at all. I wish it wasn't so hard to connect with him about this stuff, and that he wouldn't off-the-bat discredit what I'm saying. Though, I kept talking about it and somewhat convinced him that maybe, just maybe, my hatred for certain sounds and sights are a cause of something I don't directly remember from the trauma.

 

[BloomInWinter]

Ignore what he told you out of ignorance.

If your washing machine wasn't working, would you call a lawnmower guy to ask his advice?

It's far harder to recover listening to unqualified 'advice' and taking it as fact. It's only his (uninformed) opinion.

One of the important life stills is knowing who to go to for what. He may be a fasnastic person and give you support in other ways, but it's best to ask your T. this stuff.

 

[sharky]

I don't have anyone that I'm seeing. I don't have any money to cover it, and my last Psychologist was absolutely HORRIFIC at giving advice. I would pay her once a week to have me come in and she'd say at the beginning of the hour, "So... How are things this week?" And I'd give some boring a lame description of what was going on in my life. Then when I was done we would just sit in silence for a really long time(I'd actually just stare at the clock), sometimes for half of the hour. OH! And the WORST part! She KNEW I had a terrible thing for mouth noises and EVERY time I saw her (I saw her for like three years or something) she would be drinking a cup of coffee during our session! I thought she HAD to be doing it on purpose, because in all of her terrible attempts to 'dig to the root of the problem' she at LEAST had enough knowledge about how I hated sounds like that. Ugh. Sorry about the rant, I just remembered that and good god I found her obnoxious.