Gum chewing enrages her — and she’s not alone. What is misophonia?

Shortly after her parents’ divorce at 13 years old, any time Lindsey Baatz would hear a person chewing gum or a speaker playing music with heavy bass, she bubbled with rage, disgust and panic. Sixteen years later, she still can’t tolerate those sounds.

“My stomach drops, I feel a rush of adrenaline, my heart starts pounding, and I just panic,” said Baatz, 29, of Seattle Washington.

In college she “finally snapped” when sitting near a serial gum smacker while studying in a Starbucks. The moment prompted Baatz to scour the internet for information that could explain why certain sounds make her want to explode.

“I found out that there's a word for it,” Baatz said, “and that there's other people like me, that I’m not the only person who feels this way.”

She has misophonia — and now she’s dedicated much of her free time to educating others about it through her TikTok account and providing safe spaces for people like her to share their struggles.

What is misophonia?

Misophonia is a complex disorder that causes decreased tolerance to specific sounds or stimuli associated with those sounds. It was named and described for the first time in the early 2000s, yet a survey conducted earlier this year found that just 11% of people knew about it.

Noises such as chewing, slurping, sniffing and heavy breathing are common triggers, as well as clicking, tapping and other repetitive noises that come from objects like clocks and fans.

Reactions to triggers are often intense; they range from feeling trapped and panicked to wanting to vomit in disgust. One woman, for instance, gags every time she hears Styrofoam scrape against itself.

Misophonia can be so debilitating to a person’s daily life that it qualifies as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to soQuiet, a nonprofit that advocates and supports people with the disorder.

Trigger sounds are more than just an annoyance or pet peeve, and the more people dismiss them as such, the more isolated people with the disorder feel.

“People without misophonia struggle to understand it because they also don’t like certain sounds, in the same way that people don’t understand ADHD because they relate to having trouble concentrating,” said Jane Gregory, a clinical psychologist with the University of Oxford who studies the disorder. “It's not that people with misophonia don’t like the sound — it’s that their body is reacting as if that sound is somehow dangerous or harmful.”

Gregory has had misophonia since she was 8 years old. Eating, heavy breathing and anything repetitive like typing, clock ticking and pens clicking trigger her. “And pigeons,” Gregory added. “That repetitive sound they make makes me feel like they’re trying to torment me.”

The context of a sound, rather than its acoustic properties, matters too.

A 2022 study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology found that people with misophonia experienced a more negative reaction to trigger sounds when they watched a video of the sound in action (a person chewing chips) compared to an unrelated video (a person tearing a paper) with the same audio.

A separate study published the same year reached similar findings, and showed that there was no difference between those with and without misophonia in their ability to detect trigger sounds.

“People with misophonia often say they hear things others don't (myself included), so it's possible this is because they are more on the lookout for sounds,” said Gregory, who authored the book "Sounds like Misophonia" released Nov. 14. “Or that people without misophonia ignore sounds so quickly they don't even process the fact that they have heard them.”

How common is misophonia?

It’s unclear how prevalent misophonia is.

A recent survey of 772 people in the U.K. found that 1 in 5 have misophonia, and that the disorder was less severe in older individuals. More research is needed to determine whether the disorder itself is less severe in older age or that older people have more control over their exposure to trigger sounds and so are better able to cope with them.

A 2014 survey of 483 undergraduate students found that nearly 20% had “clinically significant misophonia symptoms.”

What causes misophonia?

Researchers don’t yet know why some people develop misophonia or whether there’s a genetic component to the disorder, which can emerge at any age.

Some people randomly become intolerant to certain sounds, while others are triggered by a life-altering or traumatic event, Gregory said.

Studies have found that the parts of the brain responsible for long-term memories, fear, emotional awareness and auditory processing are more active when people with misophonia listen to trigger sounds compared to those without the disorder.

Research also shows that people with autism or ADHD may be more likely to develop misophonia, but that doesn't mean that people with misophonia are more likely to have those conditions.

Does misophonia ever go away?

There's no cure for misophonia, but certain treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy and other coping mechanisms can make it easier to deal with, Gregory said.

That said, some people do reach points in their life that they no longer have the disorder, she said, either because they're no longer in the circumstances that exposed them to their triggers or for other unclear reasons.

Misophonia can affect relationships, careers and academics

“I truly have built my life around misophonia – my career, where I live, who I spend time with,” said Baatz, who was officially diagnosed in 2021 after taking a hearing test with her audiologist. This means she has had to make sacrifices along the way, such as missing road trips with friends to avoid getting “trapped” with her trigger sounds. “It's little things in life that you try to show up to and just can't sometimes,” she said.

Not to mention, it bothers Baatz most when her parents or brother make her trigger noises. (Many people with misophonia report worse reactions to trigger sounds made by people closest to them.)

On the plus side, Baatz, a professional photographer mostly working from home, said she was able to make her dream career a reality because of these challenges. “I don't know if I would have been as determined and motivated to turn photography into a career if I didn't have misophonia,” Baatz said.

More often than not, however, misophonia can affect academic performance, especially for children, and people’s social lives, experts say.

Jasmine Edwards, 29, who cannot tolerate mouth noises like chewing, said she sometimes has to excuse herself from dinner tables, ask Uber drivers to play music to mask certain sounds from other passengers or ask people at restaurants to stop slurping their noodles, for example, otherwise she’ll panic.

“I start to retreat into myself trying to calm myself down mentally. If the sound continues, I have to leave or call them out, which is rude to call out people’s table manners,” said Edwards, an artist living in Iowa. “It’s uncomfortable and some people take offense, but it’s just an issue of boundaries and finding the right people who understand and respect them.”

How do you calm misophonia?

The first step is to recognize that “you’re not alone and you’re not crazy,” Gregory said: “Many people experience worse misophonia because they or others think something is wrong with them, but once you understand that this is real, that can help ease the intensity of your reactions.”

It can be hard to get diagnosed with misophonia because there's no official diagnostic criteria, but there are experts that span several fields, such as audiology, neurology and psychology, who are familiar with it and can help.

(Misophonia is not included in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) because there's still great debate on whether it's a mental, neurological or other type of disorder.)

Techniques that help you create new associations with your trigger sounds (like listening to recordings of your trigger at different volumes and speeds, or while doing something completely unrelated) can also help reduce the intensity of your reactions, experts say.

When you find coping strategies that work, make sure they allow you to participate in life, rather than force you to retreat from it, Gregory said. This could look like wearing earplugs or noise canceling headphones in environments with your trigger sounds. But be wary of forming a dependence on these products, Gregory said, because they can make you more sensitive to noises when you don’t wear them.

Otherwise, don’t be afraid to talk about misophonia. Awareness is key.

“There’s a lack of understanding about what misophonia is, who it affects and how prevalent it is,” said Lauren Harte-Hargrove, executive director of the Misophonia Research Fund, which has given over $10 million in funding to misophonia researchers over five years: “There's a need to build awareness around the disorder and how debilitating it can be so we can drive funding towards research.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is misophonia? Causes and why the sound of chewing angers some