Trigger
These noises drive me crazy
© cagi / Shutterstock
Swallowing, sniffing, sniffing, snoring: our author constantly gets acoustically one on the ears – and she chews it through silently here.
In retrospect, I think my marriage failed in large part because the man chewed raw carrots for years, cracking and cracking. Or how he drummed his stupid breakfast egg into pieces with this woodpecker-like TOKKTOKKTOKK and then laboriously plucked it off instead of beheading it cleanly. Then there was this overzealous SCHRAPPSCHRAPPSCHRAPP, with which he scraped microscopic traces from the yogurt cup and then, GLUCKGLUCKGLUCK, swallowed like a thirsty buffalo at the watering hole. “Can you please stop that?” I hissed in agony. But he was deaf in his ear: “But can I still breathe?” was his offended, unfortunately only rhetorical counter-question.
Diagnosis: misophonia
Instead of falling silent, he let me know that I was going to overdo it again. Right! Because certain noises trigger an almost indomitable anger in me at the person who caused them. Not just with him, with everyone. It is quite possible that I started working from home as a freelancer so that I no longer have to hear colleagues: clacking keyboard typing, smacking gum, clearing my throat in the open-plan office.
It wasn’t up to you, it was up to me. That sounds crazy, but it’s just neurological. I finally know that I am not imagining my torment. The phenomenon is called misophony and has several hashtags on Instagram, under which thousands of fellow sufferers from all over the world quietly gather and demand: You there with the thick eardrums swallow your tip that one should “just not listen”, but please soundlessly.
Some things cannot be overheard, with misophones it hits the Stone Age “fight or flight” center unfiltered like a meteorite. As a victim, I just want to fight back so that there is peace. But because that is socially frowned upon, I withdraw suddenly instead. That too is rather semi-socially acceptable. Is this diagnosis enough to get the cost of the noise-canceling headphones reimbursed by the health insurance company?
Anti-Nobel Prize for Misophonia Research Team
Last September, a team of researchers who scientifically investigated misophonia received the Anti-Nobel Prize. The Ig Nobel (pronounced: ignoble, means: dishonorable) is awarded to research areas that other scientists find rather ridiculous. Look, folks, if you don’t have this problem and find such pathetic puns funny, I can’t take you seriously either.
Until the study situation has been fully explained and recognized, I and my unfiltered reptilian brain are happy to invite you to dinner – if you are eating softly or listening to loud music, preferably both. And as for the future choice of partner: humor and good looks are nice; but no courtship behavior eroticizes me as much as silent eating.
KARINA LÜBKES Collected columns will appear as a book on February 25th – with a number of new, previously unpublished texts. Lappan, 12 euros.