#201 - Journey from distress to self-compassion and management.
Transcript
Adeel [0:01]:Deb, welcome to the podcast. Great to have you here.
Deb [1:34]: Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.
Adeel [1:36]: Yeah, I'm excited. So, yeah, just want to start us off, kind of tell us kind of where you're located.
Deb [1:42]: Sure. I am in New York City, specifically in Queens, in a neighborhood called Astoria. And I've lived in the New York City environment, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, for the last 30 years and worked in open offices, which we'll circle back to, and rode the subway every day. But I'm a New Yorker, and that's where I am.
Adeel [2:04]: Well, I'm jealous. I think my heart is a New Yorker. Maybe not the open office part, but the rest of it, I'm all for. Well, that's cool. And yeah, do you want to talk a little bit about, I guess, what you do, maybe?
Deb [2:16]: Sure. So I have been working for 30 years in nine to five office jobs. The first half of my career, I spent in book publishing. And I had a bunch of roles in editorial and sales. And for the last several years there, I did it training, I was the director of training in the IT department. So I designed, you know, software classes for the whole company. And for the last 15 years, I've been working, I switched to nonprofit work. And I have been working at a human rights nonprofit. And for the last 11 years, I worked at an environmental nonprofit. And I actually just left my job three weeks ago. and the organization restructured and i was given like a severance very generous severance offer fell in my lap and i am 53 years old and decided to take a leap and change my life and try working for myself and honor my misophonia a little better and live a little more at peace and so i am currently not working but planning to be an entrepreneur and work for myself
Adeel [3:25]: Awesome. Yeah. I get that a little bit of a sabbatical time that I think a lot of us need. Exactly. Before we get into more of this funny stuff, kind of any thoughts on what kind of entrepreneurial pursuits you're going to go after? Yes.
Deb [3:41]: It's in its nascent stages. So I don't have, I'm not really able to speak to the specifics, but it is something in this realm. It's in, I'm also a highly sensitive person. And it's something I have an idea. It's too early to say what it is, but I have a very formed idea for a business that I want to start. And I also have been doing a lot of writing. And so I need to start publishing my blog and maybe I'll do a podcast one day. Who knows? But it's something in this area where I feel like I really, my purpose in life is to be of service to other people. And if even one person listens to this interview and feels like, connected to other people who experience the world the way they do, my job is done. I would find that very fulfilling. It's something in this area. I just don't know exactly what yet.
Adeel [4:35]: That resonates a lot with me and I wish you the best. Thank you. Whenever you're ready, if you want a sounding board in this kind of area, I'm happy to... I'm happy to help.
Deb [4:47]: Thank you. I appreciate that very much. Thank you.
Adeel [4:50]: I'm a bit of an entrepreneurial side, too. I've been intact in other areas, so I can definitely relate to having a lot of dreams and ideas and trying to make them reality. Anyways, let's get back to the Misophonia stuff. What's life like for you now? It looks like there's been some change. Are you being triggered a lot? What's going on?
Deb [5:17]: Sure. I feel like I am, without sounding like I'm exaggerating too much, a little bit of a walking trigger all the time. I'm triggered a lot. And that's not just misophonia triggers, there's other emotional triggers too. So I have, since I left my job, I have been really focusing on structuring my life in a way that will make me feel my best. Like it's tempting to isolate a lot because I am so easily triggered, but I also know how important the connection is to my, and social, being social is to my well-being and So I'm trying to find the right pacing of like, how often do I socialize? How often do I go out? And New York is a wonderful city. I love New York, but just leaving my apartment is hard. Like if there's a lot going on here and it's, um, I'm trying to spend more time outside of the city and in nature and somewhere where I can, I can just have a little bit of a different pace, but I feel like life is much, much sunnier and I feel much more optimistic about my life now that I feel like I have the ability to shape it the way that I want. I am just in the middle of getting divorced. So I live alone. I have no children. Like I really am in a very fortunate, well, not everyone would see it that way, but for me, I feel like the world is my oyster and I feel like I just, I'm 53 and I just woke up and I feel like I'm just starting my life in some ways. So. So that's what life looks like for me now. Does that answer your question?
Adeel [7:03]: Absolutely, yeah. Okay. No, it paints a great picture. And yeah, no, I wish you the best. Sounds like a new chapter, new awakening. And it seems like you're really trying to take advantage of it. So that's, I commend you there. I have to also add, you know, people listening are wondering the, you know, the divorce, any relation to misophonia. And was that, did that factor in or was that just not?
Deb [7:29]: Oh, 100%.
Adeel [7:30]: definitely definitely a big part of it so not getting a lot of validation there yeah maybe we can because I know you want to talk about other stuff going back so maybe I'll cut the conversation we can kind of work backwards but maybe I don't know if you want to elaborate a little bit on that sure so yeah I never really wanted to get married and now I think I was
Deb [7:58]: doing what I thought I had was supposed to do to be quote unquote normal and accepted and follow the same path that was given to me as a young girl. And for my parents, like what you do is you go to college and you get married and you have a family and you have a house and the kids and the job and the whole thing. And I think I, from childhood, which we'll get back to, but I think it was so ingrained in me that being myself, with my triggers and my sensitivity was unacceptable and unlovable period that I went into like deep denial about it, even for myself. Like, of course I knew I was sensitive to noise and that it was very hard for me, but I didn't totally integrate it into my waking life, into my consciousness, if that makes any sense. And so believe it or not, I never told my husband before we got married straight up, I have misophonia. Like, I didn't really have the word for it back then. I didn't get married until I was 48 years old.
Unknown Speaker [9:04]: So pretty recent.
Deb [9:06]: Yeah. So, like, I never wanted it. And I was in a series of two-year-long relationships throughout my 20s and 30s. And they never led to marriage. And I thought it was because there was something wrong with me. But in retrospect, I understand it was because I was not really... sending the signal that it was what I wanted and I think when I met my husband I was 42 or 43 and fell in love and it was wonderful and all the things and it felt very natural to get married so I went into the marriage with a totally open heart and with full intention of it being for the rest of my life but I was not straightforward with him about the challenges that I really faced and had dreaded living with another person always i absolutely dreaded it and when we moved in together it was a very very hard transition for me i never adjusted to it and it's that's the misophonia for sure so he he saw some of my triggers there's no way to not see it if you spend time with me And there was one trigger in particular, which I'll get back to when we talk about childhood stuff, which is like muffled TVs coming through walls is my absolute worst trigger. And he saw that when a neighbor started playing the TV, I would completely panic and flee the room. And he had never seen anything like it before. It's the one trigger that I can't fake it. I can't cope. And I must flee. And it was the one where he would come in the other room and kind of, I'd say, we're setting up camp in here now because it's a one bedroom apartment. I'm like, we're hanging out in the bedroom and I just can't be in there. And it was the one area where he was quite compassionate and really like, just because he saw that it was something not voluntary on my part. I just couldn't, I couldn't help it. But generally speaking, he was not really able to understand my experience and, Unfortunately, he's a very kind, lovely person. So I don't mean to suggest otherwise, but having a partner who has this kind of challenge in life is not something he was equipped to handle and didn't really understand how to support me. And we tried. We went to couples therapy, and it helped me see that the relationship wasn't going to be something I could sustain for the rest of my life. you know, getting getting divorced and telling him that I wanted to do that definitely the hardest thing I've ever done. Because I'm the one who didn't represent myself as the person I really am in a way. Like I didn't come off as having a whole lot of personality, but I never I presented myself as someone who's this like cool city girl who likes to travel to other cities and live in cool apartments and go to bars and all that sort of stuff. And That is not really what makes my heart sing. That's actually a very hard way for me to live. So it was a very hard thing to admit to myself, but I am very proud of myself for doing something so difficult and just facing my life choices and making a change. So I feel like I'm really honoring my sensitivity and the mystophonia and who I really am. And it feels good. Yeah, that's the story of the marriage, if that paints a picture. Yeah.
Adeel [12:42]: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And like you said, again, kind of honoring. I'm glad you used the word honoring misophonia. Well, I'm sure we'll get to it at some point. but um um yeah but but it's it's because you know so so many times we we're told that it's oh it's a defect you know it's um but it does and we'll probably get to that i'm talking about your child but it's i think it's more of a obviously a stress response but it's your body telling you something And if you don't listen to it, I feel like it's, you know, you might be able to smother it away for a while, but it's probably kind of whack-a-mole where you'll see issues in other areas of your life.
Deb [13:27]: I mean, it is. And that's very well said, Adeel. And I lived for literally 49 years is when I finally figured out I'm a highly sensitive person. And that was really the beginning of feeling better. But I lived in that state of pushing it down for 49 years, and I was very depressed and had no real goals for my life. I'm a very high-functioning person, so I had a real career. I did well. You'd never know on the outside how much I struggled. But in retrospect, I wonder... what more I could have accomplished with my life so far, if I had been in a more nurturing, living in a more nurturing way. So I'm excited to, hey, it's never too late. I am proof of that. I'm going to start now and do something else. But living that way made me very, very depressed. And I just thought it was how life was for me. Like I literally didn't even question it. I working and living in New York was so hard. and sort of pretending to be this other person, not on a conscious level. But, you know, I would come home from work after the subway and the open office and the whole thing, and literally close the front door. It was so hard. And I would close the front door. And before I even took my coat off, I would slide down the door and sit on the floor and bawl every day. And I really thought I was just depressed. And in retrospect, I don't think I'm a depressed person at all. I think I'm anxious, maybe, but I think I was chronically overstimulated and just living in this state of constant hypervigilance. And it was so exhausting to just be me every day and go out in the in New York and into the open offices after so many years of it. I was triggered literally from the moment I left my door until the moment I came home. So it was hard. And so. No wonder my marriage didn't work out if I hadn't had awareness about myself when I got married. It seems inevitable, sadly.
Adeel [15:43]: yeah um no that that's great that you've made that switch now one thing and yeah it's kind of inspiring um yeah it's it's sometimes it is hard to kind of look back and think of you know what you know what could have been but you don't want to go too much down that down that spiral right uh but since we're since we're talking um you know going going back in time a bit do you want to talk about kind of when you first started noticing this in childhood
Deb [16:11]: Sure. I really can't remember not having misophonia in retrospect. It formed so young that I feel like it's just always been my life. I grew up on Long Island. I have an older brother and older sister. And my room was... right next to my parents room and my room was really small so there was only one way to arrange the furniture and my head where i slept was literally exactly where the back of my parents television was in their bedroom and the walls were really thin and i can remember being a very small child and banging on the wall and yelling for them to turn it down and the response was essentially but someone my mom probably would come in my room and sort of you know pat me on the head and say it's okay sweetheart go to sleep like there was no compassion no i was a pain in the butt is the message i got i was a huge pain everyone rolled their eyes at me about it it was like a huge problem that i was so sensitive and they really they might have turned it down a little but what i really needed them to do is turn it off and I couldn't even ask for that. It just wasn't possible in the temperature of what kids were allowed to ask for in the house. And I would sit on my floor with my hands over my ears and sob silently for hours until they turned it off and went to sleep every single night. And I never told anyone. No one knew. No siblings, my parents. I never told a soul. I never even told my therapist in my 30s and 40s. Like, I... I think I just didn't, yeah, I just didn't even really connect the dots of how difficult that was. And so, no wonder TV has become my worst trigger by far. It's, I think, the common thread, the common theme among all my triggers is not being seen, not being heard is what sets the issue. And with the TV thing, it's like, you know, My family really just ignored me. It was tough. And so that was the first trigger. I can't remember a time when I wasn't triggered, but I had lots of triggers throughout my whole childhood, including, well, I'll get to that in a minute. My worst person for triggers was and is my father. And he is volatile and he was verbally abusive towards my mom. I was never really the object of his verbal abuse, but he was, it was a very stressful home to grow up in. And he's 87 now. And I plan for him and my mother to never hear this interview because I'm being really frank. And I love them and they're good people, but did not... did not know what to do with a child who had, you know, they just weren't really plugged into me emotionally in any way. So I had to just stay quiet about it all. So my dad, I mean, I think, I guess I'll make this try to make this quick. Essentially, what happened is, I have, like I said, an older brother and older sister. And when my brother was maybe a year old, there was this medical incident, he stopped breathing, something happened, he We don't really know if that is what caused the problems he has today. Probably did. There's no way to know. But he has maybe about 15 years ago was he's now in his late 50s. He was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. And I think he was mentally ill throughout my childhood. But this incident, it really my parents never recovered from it as people as in their marriage it was you know my my dad blamed my mom she blamed herself it's tragic and they never really parented him the way that he needed to be parented and just pretended that he was normal and he wasn't and so when he was about or I think they went to see a family therapist because he probably, I don't know why, I'm guessing he was displaying strange behaviors. He's always been kind of strange. He's a really nice person, but he's got some strange behaviors. And the therapist gave my parents just terrible advice, which was, he also, I think, blamed my mother and said, you are over-involved, you're overprotective. You need to either get a job or have another child. and it's beyond and i was born literally a year later that was august of 1969 and i was born in september of 1970 so i always knew i don't know when my mom told me but i always knew that i was born to heal him in some way and heal the family and i also think i was born like i said i'm a highly sensitive person and that i think is something i was born with i don't know if you're I think misophonia, I feel like it's epigenetic, where it's like you have the capacity for it, maybe you're born with the possibility of it. And in the right or maybe wrong environmental circumstances, the switch gets turned off. And I think being a highly sensitive person, I am, you know, everyone has a nervous system along a continuum that is, you know, we pick up what's going on in our environment, some people pick up more than others. I am among after like the tippy top of that, of that scale. And I have always been that way. And I, I always know everything going on in my environment all the time, I'm picking up a lot of information. And so I think growing up in being a small child, or even a baby, in an environment where my mother was traumatized, probably, I'm guessing by what happened to her son, and being married to this bully of a man who's volatile, it, you know, I probably was very much paying attention to her as my caregiver. And she probably was distracted and paying attention to my brother and probably fearful that I would develop similar kinds of things. I'm sure she was very nervous. And I'm a very grounded, mentally healthy person. So I think that her fears were probably allayed. But my sensitivity may be I don't know what it what it was like for her to think that maybe she thought something was wrong with me. I don't know. But anyway, all of that is to say that I think my growing growing up in this very stressed home where my father was so difficult i think that is maybe where the misophonia came from like maybe that's i just did not feel safe um in my house i didn't feel safe with him and in fact when i was um i can remember being probably about 10 sitting on the couch watching tv by myself and my father sat down next to me and The second he sat down next to me, I can still feel it in my body. My entire being was triggered. Just him sitting next to me. He didn't even say anything. He didn't do anything. And, you know, like I said, I wasn't even the object of his fire. Like he, I'm probably of all three kids, I'm probably his favorite. He thinks I'm smart and he's so proud of me and successful and all the things. But he, I found him a very stressful person to be around. And... I developed this coping strategy, where like, if I got up, the second he sat down, it would have been a problem, he would know that I was fleeing him. So I would the second he sat down next to me, I looked at the VCR clock across for me. And for me, a 10 minute countdown clock started. And I thought if I can make it through 10 minutes, it won't be so obvious that I'm playing him. but i was barely breathing for the 10 minutes i was certainly not paying attention to what was on television i was only paying attention to him in my periphery and he didn't try to make conversation he wasn't like what are you watching how are you you know he would he just sat there in silence and i knew that he really wanted to watch his own thing but wasn't coming out and saying it so after a minute or two i would say you know he's really watching you can put on whatever you want and without fail he would put on baseball you know which i did not want to watch you know he's like oh the yankees game on i'm watching right so after 10 minutes i would go upstairs to my room and cry silently again because i i was he was it was i was so stressed out um in his presence and i still am to this day you know, my husband also saw it every time I was around my father. He would tell me, like, you become a different person. And he called me, he called himself my dad's shield. Like, he's like, I will shield you from the bad juju, like the energy that you're feeling. And it was very sweet that he did that for me. So anyway, so I had a lot of triggers as a kid. And that was... That was the triggers with my father. I also developed misokinesia very young. I also can't remember not being, having a trigger to my mom swinging her leg. She did that a lot when she sat, she crossed her legs and swing one leg. And I just wanted to cry. It really, it made me want to cry. And I would try to turn my body away from her or shield it, you know, shield my eyes with my hands. and also just try to make a not so obvious exit from that. And I have other, there are other misogynia triggers still today, but that's the worst one is swinging legs, which can be very hard riding the subway every day. Someone is always doing something. So yeah, like I said, I just, I have so many triggers and I have developed more as I've aged, but I feel like I've always had a lot. Like, I develop more to my husband when we live together, which is not surprising. But thankfully, you know, I developed some triggers to his eating sounds, the chewing. And looking back on it, I think I had some, like, less severe misophonia reaction to chewing from my mom and my brother, but they were not my worst triggers. Like, I was actually able to sit and... stay at the table. Whereas others like the TV, I just, I had to give away. So Anyway, I feel like I've gotten off track here. What should we talk about next?
Adeel [27:49]: No, you're not off track at all. There's so many of this stuff. I don't mean to make light of it. It's kind of the greatest hits of what happens in childhood often, and that kind of precipitates misophonia. I mean, yeah, I don't think it takes a graduate degree to be able to link the misophonia to the unfortunate experiences that yourself and your family... experienced and uh one yeah one interesting thing i think you were i think you're maybe kind of hinting at it but it's like you know it's it's as a child you're not just um it's not just things that happen to you but you're probably looking out for your parents especially in your mom's case uh you know who's getting who's kind of at the the end of some some abuse part of the part of miss when you feel like is is trying to maybe protect your caregiver and then taking on that extra sensitivity um and i just i you know seem like there's a lot of a lot of dynamics like that happening in the house a lot of walking on eggshells which comes up a lot yeah a lot kind of interesting you're not the um i just interviewed somebody else who's gonna this episode is gonna come on i think honestly probably just before yours who also dealt with a schizoaffective brother is growing up i mean i i think it's um and there was another person a while ago with a um schizophrenic mom um so but it's just kind of coincidence but but it's yeah it's um these kinds of issues growing up and observing them definitely I can totally draw the connections I'm sure everyone listening can as well maybe I'll connect with this person too after her interview because I think it might be interesting anyways but now I digress but okay so first of all your parents are still together yes they have been married for 60 plus years and
Deb [29:45]: I think they hate each other. It's very hard to be around them. Yeah, they're not nice to each other. So, yes, they are still together.
Adeel [29:52]: And what about your siblings? Do they know about your misophonia? And has their kind of... Well, first of all, let's start with Erin. I'm just kind of curious if their understanding, if their interactions with you has changed over the years.
Deb [30:07]: My... sister who is almost eight years older than me she knows now about it i actually told her you know just in the last couple months about it i had never told a soul about it and i feel very safe with her we have become close as adults we weren't the age difference was too great we didn't know each other as kids but um so i've told her and she has you know handled it with such compassion and said i had no idea how hard it was for you and to this day though with everyone else in my family if my noise sensitivity in particular even comes up as a topic everyone else except my sister they the world or i go we know about that sensitivity all right you know like it's still a problem for everyone so i tend not to talk about it with my family but i feel like my sister is we're close enough that i i want her to understand my life and You know, it's relevant to her as well in some ways. I'm just having grown up in the same house. But no one else has dysphonia. I've never, in my family, I've never met anyone with it or talked to anybody who has it or had a conversation like this before. But I have shared it with her a little. Like some of the, just the TV and maybe my mother's swinging leg. But I didn't say just how challenging it was. all the time in the house picking clocks and all just all kinds of problems yeah so yeah had you shared uh a lot of these details with your husband no okay no not just not just the misophonia but even the childhood experiences no we in retrospect really were not that connected to each other and in again i sound like an armchair psychologist but i think i it's not an accident that i ended up in a relationship that echoes the same emotional temperature as my growing up house like i thought i broke the mold in finding someone who is just the nicest person on the planet. That's all I was looking for. And he is just so nice, my soon-to-be ex-husband. Very, very nice person. But that's not really the critical only thing that's important. I also need to have someone who I feel safe with and who I'm connected to and who I can really share. my challenges and joys and all of it. And that just wasn't our dynamic. It may sound strange to have been that asleep at the wheel in a way that I got married without really feeling that close to my husband, but I think I just didn't expect it. Like I wasn't, that was the model that I had for romantic relationship was my parents who I don't think were also either connected to each other very, very much. So. Anyway, that's my therapist version, my own therapist, my own looking at my life through that lens version of why I wasn't close to my husband, really.
Adeel [33:22]: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I think, I mean, yeah, not a lot of people realize how your childhood can mirror your present day based on the things that you observe, not just experience, but observe the models that you observe. Yeah, I'm trying to catch those patterns in myself too. And, you know, what makes me, you know, what moments make me kind of all tell. And I kind of have to thank Misophonia for that. I would not have embarked on kind of a retrospective, like a deep inspection, introspection to my childhood if it weren't for Misophonia.
Deb [34:01]: So it's funny you say like you have Misophonia to thank. You know, I've been thinking about recently, like high sensitivity is there's a lot more press about it. A lot more people talk about it. I think it's more common than Misophonia. although I suspect misophonia is more common than people admit but yeah I think it's just so shameful that people don't talk about it but with high sensitivity there's a lot of talk of the challenges but also a lot of talk about the gifts that come with it that it gives you this like a deeper experience of life I feel you know great joy and I'm deeply moved by art and by a lot of, not to say that non-highly sensitive people aren't, but I think it comes with the territory. And so I have a lot of gratitude for my high sensitivity, even though it can be hard. With misophonia, I have been struggling. to find the upside. What on earth is the upside of not being able to leave my house?
Adeel [35:07]: Right, yeah. When it interferes, it gets into more of a syndrome disorder kind of territory. And then it crashes into the whole, well, it sounds stupid to us people who don't have it. And then the shame piles up. So that's why it's in, yeah, that's why it's funny it's in the state.
Deb [35:26]: Yeah. But I think that maybe you know i think the gifts of it will unfold throughout my life now that i have awareness but one i can say right away is that it connects me to other people who also suffer in silence and to i i feel like it gives a whole new level of compassion to anyone who suffers with anything like you really don't know what it's like to live inside someone else's skin And I have such compassion for anyone going through tough times or having schizoaffective disorder or things that you can't really control. Some people just have a rougher ride in life. And I have gratitude for realizing that. So I feel connected to a lot of people who suffer in some way and hope that, again, like I said at the beginning, If this conversation or anything I do helps even one person feel less alone, like I did for 49 years and it was really, really hard, then that's a gift right there.
Adeel [36:43]: Oh, it will. Yeah. I get messages from people, you know, saying, you know, I just heard, I just realized I had a misophonia or I've been crying, binge listening to these episodes or responding to specific episodes. So, uh, yeah, no, it's, it's, this is definitely gonna help a lot of people because, uh, Like I kind of like semi-facetiously said, your childhood, you know, that's kind of the greatest hits of like, you know, unfortunate experiences. I know a lot of people are experiencing those and haven't made the connection yet. I mean, I didn't even know what the heck the term nervous system was until a couple of years ago. And I'm just turned 48. I mean, it's like, and I consider myself... pretty uh high eq emotionally um aware uh and i didn't know that like that's Not to sound like I'm the most emotional, but if I didn't know that, then I'm sure there's a lot of people who haven't made that connection and are still far from it. So, yeah, there's a lot to teach people, I think. And I think more people are aware of these kinds of issues. Connecting not just Misophonia, but other issues that they have too. Experiences they've had and understand the lens that these people
Deb [38:02]: conditions have on their life I think yeah this is gonna this type of thing will help a lot of people right yeah and I think to having awareness of it I've just been walking through the world for the last six weeks or so really since binge binge listening to like 25 episodes the first 25 episodes of this podcast With a newfound awareness and paying attention to when am I triggered? What am I triggered by? But also, Adeel, you said something in an episode. I started at the beginning. I started at the most recent episode a few weeks ago. So it was a recent episode where you said something about that one of your kind of coping mechanisms or a strategy to life is like a choose your own adventure model where before going into any interaction, any social interaction or any space that I think might be triggering, I have the power in me to sit down for a second and have a little chat with myself. What kind of experience am I going to have today? Like if I know that I'm going to get triggered, I can walk in to the situation and First of all, I won't be so shocked when it happens. And it might then be like a slower burn and I can last longer. And then know when I hit a moment that I've had enough, I will leave and do something or find some way to cope with it. So it's like I lived for so many years where I'd get triggered and it would last literally for days. I mean, days. I was in a fog. And I can't believe I could get up and go to work and function and go out with friends, but I was totally triggered.
Adeel [39:47]: It took a toll.
Deb [39:49]: It really does. And I have decided I don't want to live that way anymore. And so now when I'm riding the train, the subway, and I get triggered, the trigger hasn't lessened. But what is totally different is in my head, I'm saying to myself, oh, I am being triggered right now. This experience is hard for me. I will be off this train in a half an hour. If I put on music and close my eyes, it'll be not as hard on me as it otherwise would be. I'm choosing to take care of myself in this way. And it kind of affects the whole outlook of my day and my life. So just the awareness of it is so important. Even though I don't actually think there's a cure, I don't really think my triggers are ever going to go away. They're so hardwired. But my reaction to them is what I can change.
Adeel [40:49]: Yeah, so that, I think you're, yeah, right, let me dive into that a little bit, because I think, yeah, you're talking about, probably, I think I called it, like, maybe, well, there's obviously, like, the self-talk, and I talk about trying to talk to myself before I get in a situation, tell myself I'm not going to get attacked or whatnot. I've also kind of expanded it a little bit to... include this idea of conservation of energy so that just be aware that okay I could fly off the handle right now but tonight I want to sit down and make some music do some creative or entrepreneurial I try to give myself that as a reward to just hang on uh and because those those quote unquote rewards are actually part of the healing they're they're kind of me being way more authentic self so i promise or don't say promise i remind myself hey you will you can have more authentic time later if you just don't fly off the handle now and you're shot for the next few days, like you just said. And so I kind of term that conservation of energy, thermodynamics, being kind of nerdy. And so I kind of added that layer. And then I added another layer recently. I was telling some friends where I sometimes just tell myself... I just repeat this mantra. I am in control. I have a boundary around me. So it's about creating boundaries, which is, that's a whole other conversation, right? You can probably think of all the unspoken boundaries that were crossed during your childhood. um and so telling myself hey i'm in control of the situation that i'm in right now somehow strengthens that inner child i don't know i don't know how but um but it does and i just kind of feel like i'm able to kind of like um power through quote unquote a situation but it's um yeah but these things so um and the last thing i'll say is uh like you said hardwired yes um we i think we have to like heal in parallel where we can try to unravel these layers that go back in time but what we can also do in the meantime while that's happening because that's not quick work it's not overnight work is try to find these kind of like cognitive like prefrontal cortex tools that are kind of like more rational brain um to try to you know soothe us basically in the meantime while we try to um heal that reptilian brain that was so um you know i don't know well i'll say damaged like was just kind of like slowly she got slowly chipped away and the nervous system just got so frayed uh over time so yeah just just wanted to put some color in case people hadn't heard some of these um conversations that i've more recently had in the last couple of years. And these are all learnings from talking to folks like you is, uh, these coping methods. Like I used to just have the whole earphones and walk away kind of, but these things, um, that I've been talking about are, are just kind of have come up through connecting the dots through all these conversations. So, uh, yeah, I just wanted to add that color in case people hadn't heard some of those, uh, self-talk, uh, conversation energy.
Deb [44:06]: And I also, you know, will, uh, say that I read your the book that you are with Dr. Jane Gregory sounds like misophonia and you know I read all the parts that are not the exercises but the it has so many exercises for cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that I am going to be working my way through over the next months and it might even take a year but I will slowly work my way through them because I think there are like other there are other exercises that might resonate with one person or another like i tried one where you picture a color i think um that's a calming color and i uh pictured green because i find nature very healing and nature is very accepting and very I don't know just nature is amazing so I pictured green and so I actually tried it on the subway the other day I closed my eyes and I pictured the color green and I actually felt some calm wash over me and so I look forward to trying more of these techniques and I think the book is amazing I told my therapist about it and she is neither a highly sensitive person nor has misophonia and actually I'm glad we're talking about this because I did want to I feel like, you know, people on the podcast, a few of the interviews, people have talked about trying to find therapists who know about these things. And when I found this woman, I really had hoped to find somebody who was a highly sensitive person because I thought no one can really understand it if they don't live it. And she isn't. But she is a wonderful therapist who is... very curious very interested in learning about it before our first session she bought elaine aaron's uh book about high sensitivity and uh when i told her about misophonia and culture about the book she said wait what's the name and i can hear her you know writing it down because she is going to buy it so that she can help her clients and i feel like i just want to make a plug for people like if you find a therapist who doesn't know about it if they're open to learning about it i feel like my therapist has been able to ask me some very insightful questions about my childhood and about where it came from and she doesn't know what it's like to have it but she has already helped me so much and so I just want to say to people looking for someone, if you feel like a therapist isn't the right match and they're not really helping you see it and help you cope, whether you're working on understanding your childhood or finding ways to cope with your current life or getting courage to make change in your life, whatever the thing is, if your therapist is... willing to work with you in that way then then maybe they are the right person but otherwise keep looking like there's there's good therapists out there i found this wonderful person who's helping me even though she doesn't have dysphonia so
Adeel [47:24]: Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree. There's many different approaches and even just the vibe is sometimes the big thing. So that's great. And yeah, the book definitely obviously helps educate. That's kind of one of the hopes was to kind of have it help clinicians be able to help more misophones because they're not enough you know they're honestly it'd be great to have more therapists that have misophonia because you know then you can kind of really get into that intrinsic um understanding but uh yeah i hope in the book will will help as well so that's really cool that uh yours isn't yours is interested yeah i was gonna ask like did you um it sounds like you hadn't really talked about misophonia with anybody like had you tried in the past to get some professional help
Deb [48:18]: about it no I mean I've been in and out of therapy for years because I thought I was depressed and I think I was so in denial about having this noise sensitivity that I didn't even though of course it's like intellectually of course I do of course but it wasn't in like I said it wasn't in my conscious life I didn't like integrate it and I thought it was just that I couldn't cope. Like I thought everyone else must be hearing what I'm hearing, but after some reason I can't cope with it. Like I never thought I was crazy. I never, I'm a very grounded person. I've never worried about my grip on reality or anything. And I just thought I couldn't cope. And I think I, I could, I, no, I, I'm amazed now that I never brought it up to a therapist. Um, but I, I just couldn't, I couldn't even bring it up to myself, I guess.
Adeel [49:19]: I'm curious, in sessions before, were you talking about those childhood experiences or was it kind of just trying to talk about the in-the-moment depression?
Deb [49:33]: I guess more the latter. I mean, I certainly did talk about my childhood, but again, I think I wasn't completely aware of just how... stressful the environment was and that I had a mother who was traumatized. Like I said, never occurred to me until recently to, to really think about what her life was like, you know, to be 40 years old and have, or no, she was 30 when I was born. So she's 30, she has three children and you know, is one of them is showing signs of mental illness and she's, you know, but the husband blames her for it. So, Um, I think I just didn't appreciate that and understand it until very recently. And I have a lot of compassion for her. It sounds very hard. Um, but so I, I didn't really talk about that in therapy because I, I just didn't, I think I couldn't admit it. Like my family sort of pretends that we're this normal close family and we're not. You know, I recently listened also to an episode you did with a young woman. She must be in her early 20s. I don't know if she's in college or just out. And she is very clear about her boundaries. And she has almost no relationship, really, with her family. She moves away from them and really spends very little time with them. And when she does, it is on her terms. She will not sit at the table and eat. You know, she's very clear about it. And on the one hand, I have such admiration for someone who has the courage to stick up for themselves and set those kinds of boundaries. That is a hard thing to do. And I also have a lot of admiration for young people who are growing up in an era where people talk about these kinds of things and talk about being neurodivergent. And parents would probably listen to children more than they did. Not all do, but even now.
Adeel [51:36]: Well, they're not looking at their phone, yeah.
Deb [51:39]: Yeah, right, exactly. So anyway, I have admiration for that. But at the same time, I also want to make sure, like if I were to do something like that, I don't want to set boundaries that are too rigid, where I cut myself off from relationships that are actually important to me. So my family does matter to me in some way. And so I'm... And also my dad's 87, so I'm like at this point not willing to totally rock the boat and say I really can't be around you anymore. It's not worth it. But anyway, I don't know where I was going with that.
Adeel [52:19]: No, and you were all super enlightening. Just at the very end, one thing that was very recognizable to me was that calculation that we always make. Is this worth bringing up to this person? It could be your family member. It could be a stranger. Is it worth telling them to be quiet? Or is it worth how much to get into? Because we've all dealt with... you know, the reaction that you had, A, with your parents, but I'm sure maybe with other people over the years of being dismissed and invalidated. Did you ever tell your friends growing up? No. Or was it noticeable at school or, you know?
Deb [53:00]: No, school was not as bad as home. I think my home life was so stressful that in subway school was arrested and I was a very good student and I had a lot of friends. I was like editor in chief of the newspaper and I played the flute. I was very serious about it. And I was like a very involved teenager. But taking tests was very hard, I think, because the room was so quiet and the misophonesia too i really struggled um and hearing russian papers and anything like that test taking was always hard but school was not awful and uh so no i never never told i don't even think my friends knew i was sensitive to noise like it let alone had misophonia like no i definitely never told anybody about it
Adeel [53:50]: Right, right. And, okay. And then I guess, yeah, maybe talk about as you got into the workforce, how did it, because for me, like, I also didn't notice it so much in school. I knew it was there and it was more at home, but it was when I started to hit those open offices. Yeah. And having, you know, you hit up against deadlines and things like that. And moments are more stressful than others. And, you know, the Diet Coke cans start opening up and all that stuff. So, yeah, maybe talk a little bit about that early career.
Deb [54:28]: Sure. Yeah, I mean, I've worked in open offices for almost 30 years. I think here and there I might have had a job where I had like an office at the door for a year or two. But generally, I was out in the cubicle farm. And it was torture from day one. It was very hard. And I really, you know, I finished college in 1992 and started working. So for young people listening, like, we didn't email with you in 1992. Like, not even everyone in my job had email. So I remember it, my first job. And so let alone... you know, having the internet or being able to work remotely. Yeah. Yeah. So like, there's no, obviously no working remotely. And I didn't have enough of an entrepreneurial idea. Like I was so disconnected from myself. I think I was living in survival mode and I was just not even plugged into what do I really want to do? What makes me happy? What are my real skills? I just went into book publishing because I always liked to read. I didn't even really have specific goals around it. And so I didn't even try to find a way to have work where I didn't have to go to an office. I was just the kind of person who was supposed to get a job in an office and have a career. That was the model I grew up in. So the open offices were very tough. In, I think it's the most recent job I had. So it was probably about 10 years ago. I was in my early 40s. There was a guy sitting behind me who was a temp and he banged really hard on his keyboard. And I just, I really, I was going to lose my mind. So one day I figured he's a temp, you know, I'm going to say something. And I was, I'm very kind and compassionate and very, so exactly right. That's what I wanted to say. I was like, what the fuck are the keyboards? so but i i said listen i need to talk to you about something this is totally about me i'm really sensitive to sound and you know i'm wondering if you could tap a little more lightning on your keyboard i'd really appreciate it and he went and complained about me to my boss and then my boss called me in his office and actually looked at me and said what the hell with the keyboard Like that is his answer. Yup. And, uh, I was like, when was this again?
Adeel [57:05]: Can you, I forgot when, was this at the early?
Deb [57:08]: No, no, this is like 10 years ago.
Adeel [57:10]: Oh geez. Okay.
Deb [57:11]: Yeah. And he really just showed me absolutely no, no kindness. And, and mind you, I was like rockstar employee. So I was among the most high performing employees on his staff. And he really just was not able to see me. So I also asked the same supervisor, probably a few years later, if I could work remotely a couple days a week. And I don't know if I framed it as because I'm sensitive to noise, but I asked if I could, and he said, absolutely not. So he was just not open to it. And, you know, then, so all those years of working in open offices were very, very hard. And um it was a struggle every day and again i'm like amazed that i was able to do as much as i did and succeed as much as i did with the working conditions and i think in the last office i worked in right before covid there was a lactation room there were literally no private spaces in the entire office it was like we were in a swing space they were renovating our office and it was like a tech office it was like it looked like a tech startup so it was little tiny cubicles high ceilings concrete floors very echoey we had a couple of those foam booth things but there have glass walls like you had there was nowhere to have privacy there was a lactation room and i would sneak in there um like a couple times a day and sit in the dark on the floor for 15 minutes to just catch my breath i was holding it in so much all day just holding it together And it was such a stressful, to me, it felt normal because that was what working in an office was. I didn't really question it, as strange as that might sound. But I was just used to it, I guess. And I thought, this is what life is for me. Like, if I want to have a job, this is what I have to do. And so I just did it. And it was tough. And when COVID happened and we could suddenly, suddenly had to work from home full time, my whole life changed. It was the first time in 50 years that I got any break whatsoever from the cacophony of life from riding the subway. Also, it's a very stressful thing to do every day, twice a day was very hard. And so I think this is a funny analogy, but I don't think of those videos that you see of like rescued dogs. And some of them need a day to decompress. Some need a week, some need a month, some need a year. It depends on the dog experience. For me, it was like probably about six weeks of decompression. I think it's really what I was doing to have this aha about like, oh, my God, I'm a highly sensitive person. And my whole life changed from like COVID, obviously, was a terrible thing but in my own world i have such gratitude for the the gift of being able to slow down and not be as hyper vigilant 24 7. i still am a hyper vigilant person but nothing like like i was it was really hard and so yeah life got better when i could work remotely and My company that I worked for, the nonprofit, still is not requiring people to be in the office. They won't require it, I think, until September, this coming September. And I'm not there anymore. So it was optional to go back. I think I went to the office twice total. And I remember saying to my manager, a different person, a very lovely woman, and said to her, like, you know I'm not doing that right. Like, when it's time to go back to the office, I'm not going. because i feel so much better and i have thrived professionally since working from home i'm able to really be myself and you know i was an operations and budget director and yet i'm someone which sounds very sort of clinical in some ways like not very emotional but i think my nickname at work was the budget whisperer because i think i set people at ease as soon as i stepped into a budget meeting. But I understood kind of where people's comfort level was and I was able to provide them a sense of calm about it. And I was also a person that like a lot of random people who I hardly knew called me and said, can I talk to you? I'm having an issue with my manager. Like, why are you calling me? But I think that people understood that I was someone they could confide in. that stuff really only started to happen when I started to work from home. Like I really came into myself. And so now I know that. even if I do end up one day getting another job, I will never work in an office again. It's a very hard life. So, no more.
Adeel [62:33]: Yeah. No, yeah, a lot you said there that makes total sense. Obviously, the empathy of misophilins, but also, I think, is the idea, you know, kind of for me, the authenticity is a big part of... misophonia having you know not not being validated early on not you know it's kind of just going to what you think is the expectation moving away from your authentic self all takes its toll and I feel like uh is is related to a lot of the mental health issues beyond just misophonia and so um and i feel like um you know yeah the the whole uh the whole slow down uh self-care things are like people say all these things as kind of a um it's almost become a cliche where it doesn't mean anything but it does have actually attacked like through the lens of misophonia like it actually has a very um concrete there's concrete examples of of where you need to you need to do that because i think our nervous systems don't in this in this day and age um don't have time to recover where i think hundreds of years ago or even decades ago um they did or and you were able to i think be a little bit more your authentic self now you have to kind of conform and be in this measured cubicle Um, so I think, I think, I think this is why we're seeing more of this when it's not just about the awareness. I think there is more, there is more, um, nervous system fighting back kind of, uh, or has, I don't know if that's the right term, but, uh, you know, more people have these, um, overworked nervous systems from childhood that just kind of move it. And then, you know, adult life, especially living in New York does not necessarily help or afford you the chances to calm down all the time. So, uh, so many things in your life. I think, uh, Deb, I think are, are, are, yeah, are, are kind of, kind of help explain, not just misappointing, but how we can maybe have a direction towards healing. Yeah. So, um, yeah.
Deb [64:36]: And I just want to echo and agree with you about self care and, um, Like I said, I'm really now trying to figure out what is the ideal structure of my life. How often do I socialize? But also practicing self-care every single day. Like I'm now really scheduling it and thinking about all the different types of self-care there are. And I've been doing a lot of work around boundaries and compassion and self-compassion and doing meta-meditation and... all different kinds of calming down my nervous system. I did a forest bathing meditation, a guided meditation where I close my eyes and feel like I'm walking through the woods with someone. And I found that very healing. So just really trying to proactively calm myself down, calm down my nervous system, be less hypervigilant, feel more connected to myself. And that's a great way I feel like to start the day and that's a gift. Like you said, the reward is now I get to have this day that where I get to stay plugged into myself and be creative and connect with people or whatever the thing. So yeah, self care is big for me too.
Adeel [65:55]: And I think that inner child, because I think it is kind of that, there's this, I may be too simplistic, but there are dichotomies within ourselves, like the rational prefrontal cortex, and then that reptilian lizard brain, that instinctive brain that is trying to do the protection. There's that dichotomy, there's the... um you know the your adult self and then that inner child that was you know crying every night um it you i think i think that child is still inside you and if you can keep practicing that self-care it will learn to feel safe it's not gonna be all right but i think that's part of the healing is is when you feel good when i feel good And now that a lot of this stuff, at least that's the lens I feel is that it's not just, it's not, um, it's not necessarily even the whole part of me that, well, let me frame it this way. I think that inner child in particular is feeling that warmth and that's kind of what we're feeling.
Deb [66:54]: Yeah. I love that. And the present day me who is warm and loving and caring and accepting can love that little child. And make them feel safe. So, yeah.
Adeel [67:08]: And that was actually a lot of my, you know, I started to do a little bit of IFS, internal family systems. And that was a lot of the therapy was, hey, remember, basically, remember this old memory. Find that inner child in the moment. Tell it that you are 47, 48 years old. Hug it. and then see what it tell it ask it what it wants to do in that moment from when you're in your basement to your room and then go let it do it and that was that was that was an entire session so um yeah i think yeah i'll let that sink in but that's that's i think that's something that people need to i feel practice more at least being aware of Well, um, I, we're, yeah, I don't even know because we have a little technical break. I don't even know where we are. We can obviously go on for hours and days, but, uh, yeah, but this has been great. And I'd love to, I'd love to keep in touch because I'm very curious kind of where your, what your plans are, uh, not to put any more pressure on your little sabbatical time, but yeah, just kind of, yeah. Thank you.
Deb [68:11]: Thank you. And yeah, I will definitely be in touch and I appreciate the offer. And, um, Just thank you for doing this podcast. It's a gift, really. And just really appreciate it. And thanks for the opportunity to chat.
Adeel [68:29]: Thank you again, Deb. Always amazes me how similar these stories can be. And I'm excited to hear about your plans for the future. If you liked this episode, don't forget to leave a quick review or just hit the five stars wherever you listen to this podcast. You can hit me up by email at hellomissiforniapodcast.com or go to the website, missiforniapodcast.com. It's even easier just to send a message on Instagram. And on Twitter or X, it's Misophonia Show. Support the show by visiting the Patreon at patreon.com slash misophonia podcast. The music as always is by Moby. And until next week, wishing you peace and quiet.
Unknown Speaker [69:45]: you