Nathan - Art, Misophonia, and Online Education
Transcript
Adeel [0:01]: Welcome to the Misophonia Podcast. This is Season 5, Episode 20. My name's Adeel Ahmad, and I have Misophonia. This week I'm talking to Nathan, who lives in Colombia. Nathan is 19 and taking a break after high school and focusing on art and design. We talk about his experiences with Misophonia in Colombia, fried food, and his plans for the future. Nathan also triggers himself a lot, so that's actually an interesting aspect for him. And we talk about our shared passion for greater neurodiversity awareness. Oh, and I have links to all of Nathan's accounts where he posts his art and his store page in the show notes. I want to give a shout out to our latest Patreon sponsor, Aaron. Thank you so much for your contribution to the show. It really means a lot. And if you feel like helping, you can go to patreon.com slash misophonia podcast and learn about the various levels and swag I'm giving away. An even easier free thing you can do is just share the podcast with friends on social media or leave a quick rating or review wherever you listen. all right now here's my conversation with nathan uh nathan welcome to the podcast good to have you here well thank you for having me i was really excited yeah so yeah why don't you tell me um a bit about kind of you know whereabouts you are and what you do um
Nathan [1:30]: i live in colombia i'm like i'm from here um and i mean at the moment i'm kind of a freelancer designer whatever it comes up yeah yeah yeah i'm not studying or really working i'm just doing my thing and existing yeah yeah that sounds good um so you're 19 you finished uh you finished high school and you just kind of went out and you're freelancing as a as a designer
Adeel [2:00]: And how's it going? Like, are you, you know, some people go to college, some people maybe take an office job. Did you decide that, hey, you know, I kind of want to go on my own because maybe there's some misophonia basis for that or just the way things shook out for you?
Nathan [2:21]: A little bit of both. I kind of knew I wanted to take some time after high school. For sure because they finished it right like last year in June. So there was still a lot of like limbo with the... with the pandemic where things were kind of opening up but not 100% and in my country there were still like regulations about they would use like the last name the last number of your IP and they would use it as like okay so this day you can go into stores and these other days you can't oh I see yeah so there there was still like yeah you can't go out but there's so many regulations i was like i don't feel like going to college or university right in this moment right right yeah i mean not a bad time to take a gap year between college and high school yeah um and how was uh and how was high school i guess um the high school experience overall Oh, I hate it, honestly. I was for, I think, almost my whole, like, primary and secondary school, because here it doesn't divide you, like, there's no different schools for, like, let's say, first grade to sixth grade, and then that, like, a full-on school, and you can study in the same one. since kindergarten to 11th grade so every school is a full school full yeah yeah like you start and you don't leave till you go to graduate from high school i see yeah exactly so i was on the same school i think since yeah this is like the my last year of kindergarten until eighth grade because from sixth grade everything was going awful with like a lot of uh depression and anxiety and also like identity itself like it was just that age but it interfered a lot with um yeah, with how I was doing academically. So I ended up switching to another school that I liked a lot more, but I was still struggling. So even though I felt more at home at that other place, I still did so bad that it made no sense staying there. And we ended up looking if there was like another way I could go to school that didn't meant physically. Because like now looking back, I realized there was a lot of sensory overload for me apart from all the mental health the issues i also just realized like i cannot go into a classroom and have someone like passing the page and listening to that like a thousand times louder And then someone clicking their pen on the other side. And there was so many things going on. And I was like, I'm not doing well. And this is not helping at all. They ended up switching to online school. And I immediately, like, that immediately just went a thousand times better. Like, my grades and my everything just did, yeah, like, much, much, much better. And I stopped hating the idea of school so much. I was like, okay, now that I know that I can, study and do the same thing but in the comfort of my of my room and if i want to play music in the background i can um or if i just wanted to be completely silent which doesn't tend to be the case right Um, I can do that. Like I can just decide, or if I'm feeling like I'm not, like, I don't think I can do this today. So I'm not in the mood to write an essay. Then I can, I can decide to take that day off. So it felt really liberating in that way where it didn't feel like, um, taking care of my needs to pay attention would interrupt the needs of other people because again i didn't want to hear the the paper when i turn the page i could just have music and i wouldn't hear it so you're um you're bothered even by your own your own pitch turning yes i'm even bothered by my own chewing A lot of times.
Adeel [7:24]: Oh, really? Okay, okay. Does it give you problems, like, when you're going to sleep or anything, too? Like, breathing sounds?
Nathan [7:33]: Breathing, not so much. Okay, that's good. But I feel like, yeah, I feel like other sounds that are not noticeable the rest of the day, especially because of the area I live in, other sounds that I would never notice at night where everything's so silent, I'm like, oh, that makes...
Adeel [7:53]: sound like that this is the noise i wow i hate it yeah is it chewing pretty often like your own your own sounds that you make um or is it just you know certain foods maybe or
Nathan [8:07]: I would say certain foods because it's similar with other people. I don't tend to eat with my family even. Even before I kind of realized like, well, I don't like to hear people chew or how spoons and things like that sound when they hit a plate. we just never like in my house we really never got used to eating together we like we've always i've lived always with my mom and my brother yeah and we've always just when we wanted to eat we would just serve some food and go to a room send it there gotcha that's just like normal um yeah or any of your family members have sensitivities too i'm just curious if that maybe was wasn't just your decision I feel like it wasn't a decision.
Adeel [9:04]: No, yeah, it was just culture in your house.
Nathan [9:08]: No, not even culture, because here people do it together. Right, no, I meant... I had a struggle when I go to my grandfather's. grandfather's house where i'm like oh he he does feel like he's rude if i don't go and eat like have lunch or dinner with them at the table um but yeah my house i don't know we just i i guess we didn't like it or we didn't really see the sense and uh i'm really picky with food so sometimes my food would take longer to like my mom would take longer to make my food or i would make myself something different And yeah, we kind of just had our own thing. So we never decided to go sit on the table together. We just kind of like, well, I'm hungry at this time of the day, so I'm going to eat at this time of the day.
Adeel [10:03]: Does your family know that you have misophonia?
Nathan [10:07]: My mom does because I still live with her. But my brother, my brother kind of... hinted at especially posting loads of like things on my instagram stories that i know that i know he's gonna see like i know i can't just post them just like he gets the hint um but because i don't live with him anymore and i realized recently i've never really gotten to like sit down with him and be like yeah i realized how you I'm not like just irritated by, I don't know, like I'm genuinely like angered or I feel anxious about specific noises and specific patterns. And yeah, like I felt I've done it with people I know I'm going to be around a lot with. And my brother just left at that time. So I never got to sit with him and tell him, like, you're doing this sound that is really bothering.
Adeel [11:18]: Yeah. You figured it. Yeah. You're not going to see him as often anymore if you're not going to.
Nathan [11:21]: Yeah. So what's the point? It doesn't make. Yeah. But my mom does. What did she say when you told her?
Adeel [11:30]: Or how did you tell her?
Nathan [11:33]: She was quite curious about it. Because, yeah, I told her, like, yeah, I found out this thing, and I was just curious about it. Because I tend to do that. I tend to find, like, a topic, just a topic. And I end up reading a bunch about it, and I tell her later, like, hey, I found this and that. So, like, well, I was doing what I always do with new stuff I found. And I was gonna tell you about it as like a casual thing and then the more I read, the more I realized that it felt like it was describing me.
Adeel [12:13]: yeah had you been uh diagnosed with other things in the past um like um i know things like ocd or anxiety and add things like that or was this kind of that first one of your first mental health i don't think you have you know it's been kind of uh maybe uh uh maybe you know it's not like maybe you've had other experiences
Nathan [12:36]: No, I was already diagnosed, I think, at around when I was 14, 14, 15 maybe, with depression. Mm-hmm. um and gender dysphoria and from there yeah like especially with the depression the most of the different uh doctors we we went to they were like well i don't think you have ocd but you do have a lot of like personality traits so like it doesn't interrupt your life like OCD does, but you do have a lot of traits that could be maybe misdiagnosed as that. So be careful if you go to someone and they diagnose you with OCD because if it's not making your life harder, then it's just kind of your personality.
Adeel [13:38]: Gotcha. And did you ever bring up sound issues with them?
Nathan [13:44]: um i think i didn't i think i did bring up feeling overwhelmed yeah like sensory of like yeah in a sensory way but yeah because i was diagnosed so young um and and i got to also i got to trial of antidepressants i think three or four that at the time the focus was kind of that the focus was okay you have quite a severe depression also very young so we have to treat this as soon as possible and we have to make sure you're kind of learn how to cope with it right now so later in life it doesn't get as hard to change things to make it easier for you so yeah i think again at that point i never I just, at that point, everything was really heavy. Yeah, yeah. So I think I didn't realize that sound was one of those things and that it was like this specific sounds and this other not. To me, just everything was so much all the time. So I never brought it up. And that's, I think that's kind of why I realized it more recently because... Yeah, I've gotten much better. I'm on medication. I've done quite enough therapy to feel better. So I have time to kind of look back on the things that I've realized that haven't gotten better. So like, okay, now I can go into the more specifics. And then realize, hey, sound is one of those.
Adeel [15:28]: yeah well i was gonna ask like yeah did did the other um feelings of sensory overload get better and then you were kind of left with misophonia i'm curious um where kind of misophonia sits in relation to the other things you're you're feeling or dealing with um i mean yeah i think that's kind of what i've been um looked into it in the first place because because
Nathan [15:58]: Yes, I always thought I was just very sensitive and irritable, again, mostly because of depression and because I was a teenager. I was like, well, I'm just... And because everyone tells you that, well, you're just in the age where you hate everything. And I was like, well, I don't hate everything. I just feel overwhelmed. right right and so yeah a lot of things i mean people touching me or hugging me that is still kind of a thing but uh you know i've learned kind of how to like where i'm more comfortable and where like i can okay maybe hook someone that i don't know but not feel like i'm gonna die right like i'm getting the plague or something like i realize i can manage it uh much better even if i'm still a bit touchy uh not pun intended touchy about people touching me yeah um but yeah well the other again like all that overwhelmness just has left mostly and so it felt like that was new but not really i just was aware that uh that yeah that it wasn't just depression or being a teenager that uh this there's just this noises that it feels like i can't that they still feel that overwhelming and yeah and it didn't stop
Adeel [17:39]: and uh how did that uh when did you do you remember when you kind of roughly when you first started here um getting sensitive to noise in particular uh was it at home um with family members like it kind of often is or or was it a different path um i think funny enough it was when all this craze began with asmr
Nathan [18:08]: that everyone suddenly everything on youtube was asmr and everyone was like oh my god i found this and it helps me sleep or it helps me relax and stuff like that and because the internet just kind of end up like um introduced to that content want it or not um and and yeah so because everywhere you went on the internet there was some form of asmr content video whatever and i heard i was like oh why do people like this this is so much this is disgusting this sounds awful and so yeah i thought i just hated asmr And yeah, I think I slowly started realizing that other noises would cause me that same reaction. Not so much that someone made them and I realized it was the same reaction that I got when I heard people really close to the microphone chewing or breathing or like clicking stuff and i was like okay so this is i'm getting the same feeling it's not just these videos or the fact that is to a microphone it's just that noise that is causing that
Adeel [19:41]: Right. So you're able to kind of, well, when it's ASMR videos, you're able to just kind of avoid them, hopefully, eventually online. But in real life, how were you dealing with it by just kind of reacting? Like how did that... How are you reacting to sounds now in real life?
Nathan [20:03]: Well, for I think the first year maybe, again, even so I kind of connected the dots of, okay, nowadays, Mars, there's noises. I still felt like maybe I was being sensitive to them or that I was in a bad mood. And that's why... They were making me feel very angry. That's the thing. It tends to trigger anger on me. Sometimes I do feel very anxious, but most of the time it's anger. and so yeah i thought maybe i'm just in like a bad mood and or being sensitive even though i was kind of connecting the dots so yeah i would just kind of react and um i think again a bit inside of the asmr trace um i was watching a live stream and it was a game theory i don't know if you if you know that channel but it was like a it's the guy from game theory and okay his wife and they were gonna do like one of these dumb challenges and i was like yeah fun video and before they start they mentioned that his wife Steph uh has misophonia so uh they know that's gonna like that that was gonna be hard for her because they were gonna try and play like ASMR videos and see like which ones got her And I was like, that's okay. Like, that's a word. And I just, yeah, I just kind of, when I first saw it, I was like, I didn't think much about it. I was like, oh, she has something and she doesn't like it anymore because of that. And I did, for some reason, I didn't connect it to me. but then they play like I think it was like someone eating fish or something like that and I get like I wasn't aware that that was gonna be that was gonna have the same reaction as her but I almost had the same reaction she was about to throw up and while I was watching that I also felt like I was gonna throw up from hearing I wasn't even looking I was just hearing yeah yeah yeah yeah So I kind of rewinded because I was like, well, she's having kind of the same reactions as me. Like I see her and I'm like, whoa, like someone's feeling the same with the very similar sounds. So I rewind it to when they say that she has misophonia and I started looking it up. And that's when I'm like, okay, that's interesting. Again, not connecting the dots until I read more and I realized, yeah, this is me and her reaction was also me. And from there, I think I realized, well, I can maybe look for noises that cancel these other ones out. or like a witch fidget, maybe. And I'm really, I was really used to wearing headphones anyways. So I just thought that as like an opportunity, like, well, people are, people around me are used to me always having headphones on. So I was going to take advantage of that. And I'm going to try and maybe find music or noises or something else that counts us out. when someone or something is creating a noise. So I can not react as I have been in the past. right so so yeah you're one of your big coping mechanisms like many of us is uh headphones earbuds and just a bunch of sounds to to mask over things yeah and funny enough like these fidget toys that a lot of people were just like they were fun i i i also have i have like three and i also buy them like bought them because they were fun and then i realized wait this is relaxing
Adeel [24:35]: Is it relaxing or does it distract you from the sound or just the repetitive motion is something that you're controlling, maybe?
Nathan [24:42]: I feel like, yeah, maybe it's because I would say it's mostly that. First of all, like, distracting. Because, yeah, because my hands are doing something. So that helps me kind of, I feel like that helps me release whatever feeling through my hands. So, yeah, it feels mostly, yeah, like, distracting me to, like, spin something or with these new ones. I forgot how they're called. These, like, pop thingies. You know?
Adeel [25:23]: Okay. Yeah.
Nathan [25:24]: The bubble pop thingies. I think I hear those. Those ones are also real nice. And I just find myself just kind of popping them and again, kind of distracting the rest of my body on it.
Adeel [25:42]: Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Interesting. And other than your mom, have you told anybody about misophonia in your family or anywhere around or therapists over there in Columbia?
Nathan [25:57]: I think I realized when I wasn't going to a therapist anymore. Lately, I've been wanting to also see that with a professional. Because even though, like you say, most of us find a way to just go with it without going to anyone. Yeah, with this kind of obvious ways of, well, headphones or fidgety toys. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like it would also help to have someone that's a professional maybe help me or maybe even see if they know about it because yeah i'd be curious to know if somebody in colombia like how how well known it is in colombia yeah because if it's hard to find professionals that know about in the u.s
Adeel [26:46]: It's hard enough, yeah, right.
Nathan [26:47]: Yeah, I would imagine in here they have no clue what I'm talking about. Like, it does have a Spanish translation, which is a good step. Sometimes you find things that don't even have a word in Spanish yet, because that's how known they are. But it does have a Spanish word, so that kind of relaxed me that, okay, at least the Spanish... speaking community even if it's just in spain or mexico or maybe a bigger country at least they know that right that's like a thing but but yeah i've been meaning to maybe go to someone like a professional but apart from that yeah i just can't tell people that i'm gonna live with are gonna be around with a lot um like my yeah what are you telling my boyfriend well i just don't like hey i have this thing it's called misophonia and you i i don't just shut the hell up I don't think you even noted, but I'm going to resume it as like a lot of times are really annoying. So if I lash out at you, which is very probable is because you were making a noise, but then I'll apologize because I'll feel bad and I'll tell you very politely this time that you were doing an annoying act. It's like I'll tell you again, but this time without making you feel bad about it.
Adeel [28:11]: How do people react when you do kind of like lash out and throw glares or say something?
Nathan [28:20]: I think gladly I haven't had a situation with my partner. I was able to very calmly just kind of realize like, hey, I should tell him this just in case. And I told him in a very calm, no, kind of because the trigger happened, just kind of letting you know. But with my little sister, I did have to like explain it to her like right after I lashed out and told her to shut the fuck up.
Adeel [28:56]: How old is she?
Nathan [28:57]: And then I realized, like, oh, no, she's eight. So I was like, oh, God. What have I done? And then, of course, I apologized to her and to my mom. And I was like, I'm sorry. And my mom, like, for my luck, my mom helped me explain it to her. Like, it's not that you're being annoying. It's that you're making this sound. And that sound is very distressing. and sometimes depends on her much she kind of remembers and doesn't do it or she remembers and does it on purpose oh yeah okay okay because again she's a little she's a little child so i i i know she's not doing it to be rude more because she's my sister and she finds it funny to annoy me
Adeel [29:46]: Right.
Nathan [29:47]: And doesn't realize the actual anxiety or the stress that it could cause. She just says, there's an annoying thing I can do.
Adeel [29:59]: Do you know anybody else who has this phobia?
Nathan [30:03]: Like in real life, I know online, obviously. No, online, yeah, but I think not. I think I have encountered people like, well, of course people chewing is annoying. It's like, no, no, you're talking about people chewing with their mouth open. I'm talking about chewing.
Adeel [30:22]: Yeah, yeah, even the quietest chewing.
Nathan [30:27]: Yeah, like sometimes to put it on their perspective, I tell them, i i hate my own crunchy chewing that's that's what i mean when i hate chewing i mean it as i even hate my own chewing and they're like okay because yeah because they say that's like we're just saying that annoying signs are annoying right no it is not as simple as that
Adeel [30:52]: Do you do anything when you're eating to kind of like help you not trigger yourself? Like maybe certain foods that you won't eat or certain foods that you'll definitely eat?
Nathan [31:04]: I mean, the things that here, most foods are fried. We like making fried foods.
Adeel [31:11]: Right, so that means it's going to be dry, crunchy.
Nathan [31:14]: Yeah, the crunchy ones. I'm not going to stop eating them because they're really good.
Adeel [31:18]: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan [31:19]: But I tend to avoid eating them, like, in silent places or, like, when I'm alone. Like they say, something as simple as, like, a cereal. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I would not eat my cereal until I'm sitting down here on my desk, putting on my headphones, playing, I don't know, music, a video, a podcast, something. And then I start eating. because i've tried being like no no i can i can do it without that and i take one bite and i notice i without really thinking about it i noticed that i started like trying to chew really softly and well i like that that's of course not gonna work if i try chewing like really softly really timey so I just put on headphones or maybe if I'm outside sometimes like when I eat outside not in like a restaurant but in like in the street when you buy like street food because there's so much noise I don't tend to notice when like my trip is there's cars and whatever noise and background noise yeah yeah and I also tend to wear like earbuds when I'm outside so yeah I find I find that funny enough when there's the most sounds is when I can ignore kind of the eating, the crunchy eating especially.
Adeel [32:48]: Your own crunchiness, right, right.
Nathan [32:50]: Yeah, or like other people, but I don't tend to eat with other people ever.
Adeel [32:57]: With your partner, do you both eat together or...?
Nathan [33:04]: Um, no, like, I mean, because we have never, like, lived together. It's just, like, visits. Right. I think he has sometimes, like, eating for me, but I remember that when I told him, he was like, well, I'm really used to eating softly. And, well, he's not wrong, because, again, I've never noticed his eating.
Adeel [33:30]: Must get.
Nathan [33:32]: Hmm?
Adeel [33:33]: That's good.
Nathan [33:34]: Yeah, yeah. I think I realized like, well, he's right. I've never noticed when he's sitting in front of me or around me. And yeah, I think I would have remembered him eating maybe something crunchy or like that because it would be ingrained in my memory as awful. Right. But yeah, I think he never did. I do have a struggle with... um i i go a lot on disc or on voice chats um and i've gotten this very like basically every night even i go with the same group of friends um and just chat around five hours maybe wow yeah like we're just because we all go from like school or or work or existing and we kind of want to chat with each other and be dumb for a little bit and and yeah because i spend so many so much time with them in a format that is only audio where i'm mostly just hearing them um yeah i have to i remember i had to tell them like hey i had this thing some noise is annoying me and i did it because one of them has a keyboard like those mechanical keyboards and those are probably one of my most awful triggers I don't even have a mechanical keyboard. I specifically bought one that is a silent one because of that, because of how much I hate the sound of keyboards. And her keyboard is exactly the opposite. It's so noisy. We will be chatting, and she will be writing a story. I think she likes to write a lot. So she will be writing while being on the call, and I couldn't pay attention to the other ones because I would just hear the... Right. And very fast also. So at one point... instead of just muting her and every time someone said something to her or muting her I realized this is more productive if I just tell them right um then i kind of had a chat um most of them were really receptive they were like okay like they're kind of trying to be like okay what can we avoid um one of them tried playing asmr to see if it was real i don't know why oh no and i was like yes it is just shut up yeah yeah exactly Like, I'll make someone sign a paper if you want me to stop. And another friend got extremely curious immediately. Like, not just as, like, trying to see what noises he shouldn't be doing, but he just wanted to know. Like, he was asking me every single noise he could imagine and asking me, would that annoy you? And I was like, no, I don't think so. Okay, smart. but then would this annoy you and i was like yeah it's like but those ones are really similar yeah but my brain just likes one and the other right not the other right so i i kind of appreciated that uh i don't know about other people with misophonia but i i appreciate it looking really curious about it yeah very very like a child right a lot of people just dismiss it so it's it's good to at least have people if they're as long as they're not being
Adeel [37:28]: mean about it that they're asking questions because that gets the word around um what do you hope to do kind of in the future you hope to kind of uh you know build a graphic design business or um you know because uh yeah this is when a lot of us start thinking about like oh what do i want to work like do i want to be around tons of other people
Nathan [37:50]: Funny enough, I want to work on the movie industry. But I feel like it's because... Of course, not only because I love movies. I've loved them since like ever. And I just love art. And movies have always been... kind of one of the ways to sit down after again being overwhelmed or yeah or feeling like everything is just chaos kind of just sitting down looking at a story and it's all pretty and well it's all like really dramatic and you're kind of um into it i i've liked the side of the production of of movies and funny enough how much attention they pay to making the noises um so i feel like Even so, of course, I probably would never work on the sound department ever. Because I would just end up deleting noises that are supposed to be there. Yeah, I've never found myself being triggered in one of those settings. Like a recording or like a casting or modeling kind of stuff. Like I've never heard... i don't know like the clicking of the camera that kind of things that tend to be on the studio never found it annoying and so i realized like well i can for my luck i like something that does not make me want to take my ears off right right okay so yeah maybe there's a promising path there and kind of uh
Adeel [39:40]: uh yeah film production or video production or something um yeah that sounds yeah that sounds that sounds interesting maybe you can uh slip a little message about misophonia in some of the productions you're involved in um yeah so yeah we're about um i don't know yeah we're about 40 40 minutes in um just curious yeah if you have any um yeah anything else you want to share with people that you know maybe are specific to your experience with misophonia that uh
Nathan [40:10]: you think people haven't heard before or just yeah just anything you want to say really um maybe like a recommendation because i realized that um it's better even if there's always going to be people that are going to react either by making fun of or not delivering it. A lot of times you find that people, even if they don't understand it or can't put themselves 100% in your shoes, they do try. they do immediately try to not trigger you. So I found that, yeah, sometimes it feels like, oh, I don't want to tell people. Maybe we feel like, oh, they're going to think I'm crazy or that I have anger issues or something like that. It's normal to be afraid of people judging you. I feel like it's always better to be in an environment where you can't tell people and if they accidentally make a trigger sound they kind of know and they kind of realize like oops and try and stop it and if someone's gonna make like fun of it that's kind of really fucked up so it makes no yeah I know it can be kind of hard and kind of like demoralizing to feel like you have to tell people but yeah sometimes it's just better to let people know or someone can be an asshole about it like that's the problem this is like they're the assholes you're just trying to live your life right right um so yeah i found i i think that should be something that like the misophonian community should have more into account like we can just tell people and if they want to be assholes that's their own that's their own issue but most people are going to try to to uh not trigger us because yeah because i realized like there most of the times you end up telling people because you lash out of them so they've seen that you're kind of forced to yeah so they they've seen that it's real that you're not acting up you're not like pretending you're not trying to to gain i don't know like sympathy points like you genuinely had a reaction out of it they're probably gonna be like oh so they weren't being mean they like they cannot control their like how they feel about this noise that i made and they're gonna stop so yeah that that's kind of what i what i want to live with a little bit of uh yeah that's like okay sometimes you feel crazy It just ends up being better. It ends up being easier. And at the end of the day, you always have headphones that you can put in and ignore everyone around.
Adeel [43:31]: No, I mean, yeah, that's exactly what I think a lot of us end up thinking is like... um yeah we have headphones with a backup and uh you know try to tell people if it's if it's a if it's necessary like you decided with your brother wasn't quite necessary just yet to tell him because you're not going to be around him that often anymore and then um but then yeah i mean i think we're all aware that you know that you never know who's gonna well you gotta think about who's who's gonna
Nathan [43:59]: react favorably and who's gonna just kind of make fun of it and then is it worth bringing it up so yeah and if I bring it up and I think this person's gonna react well and they don't yeah again do as like with someone that doesn't know because they're pretending like like that's not real so it's like if they didn't know and just yeah keep coping like i feel that we're going in a good direction where there's more studies about it and there's slowly like um like communities and stores even and just yeah where we're kind of a lot of people are realizing by themselves that they're we're joining I was like, well, other people have it and we're creating things that help us or things that already exist. And feeling like, yeah, I found that this helps me. So I'm going to share it with the rest of the community because it might help maybe five or ten or a hundred of them to struggle. Yeah, again, maybe with like this fidget spinners and this. like pop toys that they were supposed to be for more like ADHD and and other types of Neurodivergency, but we realized well that also helps miss a for new so yeah, I'm glad we're kind of in that space where knows yeah, I said the miss phony community and that's like well, there's other communities that have stuff that kind of help that whole whole realm of neurodivergency in whatever way um it is so so i think we're uh lucky even though there's a lot to unpack still and to maybe study and and and to understand a bit better we are in a good place where we have things and I think it's nice to be in a place where you're also discovering how to how to deal with stuff because you can again you can share it with other people and And it goes from a range of very accessible things like, again, earbuds or a $5 toy to noise-canceling headphones that are $300 that, hey, you can spend your money on it. That's amazing. But yeah, you have that whole range and you have people that are also realizing maybe they can land a hand. I don't know. I think it's... I like this sweet point of we already know what it is. We have some resources and we're still finding some. So we are kind of part of the of the past for when maybe misophonia is 100% like um culpable and like easy to talk thing especially with therapists or professionals and all professionals kind of know about it it's not a struggle to find one that knows like yeah I like to say it as we're going towards that and we're helping someone live that
Adeel [47:37]: Yeah, no, you're right. It's still early, but you're right. It's a lot better than it was like even 10, 20 years ago, especially a few decades ago when I had some people who are over 60, over 70, even over 80. And so totally different world about anything mental health related.
Nathan [47:54]: Yeah, and again, we can help. And like you say, sometimes you notice that. misophonia is maybe related to to other things like depression or adhd or autism or whatever like it can't be related to anything um so so yeah we're it feels like you're helping a lot of communities and a lot of people in different areas. And like you said, we're better than before and we are also in a space where it's not seen as a waste of time to work on making it even better. And yeah, I hope we can work like that and actually achieve that.
Adeel [48:47]: That's great. Yeah, that's a good positive point to kind of end on. I wanted to, do you have anything you want to promote? Like, I don't know, like your Instagram account for your design stuff. I'll have links in the show notes. But, you know, if you want to mention anything right now, feel free.
Nathan [49:05]: Well, I have my red bubble. I was thinking actually going towards this, I was thinking about maybe trying to do the sounds related to Mezzofonia. Because I guess thanks to this podcast, I realized there's a lot more people than you realize. And yeah, I think it's always fun to... to have the signs of other things that maybe have hurt you. So you can laugh at them now or you can kind of see them as something more positive. I'm trying to work on more mental health related designs. So maybe we can create that. So yeah, I have my Redbubble. I think it's redbubble.com slash taco cat boy with an I instead of a Y. And I think I have the rest of my social media. It's just that the rest is not really misophonia related.
Adeel [50:10]: Sure.
Nathan [50:11]: I have a YouTube and I'm trying to work on maybe someone likes mythology. So if someone, funny enough, likes mythology and also has misophonia, I'm also working on that. By creating mythology-related content that hopefully does not trigger anyone's misophonia.
Adeel [50:39]: By mythology, do you mean like myths from the past or is it something that... Yeah, like Greek. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, right.
Nathan [50:49]: Norse, yeah.
Adeel [50:51]: Have you found any evidence of misophonia in older literature like that?
Nathan [50:58]: Not so far, but I've realized there's a lot of things that now we have a name for that a lot of mythology touches on as like, wow, fantastical, like a weird thing, and now we have a name for it. So maybe I crossed one, but yeah.
Adeel [51:19]: Yeah, I'd love to hear about it if you do find something, yeah.
Nathan [51:22]: Yeah. I kind of want to touch on that and how I found that there's a lot of little details that now you will be like, hey, I think that has a name. So yeah, maybe some misophonia that has some other thing also finds it in a myth. So yeah, I think that I want to plug, I just have my Red Bull.
Adeel [51:45]: i'll have links to all that yeah definitely show notes and if you know between now and when this goes live just just shoot me an email or instagram message and i'll i'll have it all included so that right now well people are listening to it you know when people are listening to it they'll be able to just go to show notes and like click on stuff so you got some time okay okay so yeah well yeah Nathan I want to yeah thank you for coming on and kind of sharing your story it's super interesting and yeah I know it's gonna yeah I know it's gonna help a lot of people and wish you the best of luck in yeah in your design stuff and in getting the word out in Colombia and beyond
Nathan [52:25]: Thank you very much, not only for having me, but for creating the podcast. I think it's a really nice space. It feels really comforting. So yeah, just so you know that you're also creating a nice space. just for people that already know it maybe for people that don't know yet and yeah those experiences and and like i did realize like hey that's that's exactly how i feel and it has a name i'm glad it does yeah yeah yeah that's why to also congratulate you on that because the podcast doesn't seem like much but it does spread a lot of word around and that seems to be a big help
Adeel [53:10]: Thank you, Nathan. Don't forget to check out Nathan's links in the show notes for more. 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 hello at missafoyapodcast.com or go to the website, missafoyapodcast.com. It's even easier to send a message on Instagram at missafoyapodcast. Follow there, Facebook, Twitter. If you want, you can support the show by visiting the Patreon page at patreon.com slash misophonia podcast. The music, as always, is by Moby. And until next week, wishing you peace and quiet.