Liz G. (2024) - Navigating family life with autism and heightened sound sensitivity.
Transcript
Adeel [0:01]: Welcome to the Misophonia Podcast. This is Season 7, Episode 23. My name's Adeel Ahmad and I have Misophonia. This week I'm talking to Liz, who was actually a guest back in Season 5. Liz is up in Canada, has misophonia, and a son with autism. She's had a number of comorbidities over the years, including having dealt with postpartum depression. We catch up and see how things have changed and what she's learned about living with this and raising her son. After this show, let me know what you think. You can reach out by email at hello at misophoniapodcast.com or hit me up on Instagram or Facebook at Misophonia Podcast. And, of course, I'd like to remind everyone to head over, leave a quick review or rating wherever you listen to the show, whether it's Apple Podcast or Spotify or wherever. The more reviews we get actually helps us drive this up in the algorithms, which helps us reach more listeners. A few of my usual announcements. Thanks again for the incredible ongoing support of our Patreon supporters. And welcome Tiramisu, I think that's a code name, as our latest supporter on Patreon. If you feel like contributing, you can read all about the various levels at patreon.com slash misophonia podcast. And of course, I want to mention the book Sounds Like Misophonia, a self-help book about misophonia, written by Dr. Jane Gregory with contributions from myself. It's available everywhere you find books, published by Bloomsbury UK, and you can order online or ask for it at your favorite bookstore. This episode is also sponsored by Bazel, the personal journaling app that I developed for iOS and Android. Bazel provides AI-powered insights into your journal entries and guides you with new writing prompts based on those insights. You can even explore many different therapy approaches, modalities, and philosophies. It's fun. It's available at iOS and Android. Check the show notes or go to hellobazel.com. All right, here's my conversation with Liz. Liz, welcome to the podcast. Great to have you here. Thank you.
Liz [2:08]: I think it's been a year since I spoke with you last.
Adeel [2:11]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And are you doing kind of the same thing? Pretty much exactly the same.
Liz [2:21]: Yeah.
Adeel [2:22]: Do you want to kind of give kind of an update? I know that you want to talk a little bit about your son with autism, I believe. But I don't know. Do you want to give us a general update on how the year has been?
Liz [2:38]: Huh, interesting. I have a sleep disorder that seems to have gotten much worse. So even staying awake for this right now is bad timing. But the one thing I have noticed is that whenever he brings some disease home from that germ factory we call a school, and I catch it, and of course I have it for at least three weeks, Anytime that my immune system is down, my mesophonia is a lot more acute. And I'm a lot less tolerant. So over the holidays, this time, I still did get it from his school. But it's because I went to his school's Christmas concert because he was actually the last one to get it in the house this time. But it was a really bad stomach flu. And I couldn't stand.
Adeel [3:38]: any sounds like even just ones that you never noticed before yeah well i mean a lot of this stuff that comes with the physical ailment is a lot of the stress obviously you're probably not you know if you have sleep just having sleep issues obviously you know these are things that kind of obviously exacerbate um they must have just gotten those things must have gotten worse as well i'm assuming yeah
Liz [4:04]: yeah wait does your son also have misophonia or is it doesn't seem like he does it's more the sensory processing disorder than misophonia so what commonly is associated with autism he can't handle certain sounds usually loud Like the vacuum cleaner, he always has to put his earmuffs on for that. But in terms of the stuff that typically triggers me, so the chewing and the sneezing, coughing, repetitive stuff, he does that a lot.
Adeel [4:49]: Yeah.
Liz [4:51]: So he and I have had conversations about different types of neurodivergences. He knows. I will try to tolerate it as long as possible because some of it is self-soothing. He's stimming, and I don't want to stop him from being able to do that. But at the same time, the repetition will get to a point where I'm going to end up vomiting. So I tell him, okay, we're triggering my mesophonia now, and he'll stop.
Adeel [5:20]: Is the vomiting, were you saying vomiting as a figure of speech?
Liz [5:23]: No, not a figure of speech, no.
Adeel [5:27]: Okay, yeah, because I'm sure people were late, so I just want to make sure that people are hearing that.
Liz [5:34]: It's definitely a very strong physical reaction, and it's specifically to repetition. I discovered that when I was 14, and I was trying to write the lyrics down from some really strange song. And so I had to keep going back and, you know, back and forth, back and forth. So I was hearing this song a lot over and over. By the time I got to the end, I got up and ran to the bathroom and threw up. And that was it. I wasn't sick. So I hadn't really thought about that for quite a while until I was seeing a psychologist for actually for postpartum depression at the time. And we ended up talking about that. And she was like, have you ever heard of misophonia? I think you have misophonia. I'm like, what?
Adeel [6:26]: Oh, really?
Liz [6:28]: Yeah. And that was the first time I was like, oh, all those years in high school where I wanted to strangle everybody. I wasn't nuts.
Adeel [6:36]: Right. Well, we are nuts. But no, we are. Yes, exactly. Thank you for correcting me. Yes, exactly. Actually, yeah, talk about that psychologist. So you said postpartum. I'm just curious kind of what about that discussion that was supposed to be about postpartum led her to start thinking about misophonia.
Liz [6:58]: Well, I don't know. I don't know if you've ever been in therapy, but you kind of explore everything. So, yeah. I was seeing a psychologist specifically referred to postpartum depression when my son was born. And might have just been talking about things that irritate me because you know with a new child you're getting sounds you're not used to and most of the sounds that came from him actually didn't trigger anything it was a separate thing but I started to talk about high school and how you know if anybody cleared their throat like I want to punch them in the neck and you know you know yeah exactly And you know that I thought that perhaps I had an anger management problem.
Adeel [7:49]: Ditto.
Liz [7:51]: So she explored a little bit further and yeah that's where my diagnosis came from.
Adeel [7:58]: Makes total sense.
Liz [8:00]: And the funny thing was I was even referred by her to another psychologist who was doing a DBT course. It had nothing to do with this. But I remember having to bring that up at one point because it was a group thing. And somebody came in with a cold. And I was just holding on to my chair while they were sniffling. So I explained it. And the gasps in the room, like people thought I was going to go violent on them. And that particular psychologist wasn't aware of misophonia. It was the first time she had heard it. And yet she was a colleague of the other one that had diagnosed me.
Adeel [8:48]: Yeah. I mean, it's unfortunately, the word is still getting around very slowly about misophonia. Yes. Was anybody able to help professionally at that point?
Liz [9:02]: No, I didn't. I didn't seek help specifically for that. Yeah. because I was taking dialectical behavioral therapy, you know, there's a lot of different mechanisms that they use anyway for coping strategies. And so some of those skills are transferable. Yeah. Um, yeah. Uh, you know, basically mindfulness is always a big part of it, but I also, um, try to just avoid humans in general cause I don't like them.
Adeel [9:32]: So I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.
Liz [9:36]: I don't know if misophonia sparked my misanthropy. I don't remember ever actually liking people, but I also don't remember never being bothered by noise. I know a lot of the people that you've talked to, there's usually a triggering moment in their lives.
Adeel [9:56]: Yeah, a lot of people, yeah, and around the same age and whatnot.
Liz [10:00]: Yeah, I don't ever remember not being angered by those sounds.
Adeel [10:06]: Do you have memories or have people told you about moments in your life from an early, early, early age when you kind of showed signs of this?
Liz [10:16]: Nothing that I can recall being told. But I guess part of it would have been they wouldn't really know what I was reacting to either.
Adeel [10:25]: Right.
Liz [10:25]: So if I was that, but I just know that there wasn't a point that I can remember not reacting to it. But I always knew, even really, really young, that it wasn't normal, per se, to want to hurt somebody just because they're clearing their throat. So I did whatever I had to do, remove myself from the room or turn up music or whatever to distract myself.
Adeel [10:55]: yep yep yep um oh yeah actually i wanted to get back to i want to get to one point before because i'm going to forget a bunch of good questions but about about your son i'm curious was there an age when the him triggering you start to happen was there or was there was there an age when was there a age range where it wasn't a trigger and then it started to happen um
Liz [11:22]: yeah it's there's a there's a very fuzzy time period during the postpartum depression because my uh my depression began when he was three weeks old but it wasn't diagnosed until he was six months so i was living in a very paranoid state for quite a while um and i wasn't actually part of my own head so anything then i have no recollection of uh unfortunately and so i I don't know if anything triggered me during that time or not. Once I started receiving treatment for the postpartum, I would say... I want to say it was probably about the age of two, but it would have been... I think he was older, actually, when the sounds started. It was the other usual sounds that were triggering me when he was about two, but it wasn't him. And then... As he got older, probably around four, I started noticing that when he would repeat sounds, and it probably coincided with the fact that that's when he did it as well, like he wasn't doing it before. So it's kind of hard to say 100%, but I think really probably around when he was four years old, which would have also been when he was starting to demonstrate
Adeel [12:49]: certain characteristics common with autism gotcha okay okay um and okay and then maybe but now switching back to to you growing up um you know you said people didn't maybe notice what you were reacting to i guess yeah i guess what started to happen is you as you got as you got older it probably started to become clear probably that you were mostly triggered by sounds. How did that kind of evolve, like at home and then at school?
Liz [13:22]: Fortunately, I have no recollection of anybody in my family specifically being a noisy eater or making any of those sounds. So dinner was always pleasurable. It wasn't a torturous event for me like it has been for so many others with nasophonia. But coughing, sneezing, sniffling, clearing throats, any... I call them organic sounds. And I would say, hmm, I probably started making the connection around eight years old that my anger always arose when I heard those sounds. But it might have even been earlier because I just know I'd hear the sound and I'd be like, argh, just, yeah. So, yeah, again, I think probably right from the beginning. As I got a little bit older, I started to try and develop a theory as to why those sounds would cause such a strong reaction. And I started thinking about survivalism and what would that kind of response have done, you know, maybe a thousand years ago. I don't even remember what I'd come up with. I was like, that's 14 years old. And I bounce around with those theories from time to time.
Adeel [14:46]: It is interesting to think about, yeah.
Liz [14:49]: I'm always convinced when it comes to stuff like this, especially now that we're finding out that it is more common than we ever realized, right? There has to be a reason for it. I know that it is referred to as a neurological disorder. I don't think disorder is actually apt for this person. particular i i do think it's evolutionary in the same way that i think autism is actually the next step in evolution of the human brain oh yeah i want to talk about this yes yeah i definitely think so so i i believe that this is some part of i don't know some survival mode now the only thing is you know between individuals you've got freeze or fight or blight so i don't know if one served better than the other. I know my default is fight. So I'm very, very aware.
Adeel [15:47]: Well, I want to get back to the, yeah, I want to get, I want to hold that thought and get to the, yeah, hear about fight moments. But, but yeah, I want to, but yeah, I want to mention it. Yeah. Cause you're right. It's called neurological disorder. I feel like, I mean, I may be effing this up, but you know, disorder basically just means it's like, Anything that's kind of like disrupting your normal, I guess, kind of day-to-day life doesn't necessarily mean defect. And that's why I think, yeah, I mean, I think there's something about misophonia, which is either, yeah, this heightened sense of danger awareness or... seeking out danger that was necessary a long time ago is always necessary. And, um, and yeah, so, but I've always, yeah, I've always kind of, I guess, debated in myself, like, does this mean that we just kind of have this thing we need, but at a too much of a heightened level or, or yeah, is this kind of like a, uh, a next step? Are we doing, you know, in the future, do we, are we going to need people who are extra sensitive to sounds to warn us of some, some danger? Um, I definitely, whatever it is, I do agree that it's not something wrong with your body. It's your body trying to warn you something in good faith. Definitely.
Liz [17:08]: Well, from the simplest perspective, sorry to interrupt you, COVID really proved something. It proved many, many things over the past couple of years. For those of us who have that reaction when somebody coughs and you want to take them out, well, think about it. They're gone. They're not spreading it around. Yes. If all the misophones that are fight reactive were permitted to do what we want to do, I don't think it would have lasted two years.
Adeel [17:40]: Hey, we should have been like a canine unit. You know, we can go around like instead of sniffing for drugs, if we're listening for COVID and take those people out. No questions asked. Yeah, we would have had no lockdowns or anything.
Liz [17:52]: It would have been dealt with a lot quicker.
Adeel [17:54]: I swear.
Liz [17:56]: But apparently there's this whole moral imperative.
Adeel [18:01]: What are morals? It's subjective. Yeah, it's subjective, but they should evolve. That's true. I think that should be the big takeaway from this conversation, actually. To kind of add something to that. My issue with a lot of... I guess I won't say therapies, but like directions and research is like, it's very much looking at misophonia as a problem that needs to maybe get a pill to fix or something like that. I feel like it's not necessarily like maybe the best way to go about it. I don't feel like we need to like call it, you know, make it seem like an evil defect. There's something.
Liz [18:42]: Yeah, that's exactly it. That's why, you know, the word disorder, because it, it, It suggests abnormality, right? There's the norm. And that's why autism is a neurodivergence. It's different from what's typical, although we're also seeing that being diagnosed a lot more too. So I prefer to refer to it as a neurodivergence because it is. it diverges from my son's divergence.
Adeel [19:16]: Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Do you think, do you think, and this might be going off topic, but I love this, this kind of like type of discussion. Do you think things like autism or misophonia, are they being diagnosed more now because maybe as a society we're becoming too homogenous than normal? Or maybe we're just able to identify things or advocate for these things a bit more.
Liz [19:46]: Well, I know for misophonia, that's definitely an awareness thing. Because a lot of us are adults and we're only finding it out now. So, you know, we've lived 44 decades or whatever with it. It was there the whole time. Autism, there have definitely been... huge steps in terms of the process of diagnosis because they learned that females display very differently from males. And they were diagnosing based on the male characteristics because those were, I guess, a lot clearer to understand. But I have watched a lot of TEDx talks of different autistic individuals and the females always say the same thing. Like they weren't diagnosed until they're like 30 something. And then all of a sudden their lives made sense. And it was because they present differently.
Adeel [20:41]: So the females present, I'm just kind of curious.
Liz [20:45]: Um, I think because we're also, we tend to be nurtured in a certain way by whatever the society norms are. Um, Girls mask a lot quicker, a lot earlier in life. And masking is exactly that. It's hiding those things. So they learn earlier on how to fake being acceptable. Whereas with males, I think maybe there's a bit more of a struggle for them to recognize why they're not fitting in and how to mask. So the females... I can't really speak to it because I don't have autism. So I, I'm not a hundred percent certain, but I just know that they all said they presented differently. So there's a female version and there's a male version. And I know the DSM five has the newest, uh, the diagnosis diagnostics for it. And it's a little more clear, I think. Um, But, you know, even for my son and his autism, we went to a developmental pediatrician who said, nope, he's ODD. And I'm like, okay. Oppositional defiant disorder. Oh. Yeah. And because it does present that way, because he's struggling to communicate. So it seems like he's in opposition and being defiant. However, it didn't. it didn't gel with the behavior. Just, it didn't click for me. And then I took him to a pediatric psychiatrist, same thing. He's like, no, he doesn't have it. And then I finally got referred to a specialized unit where the doctor was like, yes, he does. She's like, it's subtle things that are showing. And I was like, no, that's interesting. You know, it's luck of the draw who you end up with. Like,
Adeel [22:44]: how would i have ever found out that i have mesophonia if i didn't have postpartum depression and end up with this particular psychologist yeah that's the podcast before where you know especially with our um maybe not as much in toronto but like in the u.s you get shuttled into some health insurance plan then you have limited amount of doctors and it's like who you end up well even in Canada I guess I mean if you you know it's still the same thing you don't have as much choice and so it's kind of who you end up with could you know basically dictate your entire life exactly and so there's probably a whole whack load of misophones out there who are still you know suffering trying not to strangle their loved ones or well that's why this podcast exists and why I love self diagnosis from the internet laughing
Liz [23:36]: So back to the original question about whether or not it's diagnosed more or if it's occurring more. One of the things that I remember reading about autistic research a long, long time ago, it had to be at least 20 years ago, was in Canada, they had discovered that areas that had higher rainfalls throughout the year had higher numbers of people being diagnosed with autism.
Adeel [24:03]: Hmm.
Liz [24:04]: And that always stuck with me because I was like, okay, they're not saying it's causative, obviously, it's just associative, but what does it mean? And then when more diagnoses started coming across, I thought now it would be really interesting if they started observing the weather again. Because of course, with climate change, everything's gone, just bananas. And so we don't have that same consistency anymore. So if there is something causative about the weather, With these pregnant women giving birth to autistic individuals, it'd be really interesting to know.
Adeel [24:37]: Yeah. When you said that, actually, I thought of, and I'm not a conspiracy person at all. It was stuff that came to mind because I grew up in Canada. And I remember in the 80s, there was a big debate about acid rain. Oh, yeah. But ozone layer as well, but acid rain, pollution, and then coming down in the rain. And so... You know, when you mentioned more rain and more autism, obviously my mind went to that a little bit. But yeah, not drawing a line, but I'm just saying, yeah. That's another thing I'm wondering, like, you know, some things have been kind of like talked about for a while, but mysteriously no research gets done. And why is that? funding yes yes and who controls the funding and then this whole other thing um let's talk about yeah i mean let's talk about so misophonia sound triggers for you growing up were you also having uh issues with the other senses you know a lot of us have misokinesia which is the visual triggers yes definitely because i i don't know if this is common or not the misokinesia if it is always hand in hand with misophonia or not but um
Liz [25:53]: Like I said, repetition was definitely a big one. And so simple things like touch.
Adeel [25:58]: Leg shaking or touch, yeah, yeah.
Liz [26:01]: Okay, first visually, if I see, and my brother was one of those leg shakers. Good God, I wanted to cut his leg off.
Adeel [26:07]: The Jimmy legs, yeah.
Liz [26:09]: Yeah, yeah. He has like this crazy metabolism because he's always shaking. But anyway, that was one of the physical things that, but I used to just like, put my nails into his leg. Um, and he would stop briefly. Uh, the other was if somebody is touching me and the touch is repetitive, like even if it was a massage, but they, they lingered a little too long in one spot, all of a sudden.
Adeel [26:39]: Interesting.
Liz [26:40]: So yeah, it's, it's, it's been a visual and, uh, tactile as well. Um, and then the sound, If the sound is repetitive, definitely. That has the strongest reaction.
Adeel [26:58]: For you, are there certain types of music that are an issue as well? Because, you know, modern music is based on repetition. I'm just curious if there are.
Liz [27:07]: Well, this is the one thing that, because I really reacted to country music and I never understood. There was a time when I was doing my undergrad And I was doing some student work in a lab to make some money at the same time. And I walked in to the lab that day and somebody was playing country music. There was a CD in the player and it just struck me. And I don't remember this. I apparently walked up to the thing, popped it out, took the CD and snapped it in half. And the person who owned it came over in shock and I handed it to her and said, don't play country music and then I kind of came back so they never played country music in that lab again but I had never thought of it until again I had the diagnosis and it's like yeah because there's a a twangy repetition for me in a lot now mind you it's a lot of older country music but I still associate it's if it sounds country it feels like it's trying to tear my skin off So I have to stop it.
Adeel [28:22]: Yep. I hear you. Okay. No, that's interesting. I'm also not a fan of country.
Liz [28:32]: And anything else. I can enjoy techno and pop and stuff.
Adeel [28:38]: Yeah, I was going to get into that stuff. Electronic music is very repetitive, obviously.
Liz [28:45]: I can enjoy it. Um, but only is very limited, but it doesn't hit me right away.
Adeel [28:51]: Yeah.
Liz [28:52]: But once it does finally kind of, okay, this is my max, then it's my max. And that's one of the things, again, with my son, um, you know, kids and screens in this day and age and playing all these different games and computer games and more video games, their sounds are all repetitive. Right. So, It takes very little time for me to tell him, turn the volume off! And he does.
Adeel [29:21]: Does he have it on the speaker, or do you just have him use your bus?
Liz [29:28]: Usually he's playing on my tablet, so it's just blasting out. He just turns the volume down. But he's also really, really into that type of music, and There are, well, God knows how many. It's not like I run around checking out YouTube. But there are a couple of channels that he really likes where they just play that music from that game. Ah, okay. Yeah. He really likes that. So I have to do the mental compromise of, okay, this is stimming for him. So I don't, you know, I got to let him do it. But he knows that there's a limit.
Adeel [30:15]: interesting um yeah getting back to getting back to you maybe yeah comment you made earlier about obviously misanthropy you you know as an adult you have to interact with adults at some point i'm curious uh um how does that work in terms of work or outside work socializing does that happen i guess i'm fortunate in one way
Liz [30:42]: And not at the same time. Because of a bunch of health issues that have arisen in the past seven years, I'm on disability, so I don't go into a workplace. I'm at home most of the time. So other than the people living upstairs in the house I'm in, who drive me bonkers with their sound, because this is not a soundproofed environment, the only time is on public transit. you know, or in a shop.
Adeel [31:12]: Yeah.
Liz [31:13]: Uh, in a shop somewhere. Um, or when I'm either dropping my son off or picking him up because those parents are just fascinating individuals. If I wanted to do a PhD, but I don't, they just staring at their phones. Uh, good portion of them. It's there. Um, What's the word? They're millennials.
Adeel [31:41]: I'm Gen X. Oh, okay.
Liz [31:44]: So, yeah, I kind of don't fit in with them. And I don't know. It's really strange to me to witness it. Because I was like, well, we're all parents of kids the same age. But I had my boy, wait, I was 39. So, you know, some of them might be that age now. The interactions with them, you know, because... They definitely give off that air of entitlement, which includes things like taking up my space with their sound and their everything. So, yeah, I've had a couple of, I don't want to say confrontations, but I'm... I'm blank for a better word.
Adeel [32:30]: Yeah. No, that's a, yeah. Actually. Yeah. We were, we were going to come back to some, uh, yeah. Some maybe anecdotes. Do you have any kind of like, uh, anecdotes? Cause you said you are more on the fight side and I'm sure a lot of people would relate.
Liz [32:42]: Well, I was known in high school. Um, it's a very angry, like I know there was the teenage angst, but I was known as angry.
Adeel [32:51]: Yeah.
Liz [32:52]: Um, I did have the nickname psycho.
Adeel [32:55]: Yep.
Liz [32:55]: And I did. I guess there have been some times where I probably crossed the line before I realized it. But people tended to just chalk that up to my personality. So if I slam somebody against a locker or threw someone in a garbage can, I don't know, I got away with a lot.
Adeel [33:26]: Were those related to sounds or was it just Liz?
Liz [33:30]: Sometimes sound, usually more just because people existed and they were in my vicinity. I definitely was known for being very sharp-witted with my tongue. And that's usually with the adults.
Adeel [33:54]: You never used profanities, though, I'm sure.
Liz [33:57]: Almost never. Really?
Adeel [33:59]: Okay.
Liz [34:01]: I didn't need to. I've always been a very big fan of British humor. Yeah, of course. And so I found that they seem to lack an understanding of the English language for the most part. And so I just used that on them.
Adeel [34:19]: Okay.
Liz [34:20]: And it was my coping mechanism because I can't stand people. So at least if I could amuse myself. Okay.
Adeel [34:31]: Humor is a coping method on its own.
Liz [34:34]: Yes, it is. Well, I've always said my life is a series of stupid stories. Seriously, I should actually write a movie script for it. Yeah. I've also said if it wasn't for humor, I probably would have killed myself a long time ago. So yeah, it's definitely a coping mechanism. Let's see now. So my son's father, who we separated in 2020.
Adeel [35:03]: Pre-COVID?
Liz [35:05]: Yeah, because that was a brilliant time for me to move from one province to the other. It was July 2020 when I moved. Right in the middle. Brilliant. Um, he had some repetitive behaviors that I kind of had to coach out of him. I don't know how you would really describe it. Just idiosyncrasies. Um, yeah, but he was like, they were things that he did unwittingly. Like it wasn't really a conscious thing. And of course I made him conscious of it. And so I think he was conscious enough to avoid doing it in my presence. I don't think he stopped necessarily doing any of those things because he was also neurodivergent himself. And so probably stimming a bit for him. But other relationships, I don't, I, other than the snoring, snoring was definitely one. And I have smothered a few briefly.
Adeel [36:07]: You just need to do it briefly until they stop breathing.
Liz [36:10]: Well, you know, you work with what you got. It's the middle of the night. You're tired. What's there is a pillow. And if they start choking, they wake up and they stop doing that. Although one guy went far enough to actually go and get surgery.
Adeel [36:28]: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't even remember if it helped or not, but
Liz [36:37]: I guess I must have punched him in the gut once in the middle of the night. And so he kind of took that as a hint. Yeah. Sometimes I really don't remember.
Adeel [36:48]: So yeah.
Liz [36:50]: Um, otherwise it, it wasn't something that came to light because of course I didn't know then that it was misophonia either. So it was probably something more that I attributed to their own individual characteristics and them just being annoying. which of course went quite well along with the fact that they're human. And so their existence already annoyed me.
Adeel [37:13]: Yeah.
Liz [37:14]: Yeah.
Adeel [37:14]: They're already at a disadvantage. Yeah.
Liz [37:16]: Yeah. And they know that too. They usually discover that pretty early on with me. I don't know why they try. Now that you brought that up.
Adeel [37:28]: You're like, yeah, let's date. I don't know why. I don't want you to exist, but yeah, let's date for a while.
Liz [37:36]: Well, I could go full exposure and, you know, it wasn't exactly an emotional connection I was seeking.
Adeel [37:43]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Liz [37:45]: There we go. Which is why now I don't bother people at all.
Adeel [37:52]: Yeah, yeah.
Liz [37:54]: I've got two guinea pigs and two cats and their sounds don't bug me.
Adeel [37:58]: what are your i mean what what are your obviously yeah so you obviously stay away from people and you you know you pointed out things uh your public transportation and whatnot do you have other coping methods like do you have like earbuds noise cancelling headphones i'm just kind of curious when you go to the grocery store or whatever i do i do like to listen to music so i will put my earbuds in um
Liz [38:21]: That's another interesting thing is for the period after I'd given birth and during a postpartum depression up until probably just this past year, the paranoia that I developed made it difficult for me to use music to block out other sounds because I was worried about missing sounds that were threatening. So I've only started to re-engage in that and being able to blast my music and not hear anything else is a big big help so you were were you was it related to your your your son that you're afraid of missing sounds like basically that was part of it that was part of it the the paranoia went it was extreme like first of all i was terrified of my own baby um and then the uh the transition to solid foods i took a very methodical scientific approach to it and I didn't sleep. I was constantly processing information about what was the next food item and if there was a reaction and stuff like that. And yeah, then there was the, I need to be able to see him and hear him all the time. Yeah, I stopped listening to music until he started listening to, you know, the Wiggles and whatever. Right. That's repetitive.
Adeel [39:36]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I listen to the Wiggles, too. I'm curious, kind of, what does your son think of your misophonia? Like, you said you talk about it. I'm just curious, kind of, what his thoughts are.
Liz [39:45]: Well, he's a very, very intelligent person. The last time he was tested... his cognitive abilities he functions at least two years older than his age so like he understands a lot of things that a lot of adults don't even understand so I don't know how much of my particular problem he understands but he does know repetition can make his mom sick and that I can end up vomiting He does know that certain sounds cause me to... I try not to react as angrily as I used to, so he just knows they bother me. And that's kind of it, really, as far as I know. We haven't gone into any depth with it. I also suffer from migraines, but he doesn't seem to have any empathy where that's concerned. He wants something. So, yeah, it's hard for me to tell exactly where the line is for him.
Adeel [40:59]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, speaking of potential migraines, I'm just curious, are there comorbid conditions that you have that you want to, you don't mind bringing up?
Liz [41:08]: Oh, good God. I'd be listing off a lot. But the migraines definitely, I'm a human barometer. So every time the atmospheric pressure drops, my migraines hit. And not every single time, but I can guarantee that the pressure is dropped if I get hit with a migraine. And I've actually done comparisons where I wake up and my brain is in a certain state and I'm like, I'm going to check the weather network. And they're saying, oh, it's going up. And I'm like, no, it's not. And then about an hour later, they've changed it. I should work for them. Yeah.
Adeel [41:47]: Oh, yeah.
Liz [41:47]: If your barometers don't work.
Adeel [41:49]: No, you just make a website that you update based on how you're feeling and then pay a wallet.
Liz [41:57]: Yeah, my migraine barometer. That would be helpful. So, yeah, the migraines and definitely when I'm hit with a migraine, I can't tolerate any sound because it's painful. So then, of course, I'm also... far less tolerant of everything. And so if I was to have any of that type of triggering sound around me, I'm pretty sure I would not stop myself from hurting somebody. But typically with a migraine, I'm in the dark alone somewhere. I can't be around people with that.
Adeel [42:35]: Um, well, Liz, yeah, we're, you know, we're heading up close to an hour. Yeah, anything, anything, I've covered a lot of ground, obviously, but I don't know, anything else you want to share about yourself, your, your son, kind of like what you've, um, I don't know, you said obviously somebody's thought about misophonia a lot. Um, anything you want to share? Actually, I'm curious, do you know anyone else who has misophonia? I don't know if we talked about this in the past, but, um, not like you interact with a lot, but.
Liz [43:04]: Yeah, exactly. No, I can't say that I remember meeting anybody. I remember when I had first discovered it, I had posted something that somebody else with misophonia had written to describe it just on my Facebook. And one of my high school friends read it and he responded saying, that sounds horrible. And I'm like, uh-huh. And he was one of my close friends in high school, so he was one of the people who thought I was psycho. And I think it kind of just opened a window for him there. It was like, oh, she wasn't nuts. Or she was nuts because of sound. I don't know. But yeah. Well, that's great.
Adeel [43:45]: You're spreading awareness at least. And maybe he'll recommend it to somebody else.
Liz [43:50]: I have actually, when I previously spoke with you, I had not told any family members about it. I have spoken with my dad about it now. And he is aware of it, although he has such a horrible sleep disorder. He has no memory most of the time. So he can forget and repeat himself. And I'm like, you know, you're repeating it. Stop talking. Just stop talking. And that's the other thing I have discovered recently as a trigger is that when two people try to talk to me at the same time, and this happens a lot when you have a kid. I don't know why. One starts talking and the other one always has to start talking too. That one is a mega trigger for me. And I snap back pretty sharp, pretty fast. Like I remember the last time it was, once again, it was my father and my son. And the two of them are both talking at me. Neither of them waits to see if I acknowledge one of them. They just, you know. And I'm trying to decipher the conversations. And finally, I just yelled at both of them. I cannot understand you if you're both talking at me. But it was really because it was just constant sound, period. And I was like, oh, no.
Adeel [45:11]: I can definitely feel that. I definitely do have an issue with two people talking at the same time and then neither of them realizing that, neither of them thinking, maybe I should just kind of like... hold off and let the, you know, let one conversation happen. And I think it's, for me, it's like a worst one. Um, I always, I'm always paranoid that as soon as I start talking, somebody else is going to start talking at the same time because they thought I was going to say, it's like, and then I feel like, I don't know if it's, um, I'm always looking for the, uh, Murphy's law, but I feel like it's always, it always happens where I'm in a group of people. I'll think of something to say, but it just happens to be as soon as somebody else is going to start.
Unknown Speaker [45:49]: Yeah.
Liz [45:50]: I have something similar but opposite to that, where somebody will make me think of something, and I'm so terrified I'm going to forget it, that I try to seek any opportunity to get it out there, because otherwise I'll be wandering around all day going, what was that?
Adeel [46:08]: Yeah, right.
Liz [46:10]: Plus, I think my thoughts are far more important anyway.
Adeel [46:13]: Well, of course they are. Second to mine. Yeah, well, cool. I mean, yeah, this is a great catching up. Time flew by again. I have to obviously talk to you again at some point. I always love talking to Canadian misophones, especially the best kinds. Yeah, but yeah, thanks again for coming on. And yeah, good luck with everything and your son. Thank you again, Liz. Fun conversation as always, and I hope we stay in touch. 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 helloatmissiphoniapodcast.com or go to the website, missiphoniapodcast.com. It's even easier to send a message on Instagram at Missifonia Podcast. Follow there on Facebook at Missifonia Podcast and on Twitter X if you're still using that. It's Missifonia Show. Support the show by visiting the Patreon at patreon.com slash Missifonia Podcast. The music, as always, is by Moby. And until next week, wishing you peace and quiet.
Unknown Speaker [47:55]: you