Misophonia and situations out of my control

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I have misophonia. I normally keep it under control by avoiding my trigger sounds and wearing earplugs because when I can't avoid the sounds I bite my hands or pinch and punch my legs. I am in a very small class and my latin teacher has the habit of standing right behind me chewing gum. Obviously I can't avoid my latin lessons, and I can't wear earplugs because I need to hear what she says. I am so anxious about my latin lessons now, I don't know what to do.
Does someone have any advice?

Write a short letter about good manners, chewing in lessons and the impact of disgusting noises on a student's concentration. Give her the letter in an officially looking envelope and hope that she reads it.

I can easily sympathise with you. I also have misophonia and that situation would affect me badly.

Is it possible to put together a set of information about misophonia that your teacher can read, and then explain that you have this condition and cannot concentrate when people are chewing gum?

I would emphasise that you want to do well, and that there is nothing that anyone is doing wrong, it is just that you have this unusual condition and you cannot focus or get any work done around gum chewing. You could say that it is like a "sound allergy" and unfortunately it has been causing you distress. You want to get the teacher on your side, and not make it a criticism, so you may have to play up the angle that it is something wrong with you. A teacher is more likely to help if they feel good about it than if they feel bad about it, so make your explanation all about your problem, not their behavior.

An alternative - but someone else will probably have to explain how this works - might be a disability plan or an IEP, whatever it is called where you are. Misophonia can be officially cited as hyperacusis, I believe, and then you could ask for the absence of gum chewing as your accommodation. This probably requires paperwork and maybe some kind of diagnosis from an audiologist or doctor (I don't know all the details).

simply tell her that you cannot block out sounds, that numerous sounds that noone else minds bother you, and that sounds are louder to you, and that you have a diagnosis for this, it's called "misphonia"


tell her then that normally you wear earplugs to reduce this, and that the best equivalent is a mild form of what that kid from the movie "daredevil" experiences right when he gains his super-hearing, and that gumchewing causes a large range of sound, is loud to you, and comes from behind you - three things that take up huge amounts of brainpower to analyze every little detail of and you've got not real conscious control over it, therefore it distracts you

I don't put my back to people much I've noticed, and if there's a sound out of my vision my ears perk up and I'm on high alert, and lots of sounds don't necessarily *bother* me.... it's more like they make me jumpy, I'm used to stress a lot .... so irritation isn't so common for me anymore, just exhaustion

It depends on the teacher. Some teachers would try to accustom you to the sound by chewing even more behind you. They'd think they can desensitise you that way.

That's why it might be a better approach to first make clear that the teacher's manners in front of a class are not commendable, then explain why you cannot adapt to it, then explain misophonia in general. All three steps make one single letter with three paragraphs.

oh megahertz makes a good point, so I'd add that when you point out that it's a *neurological* -brain structure based... thing, it has nothing to do with supermagical ideas about willpower, and that "only binge drinking leading to the death of brain cells would solve it, leading to other problems, of course"

or explain that your brain does not have the components necessary to do selective hearing that everyone else takes for granted and doesn't realize they have, and then tell her that it's been checked on

OR, a third option on the matter, wait and see if she does it, grab some gum and if she does it, pop one in and chew as loud and annoyingly as you can while focusing on latin, I'm sure that the noise you're making will help you focus due to the white noise effect and the fact that since it's an internally created noise that you have control over, it won't "hit" your brain so hard - but I could be wrong, still, it's an idea

or a 4th idea, wait and see what happens, and just say "misphonia"

sometimes it pays to do a demonstration, start listing sounds you hear, if you do an exhaustive enough list they'll get the point, some people would be amazed that someone can even keep track of all those sounds, but then they might also think you're a witch and try to see if you weigh as much as a wooden duck