Hi saskia and wave to indigo,
I don’t know if this will help but I can describe a bit how I managed to recover from another related hearing disorder that’s a bit similar. When I was 26 I developed severe hyperacusis after an accident with audio equipment. This involved all sounds, even really quiet ones, becoming acutely painful. Even someone slightly rustling a newspaper in another room would set off acute pain.
I went to an audiologist who said my sound tolerance was down to about 20 decibels which is the sound of a breeze in the trees. He suggested I think of sound as “food for the ears” and work on seeing if I can retrain my brain to like sound and perceive it as a good thing. He said my brain had rewired how it was responding to sound and was perceiving it strongly as a threat. I also have a complex trauma history from childhood so my brain was already susceptible to having a hypervigilant response. So it doesn’t surprise me when you describe your misophonia as trauma-based.
So what I did was I slowly reintroduced my brain to sounds in small amounts. I would go for a walk of about 45 minutes. I had to wear ear plugs to protect myself from passing cars. At first the sound of my footsteps on the pavement was almost unbearable, but gradually over the duration of the walk I would think of the incoming sound as a positive thing - food for the ears as the audiologist said. Towards the end of the walk I was partially desensitised to the sounds of my footsteps. Over time this desensitisation increased and my capacity to cope with everyday sounds kept increasing. Eventually I was close to normal. I can live a completely normal life now in terms of my hearing. Occasionally the hyperacusis is set off by something like a loud Harley Davidson motorcycle roaring past. I then might be troubled with some ear pain and visceral distress for a few minutes, but it settles relatively quickly.
Basically I experienced sound as not only acutely physically painful but emotionally distressing, so I really empathise with what you are going through. The way sensory input is being processed in the brain is altered. But I think it can be progressively normalised so that the responses are not so hypervigilant.
Another thing I tried was listening to soft, ambient music that also was fairly non-emotional - so basically just sound that wasn’t setting my emotions off in any kind of sensitive way. One thing that I listened to was Music for Airports by Brian Eno and another of his ambient albums On Land. For some reason I could tolerate that but I couldn’t handle music with much emotion in it (when previously I loved all music). The Music for Airports seemed to particularly help as it’s designed for the kind of liminal space of an airport and doesn’t really have any emotional reference points if that makes sense. For you there may be something different that works in terms of music/sound exposure. But I feel the key might be finding ways to retrain your brain to like sounds and experience them as positive, like a form of nourishment.
As indigo suggests it may help to talk about your fears with your mum and/or therapist. I think it’s true that the fear itself can make the hearing response worse. I know it is so incredibly difficult and like being inside a world that others just don’t understand. Writing things down about how you feel may help too and you can always give a description of what your world is like and what your fears are in writing to your mum and/or therapist. Sometimes it’s easier to put in writing. Like indigo I think it’s likely your mum is just frustrated and struggling to know what to do. It’s not your fault, your brain is just processing sound differently. But with time, patience and a few strategies I think it can be possible for your brain to begin normalising with sound processing. It might just take some trial and error and thinking a bit out of the box as to what may help.
Take care and we are here if you would like to talk more.
Kind regards,
Eagle Ray
