Misophonia can turn even the simplest sounds into a battle for sanity, and in places like a crowded restaurant, it’s an uphill one.
But when one teen tried to manage her triggers during a family dinner by escaping to the bathroom, it only led to a bigger conflict with her mother.
Read on for the full story.
I (16F) was diagnosed with misophonia at age 12.
Some of my family knows that – specifically, family I frustrate enough to know that.
They’ve respected it, and haven’t used it against me if we get into a disagreement or if something doesn’t go their way.
She explains further.
For those who don’t know, misophonia is when someone has strong reactions to certain sounds/triggers, and it overwhelms them, brings them to tears, go into fight or flight, etc.
Tonight I was at a family dinner, and quite a few of my triggers popped up and kept happening.
A few of them were: sniffling, open mouth chewing (mouth sounds), very heavy breathing, and lip smacking.
She tried to manage it in a calm and collected way.
I was controlled in the situation and simply excused myself from dinner for a few minutes.
Just to relieve myself from the ongoing noises at the dinner table.
But it seems this still wasn’t good enough for her mother.
After around 5 minutes, I went back, but my mother was very quiet and cold towards me the rest of the night.
When we got back home, I asked her if there was something wrong or if I didn’t something to upset her.
Her mother had a lot to say.
She started talking about how rude it was for me to excuse myself from dinner just because of “simple noises that I was overreacting about”.
But the teen doesn’t see it this way at all.
The thing is, I didn’t even say to my family that I was overstimulated, I just said I was going to the bathroom.
The mother claims to know better, despite the teen not vocalizing her thoughts.
To my mother, however, I apparently have a specific look on my face whenever I get overwhelmed/overstimulated.
I sort of knew about it, but I try to keep it straight whenever I get like that.
She still feel justified she did the right thing, even if it upset her mother.
I feel I wasn’t in the wrong for just taking a few minutes away from my triggers, and just calming myself down.
She said that it was rude of me to “interrupt” dinner, when I never actually did. I just said I was going to the bathroom.
AITA?
What was meant to be a quiet escape turned into a loud confrontation.
Redditors chime in with their two-cents.
This user encourages the teen to exercise the agency to leave a situation whenever she needs to.
Out of all people, the mother should understand – or at least try to.
Someone is causing a problem here, but it’s not the teen.
This commenter wonders if the mom truly understood what the alternative was here.
This teen tried her best to avoid a meltdown, but she didn’t know she’d trigger a showdown.
It wasn’t the sounds that caused the most discomfort – it was the silence that followed.
If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.
