{"id":477116,"date":"2026-03-15T15:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/477116\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T15:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:10:09","slug":"accepting-that-misophonia-means-doing-things-differently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/477116\/","title":{"rendered":"Accepting That Misophonia Means Doing Things Differently"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coping with misophonia<\/a> can often mean living your life in a way that you didn\u2019t expect. This can impact individuals with misophonia, or their entire family. Family dinners are one example: For many families, this is the pivotal part of family time, but with misophonia, these dinners can lead to frustration, distress, and a dysfunctional family unit. This can be painful for the person with misophonia and their loved ones.<\/p>\n

There are numerous ways that living with misophonia can mean doing things differently\u2014for example, wearing earphones and earbuds in public, work, or school; choosing not to attend events that are too stressful<\/a>; and even managing and organizing your life in a way that challenges your own expectations of the “right” way to do things.<\/p>\n

My book Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Misophonia<\/a> focuses on using cognitive behavioral<\/a> therapy<\/a> to manage these expectations and ideas. The emotional aftermath of living your life in a way that may not be congruent with your ideals and values can be its own form of grief<\/a>. Through grief work, reframing, and having a compassionate approach to one\u2019s own needs, this can be mitigated.<\/p>\n

Unlike CBT for cognitive disorders, CBT for misophonia does not aim to mitigate the distress entirely. Unfortunately, since misophonia is neurophysiological this reaction cannot be completely alleviated. Instead, CBT for misophonia aims to reduce distress over living with the condition and mediate one’s sense of self with the condition. In a recent Substack piece<\/a> on misophonia, I described my own discomfort with choosing an alternative path.<\/p>\n

I have a confession to make\u2026 my misophonia is bad enough that I\u2019ve planned to run away for the summer. It\u2019s hard being an advocate for misophonia, a clinician, and the director of The International Misophonia Foundation and facing that despite coping skills, despite an understanding of my nervous system<\/a>, and despite my best efforts, I\u2019ve chosen to go home to my parents\u2019 house in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Where I live now is cramped and loud. It\u2019s army housing so we are basically in shoe boxes tacked together\u2014or row houses as they call them. There are constant dogs barking, lawnmowers, basketballs bouncing, and screeching sounds from morning until night. For somebody with misophonia this has become too much for me. I\u2019ve adjusted to spending time in other areas of the house while triggers are present outside my window, and I\u2019ve reminded myself with reframing that I won\u2019t live here forever and they aren\u2019t doing it to hurt me. And yet, the power of those triggers against my nervous system is still so strong that I\u2019d rather take a 6 hour drive with 4 cats and spend time wedged between mountains in a quiet valley.<\/p>\n

It can be important for those with misophonia to recognize that it\u2019s OK to live their life in a way that isn\u2019t the “ideal.” In fact, it is often important to recognize where these ideals have come from and whether or not they were realistic in the first place. For some, this might mean separate bedrooms from their spouse, eating in different rooms, or choosing activities together as alternatives to triggering environments, such as going for walks instead of eating together.<\/p>\n

Accepting our limitations and differences is often one of the most difficult parts of coping with misophonia, but it can lead to outcomes that are more reasonable than trying to conform<\/a> to a world that doesn\u2019t meet our sensory needs. Instead, people with misophonia can focus on their adaptability and resilience<\/a>, and take pride in choosing alternatives that are better for their own mental and neurophysiological health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coping with misophonia can often mean living your life in a way that you didn\u2019t expect. This can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-477116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}