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The Unbearable Loudness of Chewing

Why do some people find certain sounds intolerable? And why has it taken so long for scientists to get even a preliminary answer?

He soon took a faculty position at the University of Maryland that came with a clinic to further his study, where he also saw patients with another sound tolerance disorder called hyperacusis, a rare condition affecting about one in 50,000 people in which noises are perceived as unbearably loud. (Its second spike occurs in May 2012, when ABC’s 20/20 aired a somewhat sensational segment about a daughter who couldn’t even talk to her mom; it also featured Kelly Ripa, who self-diagnosed with misophonia after reading the Times article.) “My trigger is the worst thing in my life,” “I've honestly felt the urge to punch my own wife,” “I fucking hate it with every fiber of my being,” “I have no friends, and it's often hard to even go outside.” A number of suicides have been traced to misophonia.

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