BPDFamily.com

I just read that there is comorbidity with BPD and Misophonia. 

"Individuals with misophonia often report they are triggered by oral sounds  -- the noise someone makes when they eat, breathe, or even chew. Other adverse sounds include. keyboard or finger tapping or the sound of windshield wipers. Sometimes a small repetitive motion is the cause -- someone fidgets, jostles you, or wiggles their foot."

I'm asking because my uBPDw gets enraged but such things and laughs and claims she has misophonia.   I was just wondering if anyone here's SO has this as well?

Thanks,
SH4

OMG yes! I have to eat my cereal outside (in the summer) or in another room, otherwise risk dysregultion at the best. Our kids sound like cows eating at the dinner table and I can feel the tension coming from him. Could be coincidence but regardless it’s interesting

Yes! This is 100% him.  And he hears everything, even if it is upstairs.  He will ask if I heard it, when I hadn't noticed, but he hears it all!
Also, he does a lot of fidgety/tapping himself, but is quick to be irritated by someone else doing it.

His biggest issue is shuffling of feet (the kids are great at marching now lol)

Wow. Same here.
It seems like there is always something new to learn, and something new that re-enforces my conclusion that my wife has a high functioning bpd. Last winter, after 23 years of never complaining about shuffling sounds, she had to leave the supermarket while we were shopping because the sound of other shopper's boots scuffling and shuffling on the floor was more than she could bear. It was no act. It really bothered her. She was visibly distressed and perspiring a little. Funny thing is, after she pointed it out, I was getting  little annoyed at the shuffling too.

She is easily annoyed by noisy table manners as well. I'm not sure how much of that is beyond what would be considered normal or not, but there does seem to be a heightened sensitivity and reaction.

Yep, that's kind of amazing. I had never heard the term misaphonia until I met my wife. And chewing is her number one irritant. One thing she's commonly angry with me about is that I frequently eat dinner after her, because I work in construction and have to shower when I get home, and that means she has to listen to me chew without having chewing of her own to do (haha it's hilarious typing it out). I've had to leave the room multiple times for my sake as well because the annoyance radiates off her even if she tells me it's okay.

I literally laughed out loud when I saw this title because YES! Hyper sensitive to noise. Like super hearing, almost looking for sounds to upset her. My exBPD could hear the slightest noise and get irritated...just like every other little thing that could set them off.

Thank You for posting this thread as it gave me another very negative thing to remember about my ex :)

lol...YES again...it could be the slightest noise heard from half way across the house. She would ask me if I heard it and get angry if I didn't. Like how couldn't I have heard it and it not irritate me(because it sure did her).

Question?  Do you think that's it?  Do you think they are constantly waiting and wanting something, be it a reaction, a noise, the weather, anything to piss them off?

SH4

Yes!  My uBPDw’s Misophonia symptoms have dramatically increased the last several years, as her BPD symptoms seem to have worsened.  Examples: any eating/chewing sounds (which she can hear even upstairs); anyone snapping/chewing gum loudly (on one occasion, she heard someone in a busy gym also on a treadmill next to her and had to stop running); the dog licking its paws; my whistling or making percussion sounds with music; and the list goes on.  We first heard of Misophonia about 3 years ago and she dismissed it. All these sounds irritate her so much that she gets angry, shouts and becomes dysregulated.

Misophonia and Potential Underlying Mechanisms: A Perspective
Devon B. Palumbo,1 Ola Alsalman,1 Dirk De Ridder,2 Jae-Jin Song,3 and Sven Vanneste1,*

Characteristics
Misophonia usually begins during childhood or adolescence, sometimes affecting academic performance (Edelstein et al., 2013; Schroder et al., 2013). An intense negative emotional reaction is usually triggered by bodily sounds (e.g., chewing, breathing, swallowing, and foot tapping, etc.) and may be connected to a particular person creating that sound (Edelstein et al., 2013; Schroder et al., 2013). In addition to the emotional aversion, patients sometimes report physical pressure building in the chest, the desire to stop the person from making the sound, and other autonomic reactions (Moller, 2011). Sometimes patients will mimic the sound to cancel it out. Rarely do physical reactions, such as assaulting the person making the sound, occur. However, because the patient is never sure when the trigger sound might be heard, the patient often lives in a perpetual state of anxiety. Patients are hyper-focused on listening for that trigger; they will avoid certain situations, people, and foods that they think will cause the sound (Edelstein et al., 2013). Overall, patients may suffer physical and emotional discomfort, contributing to a reduced quality of life (Edelstein et al., 2013).

According to Jastreboff and Jastreboff (2015), only 7 cases (2.2%) out of 318 misophonic patients exhibited a psychiatric disorder. Some researchers argue that misophonia and psychiatric disorders are unrelated. However, others tend to believe that psychiatric disorders and misophonia might coexist. Schroder et al. (2013) conducted a study to classify misophonia as its own form of psychiatric disorder. Their results showed a pattern of intense reactions to specific stimuli, avoidance, and worry that matched with traits of other psychiatric disorders, i.e., social phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders with impulsive aggression, intermittent explosive disorder, autism spectrum disorder, sensory processing disorders, antisocial personality disorder, and phonophobia (Schroder et al., 2013). Although the nosological nature of misophonia is still a topic of debate, Schroder’s findings seem to call for misophonia to be classified as a subtype of a discrete psychiatric disorder.

From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6034066/

Misophonia is described by some as being rare, but other studies and surveys indicate that approximately 15% of the population report significant symptoms related to misophonia.  Given this, in addition to some of the traits of pwBPD, I would not be surprised to find out that a lot of people with BPD also have misophonia.  BTW, misophonia is *not* a psychiatric disorder as it is not listed in the DSM and a diagnosis of misophonia is poorly worded at best.  There are plenty of people with Misophonia who do not have a psychiatric disorder though a lot of the people with it tend to have more type A personality traits.

I would be interested in reading this.  Do you still have the source available?

Joe,

May I ask how old your wife is?

SH4

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3553052/

The symptom pattern of misophonia shares a number of features with other DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10 diagnoses: specific phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), intermittent explosive disorder, emotionally unstable personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, OCPD, and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). It also shares similarities with sensory processing disorders (SPD) and phonophobia. Even though misophonia resembles these disorders, none of the diagnostic categories fit the whole symptom pattern of misophonia:

SH4,

My wife is 40, and this started becoming worse maybe 3-4 years ago.  Before that, she would get somewhat irritated at some sounds (like the dog), but I don’t think it was as bad.

Interested in your story.

-Joe

Thanks SH4   |iiii  That was an interesting read.   Sounds like, along with most other studies, there seems to be a similarity between symptoms of misophonia and OCD, OCPD and PTSD in some areas but no definitive link to a specific disorder, personality PD or otherwise.

For those reading who have misophonia themselves or whose loved ones have it, there are treatments.   It requires active participation on part of the 'patient' and mostly concerns avoiding silence through the introduction of an alternative, neutral stimulus that the person can focus upon instead.  Over time this can cut the connection between the stimulus (the distressing sound) and the reflexive reaction related to the limbic system.  Counseling is also part of treatment especially using CBT concepts.

Anyway, interesting discussion.  Thanks.

My uBPDw is in her early 40's and I have noticed things have gotten much worse over the past year.  I have seen people post that it gets a bit better or they can control it more as they age.  SO I'm trying to look at trends.

Thanks,
SH4

Harri,

Funny you should mention this, because I have been doing some research on OCPD and I think my W who has not been formally diagnosed with BPD has traits of this as well.  I can't remember where I read it but I know OCPD is part of cluster C and I read that cluster C is part of the "sad" group.  My W is always sad, frowning and usually miserable.  She claims there is a black cloud that follows her around in life.  Just my observations on my situation.

SH4