The Misophonia Podcast

Part 2 of my interview with Kresta, a therapist in California who was telling us about her journey to what she considers freedom from misophonia and went over topics relating to trauma, the Internal Family Systems modality and brainspotting. Here we dive deeper into her personal journey expanding on what we covered in part 1, plus legacy burdens, seeing an energy healer, getting in her car and goi...

This is part 1 of my conversation with Kresta, a licensed therapist based in Southern California. Kresta is also a misophone, or was a misophone, she says she is now free from misophonia and this extensive conversation describes her journey, and many topics like trauma, going internal family systems, a modality she uses called brainspotting which was key to her journey, and many other fascinating...

Abby is in college in a music therapy program. We discuss misophonia and comorbid conditions, her mental health journey which really began a few years ago, her experiences growing up in a very stable and happy home and her coping methods for miso along the way. We also talk about her music therapy program and the link to the documentary she mentions at the end is below: Music Got Me Here documenta...

Wairimu is a college student in Kenya. This was exciting because I think it’s my first interview with someone based in Africa. We talk about how she feels actually like she has enough agency on her life to keep her misophonia generally under wraps, we talk about ADHD, being in a large family where many of her siblings also have various triggers, her coping methods and just what the general take is...

Paige is a holistic, integrative healer and founder of the Warrior Sanctuary, while also holding a day job at a tech startup. We talk shamanism, meditation, psychedelics and indigenous plant medicine, neuroplasticity, past life healing, root chakra, sound healing, plus her own life story of adverse childhood experiences, a relatively recent concussion, and the emotional impact that hearing the sto...

Nola is a nurse in northern Alberta, Canada. She has had misophonia for over 50 years, but only learned it had a name a few months ago. She’s been on leave from her job due to a major depressive episode, which she attributes to years of misophonia wreaking havoc on her nervous system. We talk about dysregulation, co-regulation and attachment theory, epigenetics, EMDR, Gabor Maté, and even a shouto...

Holli came to my attention when Youtube’s algorithm recommended a video she posted about 5 years ago, about misophonia. And I was impressed with how openly she talked about not just the mechanics of what happens, but all the effects on her life and the people around her. We talk about diagnoses for anxiety, ADHD, medication, growing up in small apartments, the impact of miso on her family, other f...

Jeff happens to be in a nearby city just to the east of me, in the neighboring state of Wisconsin. We talk about misophonia and OCD, his environment growing up with a tough-love dad and younger brother who bore the brunt of many of Jeff’s reactions. We talk about some of his past relationships as well as how he manages miso these days with a very supportive wife and three young kids at home. We al...

Sussie is a 28 year-old British-Ghanaian novelist based in London. She came on my radar after a beautiful essay she wrote for Lithub about her experience with misophonia. Also, we both appeared earlier this week in an article about misophonia in the UK newspaper, the Evening Standard . We talk about the stresses and internal feelings growing up as an ethnic minority in a new land, how past memorie...

Alicia is a teenager in school and singer-songwriter living in Manchester. We talk about misophonia alongside anxiety, autism, cerebral palsy, as well as dealing with bullying in school, being mocked in relationships and how medication for anxiety has affected her misophonia.  Alicia's links   --- Support the podcast on Patreon! Download the official Misophonia Podcast app! For iOS and Androi...

Dr. Cowan is pretty well-known in the Misophonia community as a researcher and therapist focusing on misophonia, as well as OCD and other conditions. We talked about how he got interested in misophonia, especially since he doesn’t have it himself. He explains extensively his model for what misophonia is and then he describes how he developed his therapy, known as Experiential Acceptance and Stimul...

Molly was recently treasurer at a cannabis company in Las Vegas. We talk about the effects of cannabis products, edibles, gummies, on her misophonia. We talk about tips from therapists, her co-morbid OCD, a traumatic childhood, having a hard time in school, and how she opened up just recently to her parents about misophonia and how that went.  --- Support the podcast on Patreon! Download the offic...

Linda is a professional puppeteer and a multidisciplinary visual and performing artist. She created the 9-minute short film called Misophonia which has been going around independent film festivals. I had a chance to see it and was struck by how it captured a lot of aspects of miso without actually saying any words. We get into a lot of different things in our conversation other than this film, suc...

Jay’s mom is a therapist, yet she used Jay’s misophonia as a weapon against her growing up, tormenting her during their arguments.  We also talk about what it was like to get her first office job, why she hasn’t told anyone about her misophonia, except her now fiancé and we talk about how she approached that conversation. We talk about gaslighting a lot:  how we misophones are gaslit for how we fe...

Lisa is a GRAMMY™ Award-winning American singer-songwriter & touring musician, SiriusXM radio host, actor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist who started her career with the platinum-selling hit song “Stay (I Missed You)” from the classic 1994 film Reality Bites .  She is also well-known to parents and kids for her five children’s albums, and two illustrated children’s books with music. And on t...

Brian is a licensed, private practice therapist in New Jersey. We talk about the catastrophic effect miso can have on families, alexithymia, which is the difficulty of describing and expressing our emotions, tactile triggers, unwanted arousal, how the stress of miso might affect our bowel movements. It's a wide-ranging and eye-opening conversation. We even talk about one incident where he phy...

Lauren is a freelance graphic designer in Florida. This is Lauren’s first conversation with someone who understands misophonia, which is always a special occasion, we talk about the wedge this caused growing up between herself and her parents, relationships, having friends and partners trigger her on purpose, the effects of anxiety medication on misophonia, and looking back at how miso put her in...

Ben is a high school sophomore in Utah. Ben’s miso got significantly worse this past year and so he’s been grappling with that at school. We talk about his efforts to voluntarily try exposure therapy as a way to habituate to triggers, self-triggers, improv theatre and some lessons it brings for dealing with miso, plus we talk about miso and the holidays as well as talking with his grandfather abou...

Olivia, an art student in Australia. Olivia is relatively new to learning about misophonia but of course, she has had it for years. We talk about possible relations to OCD and autism, using ASMR for positive sounds, misophonia grief, having an alpha-male dad and a lot more. There is a content warning, near the beginning of the episode there is talk of child on child molestation.  --- Support the p...

Eric had a pretty unique and difficult childhood growing up. As you’ll hear, he was always taken care of by his parents, but as the day progressed, there was often alcohol abuse and then some quite disturbing mental illness in his parents would reveal themselves. This was naturally very confusing for a child and led to many of the issues Eric has experienced since then. He’s actually only relative...

You may know Michael from his Facebook Group “Misophonia Treatment Tracker”. Michael has been pursuing treatment for his misophonia for over 40 years. He’s got a wealth of knowledge and experience and has had a lot of time to think about this condition and its effects on our minds, bodies, and relationships. We talk about a lot of stuff in this fascinating conversation: obviously his origin story,...

Deanna is from Pasadena, California. She is a food stylist and prop assistant in the entertainment industry in LA, and we talk a lot about misophonia and relationships, partners, roommates, friends, and co-workers. We also talk about misophonia in relation to other conditions and what she has learned from them to cope with miso, including medication. Plus being HSP, living in a tough environment g...

Lynn is a music and entertainment lawyer in New York. She doesn’t have the normal mouth sound triggers many of us do - hers are more machine-oriented. We talk about HSP, her career as a therapist before going into law, how different cultures react to misophonia and other mental health conditions, as well as our recommendations for quiet kitchen appliances. I also give Lynn my thoughts on how to ea...

Sara Bidler is a licensed marriage and family therapist and somatic experiencing practitioner, who also has misophonia, and is the parent of a child with misophonia. We get into her history growing up with misophonia, being an HSP (highly-sensitive person), her current focus on the nervous system and its relationship with misophonia, family systems and unresolved past experiences, her many theorie...

Makayla has misophonia and was also recently diagnosed with autism. This is a long one where we talk about Misophonia’s place in neurodivergent culture, her experience growing up with miso and now having the language to express to others how she feels, her coping methods, how she focuses on her nervous system, and we end with some thoughts on the empathetic superpowers misophones can demonstrate t...