While awareness campaigns have done much to reduce the social stigma around mental illnesses recently, there are still some that are only now coming to the public’s’ attention. Misophonia is one of them.
“It’s a fight, flight or freeze response to normally common audio or visual triggers,” said Shaylynn Hayes, who was informally diagnosed with sudden onset Misophonia. “Usually it’s audio or visual but there’s also tactile and there’s scents and pretty much anything that can cause sensory overload and it’s often accompanied by feelings of anger, disgust, hatred, hopelessness.”
Hayes is a third-year English major at St. Thomas University and experienced minor triggers of the condition at age 16, and at 19 experienced it in full. Hayes thought at first she was going crazy.
“As soon as I am faced with a trigger, I react. There’s no thinking about it, there’s no rationality, it’s just bam, like a gun going off,” said Hayes.
Hayes originally learned about the condition when a cousin sent her a link to an interview on TV, which was talking about misophonia. The cousin suggested it was something Hayes should look into, and when she did, she found a group of people online.
“Misophonia is a new mental disorder, it’s not even in the diagnostic manual yet, so the information I know is what I’ve been informed of by practitioners here in Fredericton,” said Shannon Clarke.
Clarke, the director of Student Services and Residence Life at STU, thinks it’s important for students to seek counselling as soon as possible to receive help.
“Certainly there are lots of folks, students and staff and faculty too, that have mental illness that may not know that they have a mental illness and may not be getting the support that they might have,” said Clarke.
Clarke said speaking to someone about what the student may be going through can help the individual progress towards a quicker recovery. Clarke also noted once any amount of documentation was in place, a student could register with Accessibility Services in order to accommodate any classroom difficulties.
In the meantime, Hayes has started an online magazine called Misophonia Awareness in order to better educate anyone she can reach.
“There’s top researchers that are being featured and this way we can get the word out there, raise awareness, while also getting coping strategies and research to sufferers, and I mean, I want this cure more than anything.”
