TOTALLY GEEKED!

Source: Self-portrait, courtesy Sanne van Wees

Sanne van Wees of The Netherlands is one of the more serene creatures on the planet. She's a mirror-touch synesthete, both saddled and gifted with profoundempathy. And an artist. But slurp your tea or coffee, snap your chewing gum, smack your lips, or (please no!) lick your fingers at the end of a meal and she will have an angry reaction.

"I can’t bear mouth sounds. When some people eat loudly I feel like slamming the sandwich up in their face," she admits.

Since childhood I could not bear to be around such people when they ate either, even if they were people I liked. I thought almost everyone felt this way until I was chastized for my harsh judgment of it some time in my teens. It's so hard to reconcile this negative reaction with the empath's distaste for conflict. So what is that, anyway?

Turns out it's a thing! It's called misophonia and it seems related to synesthesia as many synesthetes report experiencing it. Dr. V.S. Ramachandran of the University of California at San Diego studied the trait and tells me that there's a great deal of anecdotal evidence tying it to the trait of bonus senses, though science hasn't explained it fully yet.

Dr. Ramachandran and his colleagues were skeptical when a group of misophones contacted his laboratory to be studied a few years ago — lots of people with unusual conditions do so. But the 11 subjects proved so convincing, the famed neuroscientistpublished on it in the journal (link is external)Frontiers in Modern Neuroscience(link is external).

Sanne has known that she is a synesthete since primary school, some 35 years ago. "In my head 'a' and '2' got designated to the color yellow for example, '3' to wine red, and 'e' to dark emerald."

She became aware of her misophonia around the same time. "I was perhaps 5 years old and was already annoyed by bells of clocks and other bells. I even tried to hinder or threw a tantrum when my eldest brother was pointing at a banging church clock when I was 5 years old."

Sanne suffered greatly for her reaction to sound. "My family and school characterized it as me putting on a performance, as a way to draw attention to myself and or at times they would punish me, slapping me or ‘correcting’ me or locking me up, because of my behaviour. I feel sad writing this."

Other sounds that are too stimulating for Sanne include mopeds, drills and lawnmowers. People arguing are almost too much to bear. And fireworks are intolerable. "I feel like I'm in a war zone." She suffers from PTSD and must take medication sometimes.

Sanne is otherwise a very peaceful soul. "I can’t see injustice being done to people, animals, plants and planets like Earth."

There is an online support group for the trait here: http://www.misophonia.com/(link is external) and even a Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/misophoniasupport/(link is external).

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sensorium/201512/please-refrain-slurping