r/MadeOfStyrofoam

I honestly don’t know where to start, but I really need advice from people who actually understand misophonia because I feel like my life revolves around it now.

I’m a teenager and I’ve had misophonia for years, but it has become progressively worse. The biggest trigger is sniffing, but there are other sounds too. When I’m triggered, it isn’t just irritation. It feels like my entire nervous system goes into panic mode. My heart races, I become overwhelmed, I can’t think straight, and all I want is for the sound to stop. It’s like my brain treats the noise as an emergency even though I know logically it isn’t.

The hardest part is that everyone around me hears “just a sound.” They genuinely cannot understand what it feels like because, to them, it’s nothing. To me, it feels unbearable.

My little brother is my biggest trigger. He sniffs constantly, and I’ve asked him so many times to stop. I’ve explained it calmly, I’ve begged him, I’ve gotten frustrated, and eventually I end up shouting because I feel completely overwhelmed. I know he isn’t always doing it on purpose, but sometimes he’ll respond in a mocking tone like, “What?!” as if I’m overreacting or being dramatic. Whether he means it that way or not, it makes everything so much worse because I already feel guilty for reacting.

My parents are exhausted by it too. They get frustrated because they don’t know what to do anymore.

My dad actually has been supportive in many ways. He knows this isn’t me choosing to be difficult, and he has helped me through it a lot in the past. But sometimes he still expects me to block the sounds out or cope better because, from his perspective, they’re tiny noises. I don’t think he fully understands that my brain simply doesn’t process them the way his does.

My mum is more complicated. Sometimes she’s incredibly understanding and tries to comfort me or help me avoid triggers. Other times she loses her patience completely. She’ll tell me to calm down, tell me I’m overreacting, or get angry because everyone else has to adjust around me. I know she’s probably exhausted too, but when I’m already overwhelmed, that reaction makes me feel even more alone.

The worst part is that everyone thinks I’m improving. I’m honestly not. If anything, I feel like it’s getting worse. I think I’ve just become better at hiding how distressed I actually am because I know people are tired of hearing about it.

This has affected my mental health massively. I constantly dread family gatherings, holidays, meals, car journeys, or simply being in the same room as certain people because I know I’ll probably be triggered. Instead of looking forward to things, I spend my time wondering what sounds I’ll have to deal with and whether I’ll be able to escape.

I’m currently on holiday visiting family, and instead of enjoying it, I’m spending so much of my energy trying not to get triggered. There are lots of people around, lots of noise, and very little space to get away when I need a break. I genuinely dreaded this trip before it even started.

I’m waiting to access therapy, but it’s taking a long time to arrange.

I also struggle with depression alongside all of this, and they make each other worse. When I’m triggered repeatedly, I don’t just become angry. I become emotionally exhausted. It feels like everything piles on top of each other until I start wondering how I’m supposed to keep living like this. I’m safe, and I’m not actively suicidal, but I often find myself wishing I could just disappear from this situation or start my life over somewhere quiet where my brain could finally rest.

I’ve also struggled with self-harm, and I’ve realised that my misophonia is one of the biggest factors behind it. When I’m triggered over and over again with no escape, my brain reaches a point where it feels completely overloaded. It’s never about the sound itself anymore—it’s about the hopelessness that comes from feeling trapped in my own environment. There have been times where the constant triggering has left me feeling so overwhelmed that I’ve had passive suicidal thoughts. Not because I truly want to die, but because I desperately want the pain, the panic, and the constant state of alertness to stop. I don’t have plans or intent to end my life, but living with this every day has genuinely made me question how people cope with it long-term.

One thing that hurts is that I don’t think people realise how much energy it takes to deal with this every single day. By the time I react outwardly, I’ve usually spent ages trying to ignore it first. People only see the frustration, not the internal battle beforehand.

Does anyone else have family members who simply don’t understand, even if they genuinely care about you? Has anyone found ways to explain misophonia that actually helped their family understand it better? And if your misophonia has progressively worsened over time, did anything help stop that cycle?

I feel incredibly alone with this, and I’d really appreciate hearing from people who actually understand what it’s like.

pretty simple, i was feeling like crap last night and just happened to have some chocolate with me, one of those large blocks. so i just started carving on it, it's like carving wood only with less resistance and it's really satisfying for me, doing patterns and such on it.

i thought maybe itd be worth sharing, and dont try this if you can't trust yourself to handle a razor!!

have a nice day : )

(I'm safe rn and don't have any injuries but asking for future reference)

Has anyone been to hospital for 3rd degree/full thickness burns? What did they do? More interested in the medical care then psych because I've been multiple times for sh cuts. I want to know so when it happens again maybe knowing more what it'll be like will make it easier to seek care. Thanks

Hey guys. What’s up?
Imma be honest here because I feel like you guys get me. I’m so chronically lonely, I don’t know what to do with it anymore. It’s gotten to the point where I have absolutely no regard for myself and all I feel capable of doing is begging people to even just look at me. To give a shit, no matter how insignificant it is. I don’t respect myself at all and keep texting and calling people who clearly don’t give a shit and haven’t in a long long time. I don’t know how to be around people anymore. I don’t know how to just be, yk. I have no real confidence. I have no positive feelings toward myself at all. I have stopped caring myself to the point of not being able to care for myself unless I know someone will see me. Even then sometimes I don’t even shower. I feel pathetic and I feel like trash. I’m surprised when people consider me a person. When they say my name like I exist, because to myself, I don’t. All I do is eat all day and sleep and cry. I have virtually no one that gives a shit if I live or die. As a kid I used to think I was being overdramatic when I thought they won’t even notice for days if I kms. Now, it is really true. It would take days of not weeks for people to notice I’m gone. And when I try to talk about it, it’s always “you’ve got a good life, what are you sad about?” and I feel like I’ve gaslit myself into believing it. My life is perfect, I’m the problem. It’s always me. I’m invisible. I’m pathetic beyond repair. I’m useless.

I’ll tell you about 2 things that happened recently so yk what I mean. My best friend of 2 years just blocked me and completely cut me off because I was too much for her to handle. Maybe I was, but yeah. I BEGGED for her back for months. I cried, I begged, I went to her house… I did everything someone with no self respect would do. She said no each time. She said to my face how she had no respect for me and how much my begging inconvenienced her. I still kept going. I couldn’t stop. I still can’t.

My therapist told me I don’t share. So I prepped for a month and then poured my heart out to her. She told me to get over it. Basically. To seek help elsewhere and disconnected the call after 20 minutes. I laughed at the time but it makes my skin crawl now.

Other than that, my parents don’t care enough to call anymore. I have no friends. I keep texting old friends/exes who leave me on read because of how desperate I am. I’m the epitome of pathetic. I don’t think you can get anymore pathetic than this. I want to believe it when I tell myself I don’t give a shit, but if that was true, I wouldn’t be here.

https://preview.redd.it/a8sab4mmr8bh1.png?width=731&format=png&auto=webp&s=16197215caac6a0bd7d853fc91bc135f6ebb7ae2

Why do I only attract insecure, chudpilled, avoidant,lying,lustful men with mommy issues who only want to fuck me and leave ?

I've been getting continuously sa'd my entire life and no one gives a shit. I feel like my whole self worth is built on my body and how it looks. I have really bad body dysmorphia and I feel like if not even the one thing that keeps me from being fucking worthless is so ugly, then I'm not good for anything. At the same time I wish I had an ED because then at least I would be skinny, or I wished I was 🍇'd instead of sa'd so that it would actually matter and not just be attention seeking. I'm such a shitty person.

I recently started I know it's a bad thing but I ran into a problem, it was I either don't scrub the arm with cuts or scrub my arm and the soap burns my arm, what am I supposed to do, atm I think I should let one arm heal and then cycle between them, arh idk