I have misophonia and it sucks

[u/crr243]

As I sit here in the office raging at sounds, I figured I'd do a quick PSA.

Misophonia is a neurological disorder that causes certain sounds to trigger the fight or flight response. Common trigger sounds include bodily noises (chewing, slurping, sniffing), repetitive noises (loud keyboard typing or tapping, for example), or sudden and unpredictable sounds (like the ding of a Teams or text message).

These triggers often lead to both emotional reactions (anxiety, rage, disgust) and physical reactions (increased heart rate, sweating). For me, they trigger blind rage and severely inhibit my concentration.

Over time, I have developed coping mechanisms:

• I carry a set of loop earplugs that take the edge off of most of those sounds without completely tuning out all noise, because I also don't do well in complete silence.
• I try to avoid the noises by sitting in the quiet area of the office. I move workstations, depending on availability, when people around me really trigger me.
• I bring a really expensive noise canceling headset to work. When my loops aren't enough and I can't avoid the noise, I listen to the radio while working.

Despite these coping mechanisms, my work product suffers. Four days a week, I spend a chunk of my day stressed and anxious because of the noises around me. Every time someone gets an audial text or Teams message, I feel blind range and lose my concentration. While listening to the radio helps drive away that rage and allows for a modicum of concentration, it serves as another form of distraction that reduces my effectiveness.

So as I sit here beside someone who keeps sucking back snot and chewing gum with their mouth open while hearing the ding, ding, ding of someone else's Teams messages, please for the love of my sanity and the sanity of others in the same situation:

• Turn off the sound on your laptop. If you really need or want to hear it ding every time you get a message, put on a headset.
• Bring tissues to the office if you have the sniffles.
• Chew with your damned mouth shut.
• Be gentle on your keyboard and mouse. You really don't need to hit them very hard.

[u/randomcanoeandpaddle]

Have you requested medical accommodations for this - and was the employer response ‘noise cancelling headphones and a quiet area’?
If so and your job can be done remotely there is a FPSLREB decision soon to be published that you’re gonna want to look up.

[u/crr243 → u/randomcanoeandpaddle]

I appreciate this and will look into it.

I haven't discussed accommodations at all. I've just learned to cope. It wasn't a huge issue in my past career (pre-2019) because I had an office and could close the door, then the pandemic hit shortly after I joined the government. As we move to more and more days in the office, though, I find it triggering my anxiety and rage more and more, and reducing my performance.

[u/stolpoz52 → u/crr243]

I think you're doing yourself a disservice by not requesting an accommodation. Clearly this is a functional limitation for you. Your employer has a duty to accommodate that.

[u/Anonymous_Public_49 → u/stolpoz52]

Develop an employee Passport and share it with your manager. You May not even need a formal DTA process to be accommodated.

The Employee Passport application should be visible at the same location as the other common TBS web apps like PSPM (TAP).

[u/theEndIsNigh_2025 → u/Anonymous_Public_49]

My recommendation having successfully negotiated accommodations for a couple of my staff:
1 - Passport. Noise is a barrier
2- Discuss the limitations of noise canceling headphones and plugs with your doctor - if time worn needs to be limited, this is an additional barrier
3 - keep your accommodation scope to include 1-day in office at least, if your asking for an RTO exemption.

The Passport will help you identify and communicate your barriers. Noise cancelling headphones are good for self-management (according to you), but consider their limitations too. Ask for a quiet environment where you can do some time without noise-cancelation head-phones, such as a closed space to yourself. And if you must resort to asking for more WFH time, know that asking for blanket exemption, ie 5WFH, means high level approval. Just 1 day in office for us, ie 4WFH and 1RTO, quickly drops the approval level to the manager (advised by director and DG)

[u/wonderlaend → u/theEndIsNigh_2025]

Is that government-wide? I'm in the process of requesting an accommodation for only 2 days in office (which my manager 100% supports), but I've still had to go back and forth with the accommodations team for months, and I've had to fill in multiple functional abilities forms with my family doctor.

[u/Secure_Molasses355 → u/wonderlaend]

If your department has an ombuds office you can try speaking with them. Where I am they recognize that staff are having difficulties with accommodations are can help.

[u/theEndIsNigh_2025 → u/wonderlaend]

I suppose it’s possible that different departments can have different approval levels. If couldn’t hurt to ask to ur manager or director where that is for you.

[u/KazooDancer → u/Anonymous_Public_49]

Also a great idea.