I think the superhearing power is going to be different than you think. You can already hear your clothes rubbing against skin, the air conditioning blowing, etc. Your brain is pretty good at filtering those out. Now, the conversations will be more difficult, but think about your experiences at a party. Most of the time you can hear another group's conversation if you listened and focused on them, but you can tune them out (most of the time, ignoring the cocktail party effect stuff for now). Unless you have focus issues already, it wouldn't be a big deal. The issue would be the initial period where your brain has to learn what exactly to filter out. Right now, a rustle to my right would be a bad sign, and hearing a rat crawling through the wall would freak me out. After a few weeks though, I bet I'd have adjusted.
Yeah, I don't mean my own clothes, (though I do quite often hear them). I mean everyone's. I've also spent quite a bit of time living in a building where you could hear the rats moving about rather clearly (through a combination of a rat problem and some poor construction decisions.) Yes it goes from a 'what was that?' alert to a 'oh it's the rats' but you still notice. It's very different to continuous background noises like AC or traffic.
Loving one's life as if always at a loud party is exactly the thing I'm seeing as the problem. Yes you can actively focus on something specific, but always having to do that is going to be unpleasant. Never mind all the stuff you are going to overhear that you don't want to overhear.
Yeah, as someone with misophonia, I can't imagine my hearing getting better than it is. Already I can't tune stuff out, and it's not just people talking. It's ALL the lawn work in my neighborhood! It's the bunny rustling leaves in my backyard from my bedroom. It's the fan in the fridge that everyone else just blocks out. The gurgle of the fish tank. Lights make a high pitched noise, as do other electronics. That's all before people. The amount of noises people make that others tune out is so much! Rubbing your fingers together. The spit in your mouth right before you speak. If I'm cuddling with you, the liquid squish your eyes make when you blink. The creaking and popping of your joints! Even just breathing is a loud constant. Most everyone else is filtering all this out, but it's not something you can learn to time out. You either can or you can't, and if you can't you end up literally moving because your neighbor coughs too much and it wakes you up in the middle of the night.
I think the superhearing power is going to be different than you think. You can already hear your clothes rubbing against skin, the air conditioning blowing, etc. Your brain is pretty good at filtering those out. Now, the conversations will be more difficult, but think about your experiences at a party. Most of the time you can hear another group's conversation if you listened and focused on them, but you can tune them out (most of the time, ignoring the cocktail party effect stuff for now). Unless you have focus issues already, it wouldn't be a big deal. The issue would be the initial period where your brain has to learn what exactly to filter out. Right now, a rustle to my right would be a bad sign, and hearing a rat crawling through the wall would freak me out. After a few weeks though, I bet I'd have adjusted.
Yeah, I don't mean my own clothes, (though I do quite often hear them). I mean everyone's. I've also spent quite a bit of time living in a building where you could hear the rats moving about rather clearly (through a combination of a rat problem and some poor construction decisions.) Yes it goes from a 'what was that?' alert to a 'oh it's the rats' but you still notice. It's very different to continuous background noises like AC or traffic.
Loving one's life as if always at a loud party is exactly the thing I'm seeing as the problem. Yes you can actively focus on something specific, but always having to do that is going to be unpleasant. Never mind all the stuff you are going to overhear that you don't want to overhear.
Yeah, as someone with misophonia, I can't imagine my hearing getting better than it is. Already I can't tune stuff out, and it's not just people talking. It's ALL the lawn work in my neighborhood! It's the bunny rustling leaves in my backyard from my bedroom. It's the fan in the fridge that everyone else just blocks out. The gurgle of the fish tank. Lights make a high pitched noise, as do other electronics. That's all before people. The amount of noises people make that others tune out is so much! Rubbing your fingers together. The spit in your mouth right before you speak. If I'm cuddling with you, the liquid squish your eyes make when you blink. The creaking and popping of your joints! Even just breathing is a loud constant. Most everyone else is filtering all this out, but it's not something you can learn to time out. You either can or you can't, and if you can't you end up literally moving because your neighbor coughs too much and it wakes you up in the middle of the night.