Drake - Journey of hope and coping with triggers.

Adeel [0:04]: Episode 8, Season 4. My name's Adeel Ahmad, and I have Misophonia. This week I'm talking to Drake, who lives in Florida currently, with one of her biggest triggers, her mom. She talks about her plans to start a fresh life in a new city, dealing with some trauma growing up, and many of the other experiences we share, like discovering that this is a real thing for the first time, and how we've tried to explain it to others. I was just reminded recently by someone writing in that I have stickers available, and I apologize. I haven't sent any out in a while, so there's a bit of a backup. I just got super distracted with everything going on in the world last year. I plan to have a big mail day soon, so keep writing in requests with your mailing address. You can email hello at misophoniapodcast.com or hit me up on social media at Misophonia Podcast on Instagram and Facebook, Misophonia Show on Twitter. I also just want to mention to people that we now have a YouTube channel with all of the episodes on there with captions. The captions are automatically generated by YouTube, so they're not 100% accurate, but from what I've seen, it's really quite good. So for the folks who don't want to listen, that's a great alternative because you can turn the sound off. I suggest putting it at double speed, 2x, and just watching the captions. So if you know somebody who has been hesitant to listen, please share. I will have a link in the show notes to the YouTube channel. Also, just a quick reminder to consider hitting the five stars on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to help bump up in their recommendations to new listeners. All right. Now here's my conversation with Drake. Drake, welcome to the podcast. Good to have you here.

Drake [1:57]: Thank you.

Adeel [1:57]: I'm excited to be here. I always like to ask, whereabouts in the world are you?

Drake [2:04]: I'm in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Adeel [2:06]: Okay, cool. I think one of the first few guests I had was someone from Florida. Actually, not too far from Mar-a-Lago, but that's a whole other thing. What do you do in St. Petersburg?

Drake [2:23]: Right now, I'm just trying to save up some money. I'm trying to move to North Carolina. St. Pete is not where I want to stay. I grew up here, but just kind of working at the moment. yeah yeah and uh is the reason why you want to go just to be more independent maybe a little bit miso related or just want to just getting uh kind of a little bit of everything i've getting a little stir crazy um wanting to start over i guess i've always wanted to move i've never really wanted to stay in st pete so now seems like a good time being stuck inside with someone else Definitely did trigger a few misophonia things. So that's another motivator.

Adeel [3:12]: Right. Definitely. Yeah. Quarantines and lockdowns had kind of mixed results. Some people loved it. Some people did not because they were suddenly, felt like they were suddenly trapped. It was kind of getting very claustrophobic. And yeah, I guess, are you living with family or?

Drake [3:29]: I'm living with my mom right now.

Adeel [3:31]: Okay. Okay. And, um, yeah, so, you know, parents are usually, um, well, not usually, but often original, original triggers. Am I, am I, am I guessing correctly there? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Drake [3:43]: My mom is my worst trigger.

Adeel [3:46]: Okay.

Drake [3:46]: I hate saying, but she, I don't know if I've told her explicitly, she doesn't really believe in me. So, which is frustrating. Um, but I have told her that like,

Adeel [4:02]: most of the things you do do trigger it um it's an interesting living situation at the moment and when you told her did you use the name miso and kind of show her links and information

Drake [4:17]: It was a conversation over a period of a few months, um, trickling at the beginning at what I wasn't showing her any resources or anything, but honestly, it was when I first started listening to your podcast that I came home and I was like, mom, look, I'm not crazy. I promise.

Adeel [4:35]: Yeah.

Drake [4:36]: She believed it a little more. She looked into it on her own, but she's a skeptic about anything, I guess.

Adeel [4:43]: Okay.

Drake [4:43]: Um, But she's trying, I think, to be better. I'm not sure.

Adeel [4:49]: Yeah. So did you yourself just relatively recently find out that it had a name?

Drake [4:58]: Sort of. So I first started having symptoms, I guess. I don't know, triggers. I started noticing something was wrong my freshman year of high school. But I never had a name for it until probably last year. I was... Living up in Jacksonville, which is North Florida, at my university, and I was in a dorm, and living with roommates was really rough. So I was just researching more on it, and then I came across misophonia, and it was like a light bulb went off in my brain. And then I talked to a doctor I was seeing at that point, and she was like, oh, yeah, that's, yep.

Adeel [5:42]: Oh, and she knew what it was. What kind of doctor was it, if you don't mind me asking?

Drake [5:44]: She was a psychiatrist. Okay.

Adeel [5:47]: Yeah.

Drake [5:48]: Yeah, I just mentioned it and she was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And I was like, okay, cool.

Adeel [5:55]: That's interesting because had you mentioned maybe to her any of the symptoms in the past?

Drake [6:01]: I hadn't in years. I probably, my memory is a little spotty for most of my life, but I probably mentioned it the beginning of high school. because it was really intense. I was recently traumatized. I have PTSD as well. And that's where I think it was first triggered because I didn't have any problems before. And then around that time, things started popping up to the point where someone would sniffle once in class or, chew a little too loud in lunch and i would have a panic attack immediately i was having like 10 a day um it was rough and i didn't really have a name for it at all so i didn't know what was wrong i thought it was just insane but so i probably mentioned it because it was so It was a big detriment to my productivity and everything.

Adeel [7:07]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sounds like it was happening multiple times a day.

Drake [7:11]: Yeah.

Adeel [7:13]: And so did it affect grades and stuff as you're going through high school?

Drake [7:19]: It absolutely affected grades. I learned to work around it. as high school progressed and my grades got better, but my first year of freshman year, I got a 1.27 on my GPA. Like that was my GPA. Um, I had always been a straight A student. So that was rough.

Adeel [7:38]: Yeah.

Drake [7:40]: Pay attention in class because any sound would set me off.

Adeel [7:44]: Right. And so what were some of the ways that you kind of worked around it going through high school?

Drake [7:50]: um i think i almost did it subconsciously i was in therapy for other things and some of the coping skills they taught me for like my anxiety um helped with the miso i think i thought they were the same thing but just general distractions like if i would hear a sound that really bothered me i would start to like i would find my my biggest go-to was i would find a desk in my classroom and i would count the amount of screws that were in the desk and once i was done with that i would like find something else that had a repeating pattern and i would count how many times it repeated and just totally taking my brain away from everything and focusing on something as simple as counting really helped It did not help my grades, but it did help not freaking out in the middle of class, I guess.

Adeel [8:48]: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's a victory in itself, I'd say. Gotcha. Were you maybe going to get earbuds, headphones? Could you listen to music in class? Probably not, right?

Drake [9:03]: I could not listen to music in class. My school was not the most accommodating. with anything really. They would let me take tests in a separate room, but that was pretty much as far as it would go.

Adeel [9:17]: Was that due to the misophonia or some of your other issues?

Drake [9:21]: That was due to, I mean, I think it, again, I think it was both. I thought they were the same thing, but it was because of the other issues. But I think in reality it was when the room was quiet, I could hear the sounds a lot clearer.

Adeel [9:38]: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And what about at home? Were you just living with your mom then too? And was she kind of also a major trigger? Usually it starts at the home. It sounds like for you, maybe it started at school. I'm curious if it started to expand.

Drake [9:59]: Again, my memory's spotty. I don't remember anything at home really setting it off. I remember things at friends' houses. would bother me sometimes. I would go over to my one friend's house and she had a pit bull and I loved the dog. He was a great dog, but whenever he would eat or drink, I would want to travel to Mars.

Adeel [10:24]: Right.

Drake [10:24]: But at home, I don't remember anything.

Adeel [10:27]: Gotcha, gotcha. And did it, yeah, I mean, with your friends, did it start to kind of affect your social circles? Like, were you starting to kind of categorize people by triggers and not triggers?

Drake [10:38]: Oh, absolutely, yeah. I had gone to the same school my entire life from preschool to eighth grade. So when I was going to high school, it was my first time switching schools and I, like, didn't have my normal friend group around. So it was hard making friends when I... They couldn't make any noise. But certain people around, like certain ones of my classmates, I wouldn't go near, even after everything calmed down, I guess. Right. I recently ran into one of my old classmates, and he used to sniffle all the time in my eighth grade Spanish class, or my eighth period Spanish class. And when I saw him, I was like, I don't want to be anywhere near him. He's a nice guy. Yeah, nothing's wrong with him. But just seeing him was like, no, I don't want to deal with that anymore.

Adeel [11:34]: yeah that's been imprinted in your brain that happens to a lot of us i think yeah interesting okay okay and um yeah so right so yeah categorizing people um did you did you mention maybe to your friends at uh at school um specifically the kind of these symptoms of misophonia like did you try to get them to be quiet at their you know at their house or whatever i

Drake [12:00]: I don't know exactly what vocabulary I used. I knew for a while I would almost joke that, oh, my anxiety is so bad that whenever someone sniffles, I have a panic attack. But I never really had any vocabulary past that. My friends knew if I have to sneeze or if I have to blow my nose, go as far away from me as you possibly can. If we're eating, let's put something on in the background. But I don't think any of us really knew why. I mean, I definitely didn't know why, but I could never explain to them why.

Adeel [12:34]: Yeah, so there was no one as that much, okay. But yeah, this is funny. I think it feels like this usually falls into kind of the quirk category where it's like, you know, it becomes your quirk, but it's not like considered, it's not really considered to be on that. They don't really understand the fight or flight situation, you know.

Drake [12:52]: Yeah, like I would try to explain it that I promise I'm not mad at you. I don't want to kill you, but at the same time... Part of my brain does. Part of my brain does. So if I walk away in the middle of a conversation or I snap at you, I'm really sorry, but I just, I have to. I can't fight this exactly anymore. Yeah.

Adeel [13:19]: Were you starting to use maybe headphones outside of school, like using headphones as a coping mechanism or anything else?

Drake [13:27]: I didn't really go outside much. I was pretty much just in my room all the time if I wasn't at school. So I didn't necessarily need to use headphones or anything. I was just alone. Yeah, yeah.

Adeel [13:44]: And you didn't have any siblings or anything, did you?

Drake [13:48]: No. It's just been me and my mom for a while.

Adeel [13:51]: Gotcha. Okay. Okay. And yeah, then I guess after high school, you did go to college for... I went to college for a bit.

Drake [14:03]: Yeah. After really freshman year, everything kind of settled down with the MISO and with everything else. So I was much better at being in a high school setting. There were still some triggers that would bother me, but everything significantly, like, dulled, I guess, almost.

Adeel [14:29]: In college... After freshman of high school, dulled. After freshman of high school, yeah.

Drake [14:34]: That one year was intense with everything that was going on, and then... It gradually... Yeah.

Adeel [14:42]: Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there.

Drake [14:46]: Very good. Like, freshman year was the main... I noticed everything the most freshman year. Sophomore year was a little less heavy, I guess. And then junior year, not noticeable all that much. Senior year, I could forget about it for the most part.

Adeel [15:04]: Gotcha.

Drake [15:06]: It was a definite decline in how much things were bothering me, almost. But when I moved into... the dorm with two roommates, it came back, I guess, full force. I was reminded of all of the things that I was feeling years ago, which is when I started researching.

Adeel [15:30]: Right. And it's been pretty constant since then, sounds like.

Drake [15:33]: Pretty constant. Definitely not as bad as it used to be, but it makes its presence known a lot more.

Adeel [15:43]: So that, after that first year of freshman, was it, were there other things in your life that were also kind of like calming down a little bit? I'm just trying to, because, you know, stress is like a major exacerbator. And I'm wondering if that, that at least helped, obviously didn't kill the misophony completely, but can kind of lower the amplitude a little bit if other factors in your life are not as prevalent as they maybe were.

Drake [16:07]: Oh, yeah, no, definitely. When... When I started to get adjusted into my new routine and everything and I started to know people around me more, other things in my life weren't as big of a stress anymore. That's definitely when it started to, I guess, go away. Not go away, but step back.

Adeel [16:29]: Yeah, yeah. And then when you started college, were you feeling stressed again? I mean, there's a lot of changes going on there too. And do you think that was kind of related to the stress of starting college?

Drake [16:45]: It was probably definitely a little bit. I was lucky enough to know one person that went to my same college who was my best friend and who lived... three doors down so that was great but everyone else I did not know I had two roommates who were best friends and then it was just me um and it was a new situation as it normally is when you move away for the first time yeah right so it was definitely stressful but yeah I think the stress combined with two new people with very, in my opinion, interesting habits that did not necessarily mesh well with my miso.

Adeel [17:32]: Right.

Drake [17:33]: It was all a big cluster of...

Adeel [17:38]: Yep, yep. So in terms of triggers, I guess probably a bunch of weird mouse sounds and clicking and all the usual stuff. Yeah, yeah. What about in class, like other places around campus where you would be triggered like in lectures? I'm wondering if it started to affect your kind of learning at college.

Drake [18:06]: I'm not sure if it affected my learning at college so much. I do, like, if a professor had a lot of saliva in their mouth, I guess, and when they would talk, it would kind of click. That would really bother me. Sniffling has always been the biggest one. I don't know why. Living in Florida, especially right now with all of the pollen, it is rough. But sniffling has been... present anywhere and everywhere I go. So that's always been one. Clicking, it does bother me, but not as much as anything else. I can ignore it better. It still makes me angry, but it doesn't set me off so much. generally face face related sounds face related sounds but also people would like rustle a lot if they were if they wouldn't sit still which is so hypocritical of me to say because i know a lot of times i have a lot of saliva and my voice clicks and i can't sit still to save my life and i click a pen sometimes so i know if i were to be around me i would hate myself but

Adeel [19:20]: But you don't actually trigger yourself, right? Most of us don't. I have bumped into a couple people who do, which sounds terrible. But yeah, it's pretty rare.

Drake [19:32]: If my knuckles click at all, or any joints click, that will trigger me. But that's not necessarily... I feel like that's separated from me almost. I can't control that. But...

Adeel [19:44]: Gotcha. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, you can't control that. I feel like part of the issue is that at least part of our brain makes us think that the other person is actually in full control and doing the triggers on purpose, which just becomes that spiral of anger. Did you tell your roommates in college?

Drake [20:12]: I did mention it to my roommates because when I was, I was probably 11 o'clock at night and we were all just trying to go to bed and I was just researching misophonia on my phone and I sat up and I was like, guys, look, look what I found. They were not as enthusiastic as me. You shouldn't, no one should expect them to, but I did tell them they did not, they didn't stop their habits, but.

Adeel [20:40]: Do you remember what you searched in the search bar?

Drake [20:45]: Probably something like, why do sounds make me so mad?

Adeel [20:48]: Right, right. Okay. Yeah, I was curious.

Drake [20:50]: Like, why do I want to cry when my roommate eats ice?

Adeel [20:55]: No, is that actually one of their habits?

Drake [20:58]: Yeah, she would eat ice chips.

Adeel [21:01]: Oh, man.

Drake [21:01]: Or she would eat ice chips to calm down. And that was like her grounding method for her anxiety. So I didn't feel comfortable saying anything because I had my own weird things. I didn't want to stop her, but it was also frequently I would like bury my head under the pillows and like blast music in my earphones, but I could still hear it. And it was probably a phantom sound. My brain was probably making it up, but I would feel like I could still hear her eating the ice and it was miserable. I only lived with them for three months, but those three months were intense moments.

Adeel [21:40]: Yeah. Do you talk to them at all? Or are you on any kind of good terms with them?

Drake [21:46]: I don't talk to them all that often. I'm still on good terms with them. I love them as people. It was just living with them was not the best situation for either of us.

Adeel [21:54]: Right. And did you move out purely because of this? Or was there another reason? Like you wanted to move on to something else?

Drake [22:04]: I mean, probably partially. I could have lived with them still, but I... I wanted to move to a different dorm. Um, I wanted to move in with someone else. And so I just, I don't think they really wanted to live with me all that much anymore. Yeah.

Adeel [22:21]: Yeah. Yeah. And so do you, did you want to, did you have something in mind that you want to move in with or do you just want to move in with somebody else? Anybody else?

Drake [22:30]: Um, I, so the best friend I moved to UNF, which was my college. One of his friends was there as well. And we both had similar living styles, I guess. So we thought it would be a good idea for us to live together.

Adeel [22:49]: That did not work out, but it was... Yeah, I was going to say, did you maybe do some investigation in advance and make sure that this person was going to...

Drake [23:01]: try you know not be a trigger or sort of i i was friends with her um casually acquaintances um so i knew that she kept to herself a lot she didn't like eating in the room which was great um so i i knew on that aspect i would probably be better than my previous situation Right. Our personalities did not get along as much as we wanted. And then I got a cat. She's very allergic to cats. So that ended pretty quick. But at the time that I did live with her, she was not a trigger, which was nice. A nice change.

Adeel [23:46]: Gotcha. Okay. So how long did that last then?

Drake [23:49]: Probably a month. Very short time.

Adeel [23:52]: Right. Okay.

Drake [23:53]: And then I moved in with someone else and she is great.

Adeel [23:57]: Okay. Okay. And so it was like no triggers. Did you tell her about the miso in advance? Be like, you know, before you got the keys, let her know or kind of work it out somehow.

Drake [24:11]: I think I did mention something. I was a little desperate to move out of my current dorm because I had a cat and I couldn't have the cat with me. It was a big mess. But I could tell right away when I met my last roommate that it was going to work out much better. She was really accommodating with everything. Whenever I would tell her hey, that thing you're doing is triggering me. She would stop as much as she could. That was really, really nice. She was always supportive during everything. If I would find out a new little fun fact, she would listen. I mean, I'm sure it wasn't as interesting to her as it was to me, but it's very nice.

Adeel [25:00]: Yeah. Onkem, did you meet anybody else who maybe had miso, or have you ever met anybody else who's had misophonia?

Drake [25:07]: not on campus but my cousin actually um we just recently i guess not rekindled a relationship because there never was a relationship but our families just got a lot closer and in talking i figured out that both her and her dad have misophonia and it was like what because that was the first time i'd ever met anyone in person that had it And it was great.

Adeel [25:38]: How did that connection happen? Like finding that out?

Drake [25:43]: Her family came to visit. They live in Colorado. So they came to visit Florida. for a little bit to get away from the cold. And just when they were there, we were talking and she mentioned she has three younger brothers. And she would mention like, I don't know, just sometimes they'll just make any sound and it sets me off. And I was like, hey, that sounds familiar. Is it this?

Adeel [26:08]: Yeah, so she didn't know what the name was, but she was just describing the obvious symptoms.

Drake [26:13]: She had heard the name because her dad said that he had it, but she had never... thought of it for herself. So then I mentioned, like, do you think that could be misophonia? And she was like, you know, probably. I just never thought of it. And then from there, we've kind of bounced ideas off each other. Like, so you live with three younger siblings. What helps you? And I've lived longer than you, I guess. This is what helps me.

Adeel [26:45]: Right. That's great. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, it's good to have something you can text or whatever when you're going through a major trigger.

Drake [26:55]: Yeah, or it's really nice if we're on a call, like if we're calling each other and then... one of us will trigger the other and we need to like separate ourselves. It is totally understandable to be like, hey, I need to go right now.

Adeel [27:13]: Yeah. I need to leave.

Drake [27:15]: I need to hang up.

Adeel [27:16]: Right.

Drake [27:17]: And then it's just accepted like, okay, I will text you.

Adeel [27:22]: Right. That's awesome. Yeah. And how old is that cousin, like younger than you, like in high school?

Drake [27:32]: Yeah, she's in high school right now.

Adeel [27:33]: Okay. And you're kind of helping her through that or giving her some tips. That's really cool. So what about in terms of relationships? Has it kind of been an issue?

Drake [27:49]: It hasn't been an issue. It's been present, I guess, in past relationships. I have definitely had to mention it. I don't know. I haven't really been in that many.

Adeel [28:01]: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just curious. Yeah. People like mention it up front, like on the first date or, or it's something that just kind of wait, wait for the first trigger and see how, see how it goes until then.

Drake [28:10]: It depends on what the first date is.

Adeel [28:13]: Yeah. Right. If it's getting food, then I'll be like, yeah, gotcha. Gotcha. What about, so we talked about all the sound triggers, but visual triggers end up creeping up on people. Is that something that also you've noticed? Like just seeing people take the actions that trigger you?

Drake [28:36]: I hadn't thought of visual triggers until I started listening to this podcast. And then I started to notice a few things. I don't remember any right off the top of my head, but I know when I will be triggered visually, I'll be like, aha! That makes sense. And then I forget it. Right, right.

Adeel [28:54]: Hopefully it doesn't get too bad for you.

Drake [28:56]: No, they don't pop up too much. So I don't have to think about them often, which is nice.

Adeel [29:02]: So yeah, you got through college. You're not in college right now, are you? Or you're just kind of working and trying to save up, right, to move on?

Drake [29:09]: I am not in college. I went to college to appease my mom and it didn't work out. So I dropped out. So I was only there for a year. And now I'm just working. I'm planning on going to esthetology school to be an esthetician. That is some school that I'm going to do. Not currently, but in June.

Adeel [29:34]: And where you're working now, how's the situation there?

Drake [29:39]: I am very thankful for where I'm working right now. It is not my dream job by any standards, but I'm a camera operator at Dillard's. So I'm completely alone always. I don't have to see anyone. I don't have to talk. I have to talk to someone like three times a day. But besides that, I can just listen to music or be in silence. It's great.

Adeel [30:05]: So Dillard's is a, sorry, I'm a relatively new American. So it's like, is that a department store or?

Drake [30:10]: It is a department store.

Adeel [30:11]: Okay. Okay. So your camera operator is in, do they have like a portrait studio or is it like taking pictures of merchandise in like a back room somewhere?

Drake [30:20]: Like almost the security end of it.

Adeel [30:24]: Oh, gotcha. Okay.

Drake [30:26]: Shoplifting deterrence, I guess.

Adeel [30:28]: Yeah.

Drake [30:30]: Loss prevention.

Adeel [30:31]: Yeah, so you're in this room with futuristic TVs everywhere. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some people, I mean, it's interesting. Yeah. Some people, you know, later on in life, like they're, they take like a, if they're really desperate, they'll take a night shift janitor job just because that's, you know, super alone. Nobody's there. Nobody's in a building at night.

Drake [30:58]: I have thought about taking night shift jobs. I've been able to work with people. I can work around people. I can work with people. It's just... I prefer to be alone, not have to deal with it.

Adeel [31:09]: Like many of us were, you're very personable, like a lot of us are. But yeah, if they trigger you and then you have to do it out of necessity because of your job, it could become a spiral.

Drake [31:24]: Yeah. An added stress of not just work, but also coworkers. Yeah.

Adeel [31:32]: Right, right. So anyone will be an esthetician. I'm going to pronounce that wrong. Yeah, that's cool. And then you pick North Carolina as a place you want to go. Is there any, I don't know if we mentioned any particular reason, like somebody, people there you know, or it's just like, I want to start new and I can just, you know, pick my environment and just kind of live in peace. Yeah.

Drake [32:01]: I don't know anyone in North Carolina. I went to Asheville once when I was like 11 years old for a wedding and I fell in love with it and I've tried to go back a few times and they have been disasters of trips, but I still just want to go back.

Adeel [32:17]: Disaster for not necessarily for me, so just for in general?

Drake [32:22]: Yeah, just in general. I just want to start over.

Adeel [32:25]: Yeah.

Drake [32:27]: Try living very alone.

Adeel [32:29]: Yeah, no, that's great. It's, yeah, it's always exciting to, you know, get to redefine yourself, basically.

Drake [32:35]: Yeah. I feel like I can't move on from anything here. Like, other issues that I've had, MISO, when I see, like, locations that I remember having a big trigger or people that pop up, I just, I am constantly reminded of, hey, remember when.

Adeel [32:59]: Oh, so you're reminded, you remember these, uh, so you're, you said your memory is kind of spotty, but these. My memory is spotty.

Drake [33:05]: Yeah. My, I have issues with memory. Um, but I remember locations really easily. Um, so if I walk past a place that I went and I was triggered, I will remember it forever. I won't. It's kind of sad because I don't remember oftentimes where or when or what like happy things happen. But triggers, the locations of them, the event itself, I will remember forever.

Adeel [33:41]: Gotcha.

Drake [33:42]: So it's hard to move on when I'm surrounded by them.

Adeel [33:47]: that seems like a perfect time to get up and go to the next stage. Yeah. Go somewhere and restart. Yeah. Yeah. I hope that works out. We'll have to maybe get you on back to the podcast in a couple of years after you've settled into your quiet solo apartment.

Drake [34:07]: Yeah. See how living in the mountains alone does feel so funny.

Adeel [34:13]: So are you planning to head to kind of a rural part of North Carolina? Yeah.

Drake [34:17]: Um, sort of in the middle. I want to live near Asheville, which is a smaller town, but it's, yeah. But there's mountains and suburbs and just quiet towns right outside that I kind of want to explore. Close enough to Asheville that I can do things and work, but far enough away that it's peaceful.

Adeel [34:43]: Yeah, no, that does sound great. That does sound great. Cool. Well, I guess... Yeah, that's really interesting. That's very exciting. I think a lot of people are probably jealous they can go and restart somewhere.

Drake [34:57]: It won't be for a while, but it's the plan.

Adeel [35:00]: Yeah, but I think this part, like we were talking about before, reducing stress really kind of helps your miso. But if you also have something that you're working towards and looking forward to, if you're saving money for this, it's like, I don't know, at least for me, I feel like, okay, I'll make a trigger today, but I have a goal. yeah so i guess yeah we're um you know we're hitting around 40 minutes or so i was wondering if yeah do you have any like um yeah anything you want to tell people who uh maybe have recently found out about miso or also in kind of a similar situation um who might be listening

Drake [35:42]: I think it's been interesting listening to past episodes because I hear people saying that when they first started noticing their miso, that it just got worse, which is how I definitely felt until I forgot about it. Which is a luxury. It's hard to forget. But it definitely does get better even when it seems like it absolutely does not. It took me about five years to get to the point I am now with lots of effort, but it's, I don't know. Just with anything in life, it gets better. This definitely gets better as you learn to deal with triggers or have different coping skills. It helps.

Adeel [36:30]: Yeah, you might get more triggers, but being able to take control of situations in your environment and where you live as you're about to take it to the ultimate level, being able to do that definitely helps. Actually, I wanted to ask you earlier if that psychiatrist had any mesospecific tips for you after you mentioned that you had misophonia.

Drake [36:52]: She did not. She mentioned, or she acknowledged like, yes, misophonia, and then just kind of moved on. We never talked about it. So I had to figure everything out on my own, which was fine. It was exciting, which is strange because I was able to look at a list of triggers and identify with most of them, which doesn't seem great. And it's not great having a giant list of triggers, but...

Adeel [37:25]: Did she give you the list of triggers?

Drake [37:27]: No. I found them online somewhere.

Adeel [37:29]: Oh, gotcha. Yeah.

Drake [37:31]: And... I don't know. It felt like I... I wasn't crazy anymore.

Adeel [37:38]: Yeah.

Drake [37:38]: For... One of the... My mom is one of my biggest triggers to the point where if we're sitting next to each other and she breathes a little funny, I can't be around her. So her breathing is a trigger at this point, which is unfortunate for a multitude of reasons.

Adeel [38:01]: Right, right.

Drake [38:03]: Once I found other people that had similar things going on and I listened to this podcast and found that other people have worse triggers when it's their parents, it was a sigh of relief.

Adeel [38:18]: Yeah, you're definitely not alone.

Drake [38:21]: Yeah.

Adeel [38:21]: Well, it's great. Yeah, I'm glad that it's been kind of helpful.

Drake [38:25]: Yeah, it's been very helpful. I drive for Uber Eats on the side as well. Um, just to make extra money. And I, for about a month, I would listen to nothing else. Um, which friends and like anyone else that was in the car with me during that time was like, why, why do we have to listen to this?

Adeel [38:51]: You had it on, you had it on while you were, uh,

Drake [38:54]: oh this was uber eats so it's just you're just delivering food or did you have i was delivering food and sometimes friends would like hop in the car with me and join if i was there and i'd be like i'm not listening to music right now i'm having a moment yeah yeah because it was about like between finding a name for miso and then finding other people who had it was about a year So it was, okay, I'm not crazy, but I am alone in my crazy too. I'm not alone. Wow.

Adeel [39:28]: Right.

Drake [39:29]: So right when that, right when I found like this podcast and other people that were talking about in blogs, it was all I did for a bit. I hyper fixate on a lot of things. That's how I live most of my life is I will hyperfixate on something and then that's what I do. So I hyperfixated on misophonia. And during that time, my friends got a lot of information.

Adeel [39:54]: Hey, well, that's good. I'm glad you're spreading that information. Yeah, I guess it's interesting. It kind of goes back to that when you were counting the screws in your desk at school. You use fixation as kind of a coping mechanism. And that's, yeah, that's not uncommon.

Drake [40:07]: It is simultaneously a symptom of... some of my mental illness and also a coping skill for some of my mental illness. So whatever works.

Adeel [40:19]: Exactly. Whatever works. Well, yeah. Cause until we have a cure, whatever, whatever works. Yeah. Or until psychiatrists actually like, you know, don't move on from a, yeah, exactly. So. Well, yeah, Drake, this has been great. Thanks for coming on. And this, you know, I'm glad other episodes helped you. And I know this is going to help a lot of people. So hope you definitely feel good about that. And good luck with it. Yeah, let's keep in touch. I'd love to hear about your, well, I mean, I know it's far away, but maybe in the future we'll reconnect and do another episode and see how you're doing.

Drake [40:51]: Yeah, absolutely. It'd be great.

Adeel [40:53]: Thank you, Drake. I really wish you the best and hope you can make that move to North Carolina soon. If you liked this episode, please leave a quick review or just hit the five stars wherever you listen. Find us on social media, Misophonia Podcast on Instagram and Facebook, now on TikTok as well, or Misophonia Show on Twitter. You can find all the links on the website, misophoniapodcast.com. And even contact me from there if you like. Music as always is by Moby. And until next week, wishing you peace and quiet.