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Adeel [0:01]: Welcome to the Misophonia Podcast. This is Season 5, Episode 30, the season finale for Season 5. My name's Adeel Ahmad, and I have Misophonia. Well, we've reached the end of this season. This episode was actually recorded about 10 months ago in a very busy month of recording interviews. Starting next week, I'll be kicking off Season 6 with fresh new conversations. This was a special interview, though, that I'm specifically releasing for the finale because I got to catch up with an old friend and co-worker. Colin was actually a mentor of mine almost exactly 13 years ago when I started a new job in what was a new career at the time for me. I was actually also new to learning about misophonia. And little did I know we'd be talking on my podcast about misophonia 13 years later, sharing our stories to what we know is quite a large community all over the world. We talk about him being a father and a husband with misophonia, how he found this podcast and reconnected with me, being an only child with Miso, and a lot about navigating through work life. We also go on some slight tangents like his now defunct beer podcast and our rants about social resetting, but it all just makes for a perfect season finale pod. A quick reminder, you can shoot me an email at hello at misophoniapodcast.com or find me on Instagram or Facebook at Misophonia Podcast. I sometimes also check the Twitter at Misophonia Show. And a reminder, there's also a Misophonia Podcast app in all the app stores where you can listen to episodes, leave messages about any episode, find background noise to listen to, do journaling about MISO, and just read about resources. And I just want to say on the season finale that thank you for the incredible ongoing support of all our Patreon supporters. And if you feel like contributing or reading about all the different levels, check out our Patreon at patreon.com slash misophonia podcast. And of course, one of the best ways to get the word out is just to leave a quick review or five-star rating wherever you listen to this show. And it just helps us rise up in the algorithms. All right, now here's my conversation with Colin. Well, I mean, why don't we just kind of roll into it? I mean, we're kind of into it already. I'm not going to edit this one as much because I want it to be even more organic than normal.
Colin [2:27]: That sounds risky and dangerous for me.
Adeel [2:30]: So, yeah, maybe more on that. So you saw, yeah, you asked. So you asked, you told me about some TikTok channels. So has this been kind of creeping up on you more and more, like the Miss Phonia with the whole COVID and all this stuff going on?
Colin [2:47]: Well, it's super interesting because I think COVID has definitely, it's shown a light on things that I knew. I don't know if you actually remember this. The whole reason, so for folks who don't know, Adeel and I worked together. You know, we are former colleagues. We are in the same industry. We worked at the same company in San Francisco. Geez, Adeel, like 12 to 10-ish years ago?
Adeel [3:08]: 2009, yeah, is when I started. That's when you joined.
Colin [3:13]: And I stayed in the San Francisco orbit for another year and a half or so, I think. I actually became aware of the term Misophonia from you. You and I were in one of those hellish software engineering open office environments.
Adeel [3:27]: Open office, yeah.
Colin [3:28]: Uh, and, um, I actually can't recall what the trigger was. I don't know if it was you and I, uh, where I talked about some sort of annoying noise. I think I had, we had a coworker. I won't, well, I will. It's Joey. If you remember Joey, Joey was fantastic coworker. Oh, I thought it was somebody else, but he used to eat, he used to eat apples very loud at his desk. And I've, you know, I know from just the fact that that's an awful sound, that that's a major trigger apples in particular, like a top five awful food. You probably hear your next door neighbor through the walls if you have a Mesa phone.
Adeel [4:03]: My next door neighbor coincidentally here, that's his main trigger. So he came on the podcast season two and that's his thing. Anyways, continue.
Colin [4:14]: So I think I was in the kitchen chatting with you and I was just mentioning it. I felt comfortable enough to mention it. I don't want to yell at Joey, but he's just aggravating me so much. And you actually said, hey, this is 2009. So you said something like, well, I have a thing called misophonia. I think, you know, I think at that time you had maybe talked to a doctor of some sort who maybe floated it to you. no i i somehow found it i found an article online some canadian article that uh okay uh that was yeah just before i think when i talked to you so i was pretty new to this as well so you mentioned it and uh you talked a little bit about your experience and i just remember just thinking yes yes yes this is what happens to me it is not just that i find the sound of your chewing gross it is that i find it I need to get out of here. It's atrocious and awful. And that was when I kind of first heard the word and first knew that this was probably a thing that is not just me being insane. And this is at this point, like I've listened to enough of your episodes to know that almost everyone has this moment, right? Where someone finally gives them the term and it's like the heavens open up and you're like, oh my gosh, it's legitimate and it's real. And my mom is not right for calling me insane. Yeah.
Adeel [5:31]: We'll get into that as well later.
Colin [5:34]: Yeah. And I started going back, you know, at that time, you know, over the next couple of years, I started becoming hyper aware of if it is it happening and is it really to that level? And I describe it as I took some notes. I took like an interesting sheet of notes on your on your thing to try to make sure I had some things to talk about. But I think like the build up is something where sometimes I will have it and it will be my best ability to mitigate is to just kind of tell myself that it's happening. make it be more of a slow ramp and then it might get to a point where I have to leave. And I'm much better now, you know, as a 38 year old person who's been aware of this for however many years, um, that it's happening, but I still am very, very in that calm. My common is that I go from like zero to one to 10, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to, yeah, my Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk. And it happens all the time, and I'm just trying to become hyper aware of it. Since you put that term in my ear, told me that misophonia is a thing you suspect you have, it was really, really helpful. And then I started dialing it back. So I actually don't have an evil villain origin story where I kind of know that it was the first thing that happened. When I think back to my home life now, I'm an only child, so I grew up. Only children, for folks who are, they tend to be closer to adults and closer to their parents. They can talk to people a little bit more. You also end up in the very boring home social situation of like watching a television show with your mom or your dad, you know, more often than someone, I think, or at least that's what I put together. So like my mom's breathing, you know, out of her nose was an early trigger that I had to kind of go back and stumble into like, wait, I felt so atrociously frustrated and angry about this. And it's because of this thing. And then, you know, another big one was I had a roommate in college who ground ground his teeth when he slept. And at the time, I just remember thinking, well, hell, it's an awful sound. Of course, it's a thing. But then I when I really think about how I feel when I hear the sound, it's not the same as, oh, gosh, you know, my roommate's grinding his teeth. It's more like, holy crap, I want to murder. because teeth are grinding so that that was really helpful and i think that you know for you to stayed have stayed attached in the community and become a pillar of the community i have watched it occasionally in blips so to get back to the anecdote we were trying to start with um you had posted something on facebook about misophonia to someone recently this is like within the last two months i think and i had i had i had just turned into one of those weird old people who watches tick tocks um I don't create content on TikTok, but I watch it and I actually love the app. The algorithm figured me out really quickly. Like you are a dad who's like a social rights ally, but you also like this random comment. It figures out pretty quickly. But it dropped on me a couple of misophonia videos, including one or two where you take snippets from the podcast and kind of throw them in a video. So I throw on this Facebook post, hey, a deal. And folks, there's this great resource out there on TikTok. And I think there's a podcast associated with it And you were like, yeah, is it this one? It's a link to your, to this podcast that I'm speaking on now. So here I am, you know, there's a little bit of a, you know, embarrassment there, but I just thought it was really great to hear. And that's how I stumbled into. So now in the last couple of months, I've gone a little bit through the back catalog and it's been super validating again. Like anytime I've spoken to someone like this, um, once someone else knows what it is or you kind of describe it it's not everyone that will they'll be like oh you don't like sounds or you don't like things right it's definitely more than that but at least you appreciate me right now um but to hear the stories that your other guests have told it is super validating and there's a lot of similarities of course you know and everyone knows yeah which which help us understand that it is in fact a real thing it's not like Gabe thinks that chewing is bad. And Colin thinks that leaves creaking are bad. It's literally there are very similar triggers. They're very similar emotions. And it's been super, super excellent.
Adeel [9:45]: Yeah, that's great, man, that you're able to, yeah, that you're able to, and yeah, a lot of us are. It's weird how it's a, so many people, so many more people have it than I think realize it, but it also feels like a small world where you can share a link and it happens to be me.
Colin [10:01]: There has to be, I love it, I love it. There has to be something too because it's not a term that people know. So that community has to be larger because of just the way people describe their idiosyncrasies. You're like, this sounds so much similar to what I'm doing. Has anyone ever said, misophonia to you or misokinesia. So I definitely have triggers that are sounds and kind of I split my my triggers into like three categories generally. I think I call them the hard triggers are the sounds. So chewing, breathing, tapping, clicking. Those are things that just can build up over time. And what will happen is I'll be in an environment. There'll be a sound like that and I may not notice it right away. So an example of that would be, you know, the way my daughter, who's four, is playing with her play kitchen. There's a lot of clanging of fake pots and pans in that situation. And it won't bother me for minutes on an end. And then all of a sudden it will bother me. It will be like someone cut to a nerve and I'll have to I'll have to leave, you know, because I don't want to blow up and yell at a four year old, let alone let alone my daughter. Those.
Adeel [11:10]: Are you thinking about it and then it cuts the nerve? Or are you trying to repress it and then it cuts the nerve? Or is it just suddenly?
Colin [11:21]: I think it's just that I was going to call it an ability, but I think it's more of a bad habit of focusing sort of in different places. And I think that's potentially related to this. So if I'm doing a task myself, say I'm at the computer or doing something in the kitchen myself, I won't be aware of what, you know, the ambient noise or the other noise that's happening. And then all of a sudden I'll hear it and it will draw me into it. And I think these things got worse. It was exacerbated by becoming a dad. So I have two kids. I have a seven-year-old son named Bennett and a four-year-old daughter named Lila. They are great. They are both also Bennett more so than Lila, but they are both contributors to my triggers, as a lot of parents have said. But there's another thing that happens when you become a parent where you kind of become hyper-focused to these sounds. You know, part of keeping your kid alive is listening for them screaming. So I now, for the last, you know, legitimately seven and a half years, have this notion of if I hear a sound in the other room, it immediately snaps my attention to it. Did someone fall off a shelf? You know, and we tried so hard. My wife, Liz, and I tried so hard to not be helicopter parents. And I don't think that we are. But this is a part of my brain that I can't turn off and I can't turn off the immediate response, which is like, are you OK? And now I'm very focused on what your thing is. And it definitely ruins my ability to get my tasks done. And we talked at the top of this a little bit about, you know, quarantine and the pandemic. Everyone's in the box together now. So that is happening 40 times a day instead of three. And it's a it's a real thing. So I think when I talk about the pots and pans episode, it's more I hear a sound and now I'm focused on it. And that's different from other things. So when I see so everyone, you know, a lot of loved ones of misophones have this problem where they are. They live. We love them. And they are our triggers or, you know, the causes of our triggers. My wife and her family, most of her family are all very loud eaters. But by their nature, I watch them because I have to. I've watched and focused and zoomed in in my eyes on the mouth. and there's an element of your mouth staying open were you also mimicking because you know how a lot of us kind of like try to mimic the sound mimic the motion and sound over the other person wait do you do any of that that's not that's not so much a go-to for me i've read about that and i and i've tried to think about i've tried to think about i've tried to try it i think
Adeel [13:47]: Because there's now kind of a brain basis for it. There was some research earlier this year. And I'm extra curious about if people do that.
Colin [13:55]: Oh, I didn't know the science of it. But I know that that's a strategy folks can use. I never, when I'm in the moment, really have the ability to think that.
Adeel [14:04]: The Hulk isn't too smart.
Colin [14:06]: The Hulk is not smart. No, Bruce Banner is a brilliant, brilliant doctor, but the Hulk is not that smart. So I will try to kind of get out ahead of certain things. And there are certain things that I just try to live in it and just get through at certain times. So an example of that is eating dinner with family, you know, kids making, you know, eating noises. It is not right or reasonable, I think, for me to be yelling at someone for something that there i know they're within the reasonable range of of making food noises there's a difference between you are smacking your lips like a fool and you need to be told not to do that and i am having a thing um and that has been the real struggle i would say over the last five years i've gotten better at being able to just try and live in it or leave or take myself out of the situation The other thing I'll try to do with triggers that I know are going to come is get out in front of it. So a good example of that is being on the couch watching a show with my wife. She might get up to get a snack. I will listen intently to try and figure out what snack she's getting to prepare myself. Where are we going? Are we going with crunchy cereal? Are we going with a snapping fruit? Please don't let it be pretzels or something like this. And what I'll do is I actually can help myself. I think this is like a Pavlov's dog sort of situation. I will ask, what are you eating? And I used to not be able to do this in a voice that was reasonable. So it was very like angry voice. What are you eating? I'm about to be really pissed at you. And I want you to know that you eating is the cause. And now it's been more of like, I'll wait until they start. I'll see if the sound is bothering me. I'll ask them what they're eating. And it will basically, it does something to me where it essentially confirms the situation. Now, 10 years ago in the relationship with my wife, this was a thing where I would not have that tactic and I had less of an ability to sit there and sit in it. So there'd be a lot of me glaring at her. And before I actually had a real good conversation with her where she was like, here's a thing, remember a deal? He told me it's real. Here's a thing that happens that I have. Before I could even have that conversation, there'd be a lot of me glaring at her. Because that's really before I had intuited that what I'm going through is really intense and different, and she has no way of knowing that it's happening. And to her credit, she has, I think, become much more aware of that. She's even said things sometimes to our kids like, hey, be careful making noises right near daddy about like that. And so she though she is still probably most common trigger for me. She is also a big ally and that she's aware that it's real. And, you know, sometimes we're not going to get away from it. She wants to eat that thing or she wants to do that thing. And it's going to happen. And that's that's real. That's fine. yeah um but i have found that like the ability to kind of say well what are you eating and it it prepares me for it it allows me even to have like a oh i might get something so what i can do is you know i can i can eat a snack and you know now i'm not thinking about the noise she's making i do this thing where i start making worrying about the noise i'm making yeah yeah it should never your attention and yeah Yeah. So those, I was talking, I think, briefly before the cutout on my computer there about the different types of triggers. So I think those are like my hard triggers, you know, the sounds and the more typical things. I have strange sounds that will trigger me as well, like ambient noise, like sound of electricity. I don't know if you've had that kind of buzzing. Oftentimes when you have these videos where it's like, do you have young ears? Can you hear this high-pitched sound? I can still hear those sounds and they are annoying. When I was a kid, when we were kids, you used to be able to go into someone's house and know that the television was on.
Adeel [17:57]: And as a kid, I would describe this.
Colin [18:02]: I would describe this superpower to my friends and be like, oh, I know whether or not someone's TV's on. And at the time, I thought, that's just cool. I know how these things work. And I believe now that that is just part of the wiring that has led me to be in the situation where I'm super sensitive to sounds. So I have USB plugs to charge my phone and my headphones and things like that on my desk. when the battery gets close and the iphone stops charging the high-pitched whale comes out and it's super lightweight no one i've ever been in a room with knows what i'm talking about right like no no you know the electric wine that's happening right now you you don't hear this some chargers do that yeah that is true yeah yeah yeah uh and it's you know it's not it's definitely it's not like i have super hearing because when people speak to me sometimes i have to ask them to repeat quite a bit It's just dialed into these high sensitivity annoying things.
Adeel [18:53]: Yeah.
Colin [18:56]: And then I've also found that even silence, true silence can be a trigger. So I grew up in... I grew up in... like the suburban rural area where we would have some, you know, summer nights where the window, it's too hot for the windows to be open, but the air conditioner is not kicking on and it is just quiet.
Adeel [19:18]: Yeah.
Colin [19:19]: And that, that becomes like an intense, like it's too quiet. So I like to hear, I like to hear some ambient outside noise. I sleep with a fan now, you know, to kind of use those, like that white noise to, to help me go to sleep. So I haven't really stumbled into the world of white noise machines or using like sound generators. I feel like turning a fan on or having a window open. I live in the city now. So I live, I live in Philadelphia. So there's, there's city noise happening and it's happening far off enough. I actually don't mind, you know, the ambulance in the distance, you know, the police, you know, the police in the distance, helicopter in the distance, that's all great. And it's like a, it's like a coffee shop scene, you know, to my, to my brain. But the silence can be something that is, that is, that is somewhat triggering as well. I noticed that you have a few folks that you've talked to recently that talk about how they're night owls as well. And that's something that identifies with me. You know, I stay up late. I used to stay up late and work on projects a lot. It was a lot of time when I would get projects done. Now I do the same thing mostly. I do a lot of media consumption more than creation, you know, in those late hours now. But it's the alone time that I can get during that.
Adeel [20:25]: yeah when you have during that period they go to bed pretty early yeah it's like after that i mean hey you have to kind of be quiet not to wake them up and it's kind of time to kind of just decompress and then yeah just get all your own personal projects hack you know hacking projects done so or or yeah i've got my you know now i've got a a bunch of stuff subscribe on youtube to learn stuff or just you know watch crafts so uh yeah it's the time to do it um
Colin [20:52]: I've done the same thing recently. YouTube has surprised me so much. It's changed from the platform of silly videos to how I actually learn how to repair my car and solve all sorts of home problems. It's amazing. The third category of triggers that I have, though, I think falls more into the... you know, department, which, you know, it'd be things like adjacent to eating the scraping of the spoon, you know, you don't want a bowl, um, the wiggling of the side of, uh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, we don't have a diagnosis. My, my son may be on the ADHD spectrum. He may also just be, you know, just a really rambunctious guy, but he's got a lot of those, um, ticks and those, uh, fidgeting behaviors. I, um, blessing but i lock in on these things right away and then can't leave them so it it mentally makes arduous like the act of like reading stories to him at bedtime sometimes because his way his way to dial in and concentrate is to fidget with something in his hand or wiggle his foot you know wiggle his you know his leg and i need none of that to happen
Adeel [22:04]: Right.
Colin [22:04]: Meanwhile, he'll have a weird trigger that I'm holding the book wrong. You know, so we're just both two people trying to enjoy each other's company for like the last half hour of the day, maybe just running out of steam and burning through our energy. So in a time like that, when a lot of my top coping mechanisms are just get myself out of the situation or focus on something else, it's not right. So I try to do that in my mind. I'm trying to be present here right now with you. This is what I want. So I'm not going to walk away. Also, you're not doing anything on purpose. So I'm not going to walk away. So my son is seven. So I've tried to kind of educate him. And I've said things like, well daddy has a thing where some noise is really really bothering so you chewing your tongue near my ear while you hug me is awful let's not do this yeah yeah and and he you know he's old enough to understand that he generally respects that i think which is great but he's seven so he forgets or there's a new thing that frustrates me um so i really do feel like it families you know they've gotten they've got so much of my stares and my glares and my anger and my frustration and they understand that it's a thing but no one really knows how to like outwardly help um yeah you know uh one of the things that people try to do like if like liz will do this she's aware that she's going to eat something loud and that might bother me she thinks it's helpful to do that activity slower yeah i've heard that recently too not just oh my god oh my gosh yeah like i've decided like we've talked about this right we just talked about i use this mechanism i kind of start the event in my mind by asking you something like what are you doing what are you eating and i've essentially started i've like un i've opened the tank of energy i have to give to this if you make this take longer i am gonna it's gonna get worse so yeah it is almost better for you to just mash through that bag of chips and get it done with yeah rather than like Oh, I won't do it. I'm sorry. Sorry, audience. But rather than like and like slowly go through the chip, it's just but like explaining this nuance, I understand why people in other in these phones life tell them that they're crazy, because if the things I figured out are maybe going to work sort of and they're weird, like, hey, don't make sound. But if you do make sound, don't do it real fast or hey, don't move your legs around in a way that I also do, because I have those things. how do you not sound insane how do you not sound right just randomly nuts to people that you try to explain this to you or something yeah right like oh i think colin is losing his mind um yeah yeah i think that he's losing his mind so i um you know you and i know each other from kind of the san francisco tech startup scene i lived that life for a few years and then moved back to the east coast of philadelphia and um you know i've worked from home i've worked for companies you know remotely and things like that i'm at a company right now uh we uh company called arcweb we do um software consulting in the philadelphia area And it's a really, really nice company because people seem to respect each other quite a bit, which is useful. We still have that open office floor plan. That's not been much of an issue here in the last year and a half, let's say. But we did a thing during the pandemic where we were encouraging people on the team to do a personal demo. So we would often do project demos on our weekly meetings, and we did these personal demos. And people opened up about amazing tragedies that they've overcome. I have led a very privileged life. I've been really, really lucky in that regard. But I did have a slide on my presentation that was like, who is Colin? And there's things on there like he's an atheist. He does this. He's into that. And one of them was a suffering misophone. And I put a link in the slides to the article on it. And interestingly, you go through all these things that you think are quirky and interesting about you. And then you stick this one in there. People paused me in the middle of that to ask about it. One person had heard about it. And I said something like, it was a neat opening and an opportunity for me to say something like, if you ever see me get really tight or leave a meeting or do anything like that, know that this might be it. And if my cross to bear is that sounds bother me sometimes, I think I'm really decently set in this life as much as it is sometimes true fight or flight. Um, but I do think having that ability or that kind of understanding in a network that this is a real thing, or at least you're telling us it's a real thing. And it's something that you need, you know, to take your own personal accommodations for that's been really helpful. And the way that was received helped me do things like tell, you know, extended family or friends out on the street where previously you just, it wouldn't come up or I would just leave or kind of Irish situation. Um, you can, you can, uh, noise is getting bad. Gotta leave. See ya. Yeah. um yeah so i think that having that has been you know a nice eye opener so i think that i could dovetail that into the pandemic has been good in that way because it's encouraged a few people in the right context to share the things that they're you know dealing with right and um that's definitely a thing that i've been dealing with over the you know the course of this time it's been a little bit more highlighted
Adeel [27:25]: Yeah, dude, that's fascinating. I mean, I, I, I, you know, we were not, we haven't been in touch too much since the, uh, the old, uh, context is. So I had no idea that it was just kind of creeping up and you're actually now, I mean, I think it's amazing. You're like identifying it. You're kind of like. it's not part of your identity you're kind of like being more open about it and yeah people are this is what we need more of and yeah that's i think people listening hopefully will will think we'll get some tips here on how to kind of introduce it in the work environment where they're apt to get triggered a lot that's and and that's that's not just for you it's going to help other people who might be who might be suffering in silence so i think it's a it's win-win for society
Colin [28:04]: Yeah, I think that's a good point. We've already talked about the notion of you've got to find this word of what this is before you might even realize, I have this. This is what's going on with me. So rather than kind of hiding it and trying to mitigate it all myself, even though I've just said a lot of my coping mechanisms are like bracing and dealing with it, mentioning it or putting that word out there or describing what it is or at least teeing up someone to ask you what the heck is misophonia that you just said that you have um is really really uh i think a really nice thing to help people identify that it's real and it's going out and then you can say things like well look there's not just me telling you that this exists but here's an article you can read about it it's it's legitimate here's a podcast where someone's going through when people talk about their experiences and you'll identify with them i think you had a recent guest and um i forget her name but she mentioned um One of the things she does is like in an icebreaker situation, she says, like, I have this thing, I hate noises that are cracking and doing and like this, these things trigger me. So whenever she's in a context to kind of introduce who she is, she talks about who she is, what she does and that, hey, these things just blow me up.
Adeel [29:16]: Yeah.
Colin [29:17]: And that she mentioned on the on the episode that that essentially gave her a license later on in that interaction to say something like, can you stop tapping? Right. You know, can you do these things? Right. And I think that category of thing, it normalizes it. But also if unless you're with like. people that don't care about other people which we all know from recent events exist um but if unless you're with you know someone who just outright would would disregard that um it sets it it preps it up you know if it's a thing um i have found that um the amount of sleep i get you know the the mood that i'm in really really very much yeah oh it all um affects it so i can tell you know on like a day where the family's all at home and we haven't had lunch, but we should have had lunch an hour ago or something like that. I can see all the typical things that happen to the kids not regulating their mood. And I might be chastising them like, well, you guys got to eat food. You're old enough that you need to know where the snacks are. You can go do this yourself. And then while I'm doing that, being angry dad, I'm like, wait, you're getting bothered by everything because it's this category. I'm hangry. We use the word hangry all the time. My wife and I don't use it on ourselves enough, but we should. And when any of those kind of levels are high, you know, my triggers for, you know, misophonia and mesokinesia are just much, much, you know, more live wires.
Adeel [30:47]: Do you find that also like if you're, you know, if you're working or if you're coding and you're trying to get your, trying to debug something or you're trying to get your tests to work and it's like, you know, you need to take a break. But during that break, it's like you cannot be triggered because you're still thinking about the work issue. And so even if you're well slept and well fed, it's hard to kind of like, yeah, it's just brain management is not a strong suit at that point. You're focused on something and then you're stressed. And so you're extra triggered. At least I am.
Colin [31:23]: Yeah. No, no, absolutely. I think actually one of the things that I use, I think I've just always done this personally, but I think it's, it's, it's, it's become somewhat of a, not so much a coping mechanism and that I'm, you know, remediating, but like at a preventative measure is I actually do a lot. And this is also coming from being an only child and things like that. I do a lot of talking to myself out loud, you know, and walking through, talking through problems. So yeah. it's definitely related my mind is going someone will well let's say this they'll think my mind is going before it is because of all of these things right but that doesn't mean that it isn't that it won't right um but you know i i commute when i do go to the office i commute by walking i've got like a 25 minute walk through historic philadelphia i am chat i realize that i am chatting with myself while i'm doing it not out loud you know not like a wild crazy person on the street but just Thinking through a thought by talking to myself, you know, this kind of like solo dialogue. It's how I solve problems. You mentioned the notion of like coding, doing software, being in the solution to a problem. It helps me keep that thought going and live and bubbling, right? You know, make sure that's going. I've actually found that when I am in that mode, I... can push off you know how I mentioned the notion earlier of not recognizing a sound trigger initially I can kind of get myself in a zone where I don't notice things and it can be really really helpful yeah sort of preventatively yeah however if there is a big trigger or an interruption it's like I've lost all concentration and I've lost everything and like getting it back is not a thing and I I think software engineering as a trade is sometimes creative, and anyone who has one of these creative endeavors where you have to strike while the iron is hot or you have to commit work while the juices are flowing, this as something that can interrupt that is just atrocious and horrible. It's not uncommon for me to just lose flow because of something like this and not know when it's going to come back.
Adeel [33:22]: yeah i mean marcia johnson dr marsha johnson told me when i first met her that she's like one of the top cheerleaders from this funny audiologist and she said like a third of her patients are engineers and so we you know at the conventions i've been kind of leading these kind of like you know off uh you know breakout sessions on misophonian engineering and yeah there's i mean it's usually the kind of one of the bigger groups is like people gathering who are all in technical slash create, you know, that engineering creative kind of, uh, kind of thing. So, yeah, there's some, something there. We're so early on this, uh, in the, in the research for this, but, um, Yeah.
Colin [34:01]: Go ahead. I was going to say I've read some things that, you know, a lot of these folks who are, you know, disorders that are considered neuroatypical. So you think about folks that are on the autism spectrum or people who are on the ADHD spectrum. There's there's a theory that there's a relation between the way that, you know, those brain wirings and and disorders like this. My dad, and I think if it's physiological, my dad suffered in his, I guess his early adulthood, mid-adulthood with panic disorders, panic disorders and social anxiety. He actually became medicated for that in the 80s. He's told stories which I have wired back to... the extreme version of how I feel when I get in a flight or fight mode. You know, there's stories that are funny to say now, but you know, my mom and dad, when they were dating, maybe went camping. And they had gone camping, and then they got cleaned up in, like, the little canteen. And my dad got cleaned up, and he was, you know, sitting on a bench. And my mom said, okay, I'm going to go in and get washed up. And when she came out, she found him, like, 30 feet away in a pile of leaves because he had basically had a panic attack, like an anxiety attack, rolled on the ground into some leaves and done these things. And, like, there's this story they have. you know, about a restaurant, you know, where it was like, hey, man, if you want to get out of the bill, you don't have to throw an episode, you know, because.
Adeel [35:27]: Yeah.
Colin [35:28]: So I think about that sometimes in that, you know, he's had to mitigate that with a combination of being aware of his triggers, you know, his anxiety triggers and, you know, medication, you know, for that, which he has now at this point had taken for 30, you know, 30, 35 years, you know, his life. um that's certainly not the level of you know panic or anxiety that i feel but it's definitely on that continuum right of i have triggers that cause me to get to a point where i feel like i'm out of control and i've got to use a breathing or i've got it you know i've got to get out of the way so i do think that these things are you know there's definitely credence to the fact that this is a thing that folks can pass down to other people. It's very real. I also think that we just live in a world where everybody has got some level of issues. And some of them are coming from the physical makeup of your brain or your body. And some of them are just your trauma, your... environment um and i think that that's an that's nice that we're seeing that and realizing that so people that have i mean i don't want to i don't want to lessen misophonia because you know as a misophonic server i want to champion it and say it's you know it's a real thing that does inhibit my ability to do things yeah you know but i am you know thankful that it's not something more serious or i'm not having a panic attack and rolling on the ground in the leaves like my dad you know dealt with you know 34 years ago but uh i i've talked been able to talk about it with my dad a little bit at times and he's been like ah you know he you know has not to throw shade on the boomer generation enough of that happens on the internet um but you know i think there's just a notion of um a generational difference between accepting other people's you know struggles uh and uh You know, you're talking to my dad. My dad is a Vietnam War veteran who has a legitimate medicated case, you know, and all of these things, right? His struggle is different than my struggle, but they're still real. There's still things that have to be dealt with. So I've had much more luck in talking to people of my own generation or younger than me when you talk about things that you struggle with like this. So that's why I talk about my place of work right now. It's a good, supportive environment. My immediate family and my wife and kids understand it when I mention it. They don't know the details of why daddy hates you clicking and clacking that thing right now, but they appreciate it in a way that's interesting.
Adeel [37:59]: What do they do at work for you? Does it just let you have the AirPods on or do they mix it up?
Colin [38:09]: I've never actually sought, you know, an actual, you know, help or support for it, apart from mentioning it. We definitely allow headphones and we do things like that. I am, you know, now I was essentially project tech leadership in my role at this company. And now I'm actually the head of the engineering department. So a lot of my day is meetings now. which means you're literally navigating in and out of different potential trigger situations over and over throughout the day but it also means that i can kind of control where i sit or i can control where i am or i get the luxury of even though we have an open office being in a conference room slash we've also been working from home for so long i can kind of control my own environment a little better um if it got serious though i know that we would you know noise cancelling headphones or you know potentially a different workspace would be you know an option for me i think having The key element is knowing that people at least respect that it's a thing that you're going through and that they'll work to support you in that world.
Adeel [39:09]: Once I know that, then I can be comfortable. It's interesting because when you first mentioned your joy trigger, I thought you were going to talk about our head of engineering that we had and his Diet Coke.
Colin [39:29]: Oh, gosh.
Adeel [39:29]: I thought that that's what your initial trigger was. I remember that we used to talk about that.
Colin [39:37]: Maybe I've blocked that one out. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's not funny. Like I have had other soda slurpers in my life. My parents, my parents are both big time Diet Pepsi fans and they they will slurp a soda from time to time. No, but I actually have. I must have blocked that one.
Adeel [39:57]: Because I remember you talking about that multiple times. And after you were gone, I mean, that was killing me over there, too. And, like, other co-workers were, like, you know, we'd sometimes take a break and play, like, you know, Boggle and other games in one of the, you know, the interrogation rooms. We called them. They weren't really interrogation rooms. But, like, and then if... if he came in like i could not concentrate on the game and so i would be like oh man yeah shut down yeah just mental shutdown so uh but i couldn't say anything because i mean it's like our boss and well how am i going to sound crazy or and so i just basically it's also it you know it's funny because i've i've chatted with him and kept touch with him like very very loosely over the years i i after not leaving that company not being in that situation
Colin [40:47]: so much of that just, you know, melted away. But what you say is really important because I've noticed that among myself too. And you have to fight this a lot with your loved ones. You attach the fact that they are a trigger to a person, you know, or at least I do, you know, this notion of, I know that they slurp their diet Coke, or I know that they chew their apple really loud. You start to associate that and those are the feelings you have about that person. So like you said, maybe he comes into the room, he's not even slurping a Diet Coke, but you're like, this vibe, my vibe check is failing now because of this. And that, we haven't talked enough about that, but that ultimately is what I saw as the thing that was going to be the most inhibiting to me going forward. You were going to identify and attach this frustrating thing to this person who otherwise is great or who is not really a problem or who shouldn't really affect your ability to be in a certain meeting, get a certain promotion, do a certain thing, work at a certain place. And that's a really, really good thing to call attention to, I think, that that's the rabbit hole you can go down. Yeah, right. Right. What about with friends socially?
Adeel [41:56]: I'm curious. Do you bring it up?
Colin [42:00]: Well, it's 2021, so social is not so much the thing, right?
Adeel [42:04]: Right. So that brings up another point. It's like, you know, coming out of social distancing, I'm like, I'm actually like, this kind of, I'm trying to, I'm not like, I'm honestly like recalibrating. Like now it's like, I'm kind of starting from scratch, I feel like. And now I can kind of like really think about, it's kind of like, who's sponge worthy? You know, it's just like, who do I want to surround myself now with? I can kind of decide now.
Colin [42:31]: There is such an opportunity for the great social reset. And I think that bridges will be burned and feelings will be hurt because of this. Because I think what's going to happen is a lot of people are going to choose to not come to my office anymore because of that. So there's a professional aspect to that. And then, no, I'm not going to go to that Thanksgiving event because it's too many people. Or secretly, I never liked hanging out with you, aunt so-and-so, and you, uncle Bob, so much.
Adeel [43:03]: Especially after the insurrection and all the people you have to de-friend on Facebook.
Colin [43:09]: Oh, gosh, yeah. All the people you have to kind of, oh, you were a closet person. It's going to be a lighter Christmas.
Adeel [43:13]: I don't want to bother.
Colin [43:14]: Yeah. And I think that that's I think that's refreshing. I have nerves around that because I think, you know, and maybe part of this is only child pressure is greater sometimes than folks who have siblings where like you, you spread out the frustration, like all the hopes and dreams and loves and feelings of your parents are spread out. they all as an adult only child are on me so me saying no to an event because i'm not wanting to do that social thing or because i'm not wanting to be in that environment is there's an emotional tax that i'll have to pay either immediately or later i don't know but this this notion of choosing when and where and who you hang out with i think the pandemic is giving us that and it's a great gift secretly yeah um because for me i we haven't really i haven't thought about this strategically or like who am i not going to be friends with oh i am um maybe i'll get there and i think i will get there you know once we get comfortable you know with with certain events we're going to choose the things we want to do and we're going to say no to the things we don't and it's not i'm not going to feel bashful or shameful or angry about that yeah um and and who triggers you has to be a part of that consideration, right? It just has to be. You know, a notion of every time I'm around you, I have to worry about your breathing. I'm sorry.
Adeel [44:31]: Or maybe while you're not around them, maybe take an opportunity to try to explain to them before the next meeting kind of thing. That might be more... you know productive to the people who you know we don't want to like burn every big bridge but uh right yeah yeah it gives us the opportunity to kind of like you said the great it's so funny the great social reset like i've when i'm walking down the street talking to myself i'm talking about stuff like that too i'm like oh yeah social reset and yeah yeah it's so it's funny to hear from you too um
Colin [45:02]: I like the image of you getting that animated. The idea of you being that animated. That's my Incredible Hulk.
Adeel [45:09]: Yeah.
Colin [45:13]: But I think in social situations, it's come up occasionally or there's been things. It's nice, I think, that having young kids, there's just this kind of innate cohort that you have with other folks in that same problem space, let's say. And we live on a street with a lot of really good neighbors who have started to have their families around the same time we have. So you have this, it was actually a saving grace in the pandemic was, hey, there's so little traffic, there's so little things, let's just bring the kids out into the street. once we all get comfortable with mask or no mask we're going to hang out and chat and then vaccine happened and you know there were parts of this spring and summer where there was just a nice time um i think the main thing for me will be um cutting down on the number of social activities and social engagements and things like that hopefully leads to less harried less running around less stress hopefully leads to less flare ups, you know, less, you know, of those times I was talking about where I'm kind of in that bad mood or I'm hangry, you know, and doing things. So I see that as probably the, the wind that I'll get. And then there'll probably be a couple of good situations or folks that I can opt out of, you know, seeing a lot. I can't believe that we're in the second year of figuring out like, are we going to have a family Thanksgiving or are we going to have a family, you know, holiday season? Um,
Adeel [46:31]: can you believe like there was the uh the the the other the um influence the um the influenza one in 1918 like it's it's had we've had like the same number of deaths and it's lasted it's lasted longer than before we had any vaccine before like it's just amazing that we have not really we have not grown since then and not really in some important area you'd think that the one place you'd want to advance in is like healthcare and we haven't even been able to do that
Colin [47:04]: I mean, you and I could go off on a completely different podcast about, you know, capitalism, you know, and its influence on those things. A great example of that, you know, in terms of allowing you to get into situations and do things. And we had ordered a series of masks, you know, special type of masks that are off the face for the kids. And this company, I understand why, but when vaccines came out and things started to look great at the end of the spring, they cut their production. So then it got to be nearing school going back and masks were going to be a thing and the Delta variant was a thing. There were no masks available. So I was on a waiting list where I was like 16,000 in line on a waiting list to get like three masks that have fun patterns and sit off the face for my kids. We still, I think, live in that world. We could talk about capitalism and its effect on the world another time.
Adeel [47:56]: Yeah. I mean, I have pretty nuanced views on capitalism and the critiques of capitalism, too. So, yeah, we could definitely. I think that would be interesting. But we'll switch to. beer because you have had a podcast or youtube something in the past i was going to talk to you i did yes the effect of alcohol on the you know other like yourself maybe and just maybe if you want if you had any thoughts on that because i basically you know i've kind of like um especially after the past after last year i kind of put the put the brakes on some of that stuff uh you know just because like yeah it's
Colin [48:34]: it would make me more accurate it would be that the hangriness uh would be kind of times two and so um and also health reasons uh but i'm curious i think that this this conversation that's great research that you've done there but this conversation will be perhaps less fruitful i'm gonna switch in rooms here so my uh my wife wife can take advantage of the office shortly um but um yeah we um I did, what Adeel's referring to is I used to do a, I guess, vidcast was the word. That was the word for a while. It was a YouTube channel where we reviewed beers. My friend, a colleague and co-friend of Adeel's and I named JT. We did a show called Yet Another Beer Show. And we did beer reviews. And it was a nice thing to get into it. But I haven't done that really for years because I found out that my palate wasn't there. you know so i i i reviewed uh we had put out something maybe 100 or episodes uh and it's a very simple format you know we go out to the store we pick out a few beers we bring them each and then we kind of figure out what we're going to talk about them and we learned a little bit about how to properly review and test you know the taste of a beer and everything and review it um but Beer can actually be like wine, where most of us live about here on the spectrum. You can sense a little bit of a difference. You have a sense of your preferences, but you can't tell the difference between, say, a $15 bottle and a $80 bottle. But a sommelier can. Someone who's trained their palate over the years can. So I was mentioning it. I floated the podcast to a friend, and then they said, oh, I watched a few, and I noticed that you used like three words. You know, it's malty or it's hoppy or it's this and the mouth feels that. And I really felt I felt just attacked. But honestly, it was just an eye opener where I was like, I really don't think I can take this to the point where I'm a great reviewer. And for a while I enjoyed the, you know, the craft beer scene and everything. But similarly, I don't think it's been pandemic related because actually in the pandemic. So I live in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has very interesting liquor laws. You can't. Well, it's lightened in the recent years, but you couldn't, for instance, go buy a six pack of beer somewhere. That's not a thing. you could buy 30 or 24 beers if you went to a beer distributor but that beer distributor is not not allowed to also sell hard alcohol or wine those are actually sold by the government this is kind of like canada gotcha okay yes it's actually it's not it's not too different from your homeland um uh but uh so at the beginning of the pandemic, uh, one of our pandemic coping mechanisms was, you know, Liz and Liz would send me out and I'd come back with like six cases of beer that we wanted to try over the next, however many weeks. And I was shocked to find out that that wasn't a month. It was like two weeks, like the timeline that we thought it was. Um, but that's, I'm more of just, you know, an enjoyer now more than a reviewer.
Adeel [51:36]: Yeah.
Colin [51:36]: But I will say that, um, as a side effect of cutting down on stuff in general, early pandemic notwithstanding, there are not situations I'm in where my flare-ups are there. So I would say that a lot of the scenes and places where drinking would happen in my college years, in my early 20s, even as a young professional, you go out to bars, bars are loud places. I am a person who would hear the clinking of the glasses and the dropping of things behind the bar. or the conversation across the room, sometimes more than the one right in front of me. Um, so for me, I think the connection there to, uh, you know, the misophonia is more about that situation that I'm on, you know, when you're, when you are doing, you know, the drinking.
Adeel [52:19]: So you said the bars would trigger you. Well, you'd noticed that some people, some people find them good for white noise, but, but you're, you're kind of picking up on all that on the trigger.
Colin [52:29]: I think it's, it's, it's, you know, bars can float throughout the day from being, you know, more like a coffee house. Uh, and then also, and then also more like a dance club. Right. And then, There could be anything in between.
Adeel [52:39]: For me, some people need to cough all the time while they're drinking. During a conversation, it's like an unusual amount of coughing for some certain people.
Colin [52:49]: Also, now that's like the worst thing you could possibly do, right? If you cough, it literally triggers you in other ways.
Adeel [52:56]: Right.
Colin [52:59]: i think that uh you know for me a lot of the factors you know that are situational or environments that that i mean that i need to try and uh find a way to navigate out of or or not be in um And, you know, I mentioned how my dad had, you know, his issue that he's medicated for. I, in college, had a few, you know, of those. They were never really full-on panic attacks, but they were certainly anxiety, you know, stresses. And I have, I think in my mind, dialed those all back or tied them all back to either, you know, these misophonia triggers, you know, that, you know, kind of expense, or, you know, noise, environmental things. It's not misophonia, but another thing that will frustrate me a lot is too many noises happening. So imagine you are trying to play music in your kitchen while you're cooking dinner because that's a cathartic way to kind of release at the end of the day. And then that's when your child decides to play at high volume a game on the iPad. And then that's when someone decides to do something else or talk to you when you're trying to do things. So my ability to kind of like executively function and separate those things as things I need to address, deal with, and consume.
Adeel [54:07]: Yeah.
Colin [54:08]: I falter horribly. Uh, and what I ended up having to do is turn off my music to let those other things happen because I can't appreciate that.
Adeel [54:16]: Are you a musician at all? I mean, in the, in the most, in the most.
Colin [54:23]: In the most rule-bending way, yes. I played bass guitar. I played violin as a kid. I was in a band, technically. But that was more of the garage band sort of approach. So I think that maybe method of thinking, I probably could have scratched that or grown that muscle. That's probably there as much as that's physiologically a part of a person. But I never exercised it.
Adeel [54:50]: Did you ever go see a therapist or anybody kind of like your dad ended up having to do about this? I haven't.
Colin [54:59]: I haven't. Now, there are many things that I probably should. Yeah, we know that. I think actually, yeah, we've talked to me for enough time that it's pretty obvious, right? And I think actually one of the things that I'll come out of, and I think I say come out of the pandemic, but it's probably that time should be now. We should stop waiting for it to end.
Adeel [55:17]: uh one of the things that will come out of me come out of it for me is the ability just to just go do that here's the activation fight the inertia of not calling that person up and this will absolutely be a session or ten you know that we talked about all these things and how to how to mitigate them right i mean misophonia it's you might not find somebody who knows what it is or at least it's going to take a while to find somebody but uh yeah i'm just curious if yeah if you had if you had tried and and and seen if any therapist had heard about it. It's always a 50-50 chance, it seems like.
Colin [55:48]: I think that I would do well, and I know that I would do well to just talk about a lot of those things that everyone needs to talk about. I fall victim to the kind of, if I get through an episode or I get through a time that's tough, I move on. And by moving on, we talked about that colleague that we had that had that trigger for us. leaving that job, that melts away. So in a way, that's healthy in that I can recognize the ebbs and flows, but it doesn't necessarily help me get to working through that problem or working through learning real coping mechanisms or learning real ways that we can unturn some things. So thanks, Adeel, for basically ending this, or nearly ending this by saying, I think you need therapy.
Adeel [56:38]: Of course, for the audience, I was saying that in jest, just to see my usual question of has the guest gone to see a therapist in the past?
Colin [56:48]: It's a reasonable thing. No, it's a reasonable thing. It's adjacent to all of us. We've talked a lot about obviously triggers and coping mechanisms, and then we've talked a lot about the pandemic. I think all of these things are going to... We talked a little bit, at least skirted around the edge of how these things are going to get normalized yeah you know this notion of i i have an issue or i have something that needs some support it's going to get normalized and i think some of that support is frequently going to be you know therapy or it's going to be just talking out your things and kind of being honest with the you know the triggers you have in the situations that cause you stress right right right right well um yeah colin um
Adeel [57:27]: Yeah, I mean, we're coming up to an hour. I know we'll catch up on other stuff at another time, but yeah, anything else you still have on your notes there from the beginning of this that you want to share with people who are listening in?
Colin [57:42]: I had a chance to at least dovetail a lot of my notes. Listening through a lot of these episodes have been really great. So you mentioned if I had anything to plug, I think people are already listening to something that's really helpful. For me, this notion of hearing other people describe a how they learned about this weird thing and then b what it's like for them uh has been really really validating and it's been really really excellent um so the all the the mechanisms that you put out there in terms of resources you're probably combing i get the sense that you're kind of combing the earth you know, for all of the things you can find. So I might as well benefit from that.
Adeel [58:16]: They just all come to me. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. And I'm glad that that's doing that, even though, you know, we used to work together. Now, 10 years later, this stuff is hopefully benefiting you. That's great to hear. But yeah, no, people just kind of come to me. I rarely have to. I never have to ask anybody. There's only specific people like. like big people in the in the community that i have gone after but it's been just people and it's mostly people who've never talked well it's often people who've never talked about it with anybody and so that's the those are some of the you know really amazing things um but yeah this is gonna help a lot of people
Colin [58:53]: Do you think you could be as successful at this if you didn't have such a nice, deep, comforting voice?
Adeel [59:00]: I've heard that as well. And I'm like, what other topics should I talk about? Other podcasts I should spin up? But yeah, I hope. And also, you know, I cut out the painstakingly go through the audio and cut out any lip smacking and all that stuff. So it probably comes out maybe even cleaner than I usually am.
Colin [59:21]: I think... I actually think that that's hard to ask a regular event or a regular service to do. But that attention to detail and that acknowledgement of the fact that this is going to happen. I think when I was going through your catalog, there was one episode where you said, hey, there was a noise. It was like a scratch. It happens around this time. That idea of, hey, I couldn't get that out, but I tried. is really, really helpful because one of the things, when I talk to folks about this, and this is the deepest conversation I've ever had about someone where we really know the term and we know what we're, you know, the topic that we're talking about. But when I've mentioned it to people, they often talk about how, oh, sounds like nails on a chalkboard bother me or, you know, things like that. And like, They're not placating. They're just trying to get in there and acknowledge those things. And that notion of that attention to detail that you do on the podcast, that is like the best advertisement for like, no, this is actually, this is the level of some folks who have this condition just get to a point where someone smacking their lips wrong or being too close to the microphone really will affect their ability to consume that entire episode.
Adeel [60:34]: Right. Yeah. Yeah, no, you're right. And I think just telling people, even if I have to keep that thing in there, I know for myself and talking to other people that if you just know it coming up front, like you've said that many times in this episode, as long as you are aware of what it is and if it's coming, you have a better chance of dealing with it because you know it's not some boogeyman about to jump on you and kill you.
Colin [61:00]: Right, absolutely. Yeah, I think that even chatting with you this hour, I think validated a couple of the approaches that I'm doing. Hey, there's no playbook, right? So here's a play and, you know, ask someone what they're eating before they eat. Maybe that will be useful to one of your listeners, but I'm actually now saying, well, as crazy as that sounds, I think that is actually something that has helped me over the last year or two, you know, and you can kind of turn it, uh, what was going to be a really angry situation into one that you recognize is going to happen, but then it's sort of friendly as well.
Adeel [61:37]: Right.
Colin [61:37]: Um, right. We can do that sometimes. You see someone eating or you're in a situation where eating is happening. That's definitely possible. Not all the time. Right, right, right.
Adeel [61:48]: Yeah. Cool, Colin. I'll let you get back to the rest of your day. It's been great. Let's catch up on more general stuff. I'd love to see what you're doing, see what your job's about too. I also just left the big corporate life and went to a local consulting company. well at least contracting yeah yeah change scenery post post 2020 covety kind of stuff and then um yeah just trying to figure out if i should get deeper into that or or something else but um But yeah, it's like you said, great social reset, great career reset, everything. So I'm hoping other people listening kind of like have that take the agency to kind of like, or at least, you know, or it worked maybe a little bit privileged, but we're at least able to somehow kind of like, yeah, rethink things, get a change of scenery if they need to. Yeah, glad to have you on and good luck with everything. And yeah, fantastic to catch up on this one weird specific thing.
Colin [62:56]: I mean, it was wonderful. I think it's interesting and difficult to keep in touch with people. It just is because you've got to find that time. So, hey, here's a very specific topic that we could chat about for an hour and it was great chatting with you.
Adeel [63:07]: Well, honestly, yeah, I feel like... a lot of these conversations it's like i only talk to people for an hour but i feel like we're like bffs all these strangers that i've never i'm probably never gonna see again and uh and some people who come on they they want to get introduced to people they've heard so if that ever happens you know just let me know too but um yeah no that's that's wonderful if there are folks in the uh you know philadelphia region who are in the software industry uh i'm my name is colin mccloskey i'm on linkedin and i work for a company called arcweb
Colin [63:37]: um i'm happy to reach out to folks who are fellow music phones or who are just kind of in that industry um i think it's great to be able to meet people you know it's it's much easier to meet someone in an honest way if you have some notion of a thing that you share you know you know and that that can be something like a struggle that you have or an interest and you That's great.
Adeel [63:57]: Yeah, that's great. But this is the new app that I'll just plug the little app. But in one of the resources section, it's a list of businesses either owned by or ideally that have misophones working there. So I kind of want to get to kind of like a job board, a misophonic job board where it's not like... I'm trying to message it properly so people don't think that it's like jobs about misophonia, but we want like... places where you will have somebody that you you know you'll have somebody who understands you and i think for a lot of us that could be a major life-changing thing in terms of like uh wealth you know growth creation and just kind of like all that kind of stuff and we you know we're not even going to talk about like yeah i'm trying to i'm trying to get more awareness in school counselors and whatnot didn't kind of change people's lives that way but uh But yeah, I want to get a job board around for, and so maybe, you know, we'll have, you know, you for the Philadelphia area up there just to kind of like, just to get lists going in various cities, just to kind of see, you know, how we can get people in, you know, clusters together and working in a comfortable environment.
Colin [65:04]: Yeah, I like that idea of for all sorts of situations, you know, here's a place where you'll be supported or at least understood or, you know, something of that nature.
Adeel [65:12]: Yeah.
Colin [65:13]: All right. Cool, man. This was fantastic. We should absolutely catch up about non-Misophonia related topics soon. I got your number now. I wish you all the best. Yeah. That's right. I wish you all the best. And this was fantastic. And much continued luck to the great Misophonia podcast.
Adeel [65:28]: Thank you, Colin. What a great way to reconnect and catch up. I know a lot of people will benefit from hearing your thoughts and your story. If you liked this episode, don't forget to leave a quick review or just hit the five stars wherever you listen to this podcast. You can hit me up by email at hello at mrpointypodcast.com or go to the website mrpointypodcast.com. Easiest ways to also just DM me on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. support the show by visiting patreon patreon.com slash music podcast the music as always is by moby and until next week and season six wishing you peace and quiet
Unknown Speaker [66:30]: you