Lynn - Unique Machine Sound Triggers

Adeel [0:01]: Welcome to the Misophonia podcast. This is episode 11 of season six. My name's Adeel Ahmad and I have Misophonia. This week I'm talking to Lynn, a music and entertainment lawyer in New York City. Actually, she's quite multi-talented as you'll hear. Lynn doesn't have the normal mouth sound triggers that many of us do. Hers are a little more machine oriented. We also talk about HSP, highly sensitive people. her career as a therapist before going into law, how different cultures react to misophonia and other mental health conditions, as well as our recommendations for quiet kitchen appliances. And I give Lynn some of my instructions on how to eat if and when we have a meal together in New York. As always, let me know what you think. You can reach out by email at hello.misophoniapodcast.com or hit me up on Instagram or Facebook at Misophonia Podcast. By the way, please do head over and leave a quick review or rating wherever you listen to this show. It helps drive us up in the algorithms and reach more misophones. Thanks for the incredible ongoing support of our Patreon supporters, including new supporter, Sarah. If you'd like to contribute, you can read all about our different levels at patreon.com slash misophonia podcast. And one of the best ways to get the word out, as I said above, is just to leave a quick rating and review. All right, now here's my conversation with Lynn. Lynn, welcome to the podcast. Good to have you here.

Lynn [1:34]: Happy to be here. Nervous. I'm a little nervous.

Adeel [1:38]: Yeah. No, don't be nervous. It flies by. You won't even know. But so, yeah, I guess you want to start by kind of telling people where you are and what you do.

Lynn [1:48]: Yeah. I'm in New York City and I'm an entertainment lawyer. I do music, film, and television agreements, transactional law. I don't go to court. I don't sue people. I'm a non-litigious lawyer working in the entertainment business.

Adeel [2:09]: Cool. Yeah. And I guess, yeah, you had reached out earlier this year, I think I want to say maybe even before the summer. I believe it. I believe you did. I think it's been a while. We've been trying to put this together. Yeah. But so how? Yeah. So how was it just to kind of like, you know, listen to the podcast? Or was there like, how is this funny for you these days? Like, is it?

Lynn [2:31]: Yeah.

Adeel [2:32]: Things been breaking out?

Lynn [2:34]: Yeah, breaking out. Is that the is that the term?

Adeel [2:37]: I just made that up, actually.

Lynn [2:38]: Good to know.

Adeel [2:41]: Kind of like a zip breakout.

Lynn [2:42]: That's awesome. TM. Just TM at the end. Exactly. So, you know, I listened to some of your episodes, and I don't think I have the typical story about misophonia. I just recently discovered that I had it. didn't have a name for it until really recently. So once in a while when I'm feeling tortured by my triggers, I'll do a little Google search just to learn more. I feel like a baby in terms of discovering what this is about and how to manage it and, you know, how to avoid certain triggers and so on. So so I would say that I'm still in the discovery phase and, you know, trying to remember when it started. I have no idea when it started. I don't remember being like this as a kid or even as a young adult. And but, you know, I have things that annoyed me in life. And then I realized that Wow, I have this thing.

Adeel [3:48]: What made you realize that? It sounds like it was, yeah.

Lynn [3:53]: Yeah, so I think it was 2018. And it was a real recent. I used to volunteer for Sundance every year and the festival. And Melanie Linsky, this indie actress,

Adeel [4:07]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's got dysphonia, right? She talks about it.

Lynn [4:10]: Yeah. Well, she, you know, I was reading this interview because she had done a couple of films, you know, this particular season of Sundance. And she said, oh, yeah, I have this thing. And as I, you know, I Googled it. What is this thing? And she says she suffers from. And I was like, oh, my gosh. I have this, you know, it was really surprising. Although I feel like I have a different one than most do. It comes out in different ways. So that's how I discovered and came into the world of miso. Do people say miso? Is that disrespectful? Okay, good.

Adeel [4:43]: No, no.

Lynn [4:44]: The misos, yes.

Adeel [4:47]: Yeah, just the misosphere, misophones, misophonic people. I don't think anyone's really... Actually, it's funny, no one... I don't know if anyone is crazy about the name Misophonia because I think it means hatred of sound. It's not like we hate all sounds. It's, you know, selective sounds. There used to be a term, sorry for the history lesson, but there used to be a term called selective sound sensitivity syndrome, which is more accurate, but way less catchy. And so it kind of, you kind of went to Misophonia around, basically it was in a New York Times article in 2011. And the name, I think, just kind of stuck since then, Misophonia.

Lynn [5:25]: Well, I do hate some sounds. And I like Miso.

Adeel [5:29]: That's why we're here. So, yeah. Yeah, miso's catchy, but also it's got the soup connotation as well. For sure, the soup, the sauce, love it.

Lynn [5:38]: Interesting.

Adeel [5:39]: But I guess, so that sounds, okay, so yeah, Melanie kind of tipped you off and did, so what were, so I guess, what are some of your, without making, obviously making the trigger sounds, so what are some of the things that, what makes it different for you then?

Lynn [5:53]: yes let me play all my no let me play all my triggers i um you know they're mostly machine or man-made sounds so um refrigerators oh my gosh i i get homicidal uh when i'm somewhere where there's you know loudly for the pool heaters uh generators um you know those kinds of things i just You know, even really loud ACs, you know, that drives me nuts. Fans I don't enjoy. And then there's some strange ones, you know, bad music. So music that I don't enjoy becomes a trigger. which maybe is just even if i didn't have me so i would feel that but it feels a little bit it feels more hateful than yeah you know it feels more hostile than other people who might listen to a song that they don't enjoy so um so you know that there's that and you know when i'm commercials, you know, on the radio and television that those drive me nuts. You know, a lot of just unwanted sounds and even music if I love it. But even if it's a music I love, but I'm not in the mood for it, it becomes a little bit triggering as well. So I'm just very aware of sounds. And if I'm I'm having lunch with somebody in a restaurant and the speaker or the music that they're playing is loud. Or if the speaker is bad and you could hear that, that humming or a bad speaker or, you know, all of that. I can't even listen to the conversation that I'm having in the restaurant. Yeah. I'm just like that sound, that sound, that sound, that sound. Went into the hardware store the other day. And even just to run in and out getting a nail, they were playing radios, commercial radios. So you were hearing the commercials. And then one of the speakers in the back of the hardware store was busted. So it was just like this very buzzing sound. And I was like, ah, I got to get out of here. Yeah. That's kind of the scope of my, I don't have the chewing, you know. Yeah, you don't have the chewing, okay. No, no.

Adeel [8:01]: So at that restaurant with your friend, with the speaker causing problems, that person's chewing or is that an issue?

Lynn [8:10]: No, not at all, yeah.

Adeel [8:11]: What about visual triggers? Do any visual triggers accompany any of these? not as, you know, not, not usual triggers.

Lynn [8:20]: What do people, what other people have as visual triggers?

Adeel [8:22]: So visual triggers, it's, it's, they usually accompany the more mouth sound, um, misophonia. So it's, it would be like if, if they're seeing somebody, um, you know, chewing something or maybe they're sometimes it's like fidgeting, uh, if they're seeing something. Yeah.

Lynn [8:40]: Yeah.

Adeel [8:40]: Unwanted repetitive, like, uh, like, you know, foot rotation or just, you know, Sometimes it's also like touch, like it's, you know, the classic kind of like kicking the back of your seat on an airplane. But but, you know, other other things.

Lynn [8:57]: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Now that you're saying that again, I feel like I'm still new to all this. So, yes, I get I'm very conscious of people are fidgeting and. You know, I do it, you know, not to the level of the sounds, but it does irritate me. Yes, I'm really conscious of the person who's sitting behind me or in front of me in a plane to the point where it can ruin my flight. And so, yeah, I guess there is some hypervigilance that go beyond the sounds now that you mention it. But I never really thought about that.

Adeel [9:27]: Yeah, there's a school of thought, and this might be a digression, but I was talking to someone about this yesterday, where the sound sensitivities might just be, might just stick out because it's, I was thinking about it, like hearing is... maybe the most difficult of our five senses to avoid, because we can close our eyes to avoid seeing something. We can obviously not touch something or not taste or smell something. But hearing, you really need to have noise-canceling headphones on to avoid a sound that could be associated with something that's uncomfortable for you. So maybe it's misophonia just happens to be an obvious symptom of a more... you know, holistic.

Lynn [10:12]: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

Adeel [10:15]: But anyway, so so then how do you so we I guess maybe like what are some of your coping mechanisms?

Lynn [10:21]: I don't know. Maybe you can give me some. Yeah. You know, again, I'm just discovering I think that, you know, and I was thinking about coming here to for this interview and talking about thinking about, well, what is my coping mechanisms? And I think that um there has been a little bit of a shift or trying to be more conscious of a shift between trying to control the environment and trying to stop the people places and things that are causing that noise and my discomfort to monitoring my own actions and responses so i think that that's shifting a little bit for instance i lived in this apartment i'm in new york now but i lived in la And I love this apartment, but right underneath me, you know, and I can picture it now that where this one neighbor had a really noisy, rattly air conditioning unit that I heard when it turned on every single time. And the second it shut off, I was like, ah. and it was constant unless i was playing live music or tv i was always very conscious of how that turned on and off and then at the same place there was a you know three doors down there was a pool heater again that i could always hear when it came on and always find some relief when it turned off and i was you know, writing letters to these neighbors, putting them in the mailbox. And the air conditioned place happened to be, you know, the pool heater place happened to be for sale. So the owners weren't even living there. You know, so having these like letter writing campaigns and at first people giving me hope that they would address it, but then they didn't. And so, you know, having, you know, mounting, you know, kind of campaigns to try to get these people to fix. And by the way, you know, I wish they had anyway, besides how sensitive I am, you know, but regardless, it would have been nice. I don't know how they all handled the sound, but obviously we know that now if they're not as sensitive to it, but, um, But now, you know, realizing, you know, I'm here in New York City and I know exactly what air conditions are coming on and off. I mean, it happens to me here too, but for whatever reason, I'm just finding ways to block it out or, you know, put music, put headphones on, kind of trying to modulate my own blocking out as opposed to, you know, being subject to the noise without any ability to kind of, you know, allowing the sound to control me versus trying to control the sound in some way.

Adeel [12:53]: Right. So not expecting other people to, you know, be able to turn things off, but rather... Well, I'm still trying to do that a little. I mean, not expecting that.

Lynn [13:05]: Yes, exactly. But I would literally, I mean, this is New York City and I live, you know, my apartment is in the back. So it's really, you know, it's the whole, it's a lot of backs to buildings is where I'm, you know, it's like rear window. Do you know that movie? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so I right. Exactly. So so, you know, I would have to write a whole lot of letters to get all the various heaters and air conditioner heaters. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But, you know, I hear all them going on. But heaters is not a problem because you close all your windows in a New York. Right. Quite thick. So it's just really my heaters that you hear and I'm not hearing everybody else's. But, you know, up until now, all my windows have been open and I'm hearing every air conditioning unit as it goes on and off throughout the summer.

Adeel [13:50]: I would think that the air conditioning, you'd want to close the windows too, but maybe some people have windows open, some people haven't.

Lynn [13:56]: Well, yeah, I'm only using air conditioner in the really when it's really, really hot. You know, most of the time I have a lot of a lot of cross ventilation here. So it's only about a month that I need AC and closed windows. Otherwise, my windows are open and there's a lot of fresh air here. So, yes, if I loved AC and I loved that, you know, I would it would be less problematic for sure.

Adeel [14:21]: How is New York otherwise? I would imagine there's all kinds of strange noises, but also there is a general white noise and people are just always moving. So it's not like you're necessarily trapped in one place.

Lynn [14:33]: It's true.

Adeel [14:34]: I don't know.

Lynn [14:36]: You know, I think that, you know, my sensitivities are selective. Car horns don't bother, you know, there's certain things that don't bother me and there's certain things that bother me. The white noise bothers me sometimes. I live on the park and on the river on the west side, so it's less, it's a quieter neighborhood. And again, I'm in the back, so we don't have a lot of traffic sound here. But yeah, it does bother me. I do, you know, before I realized I had misophonia, I always, once a year I would go to Thailand, Cambodia, somewhere in Southeast Asia. And I would always find the most isolated beach, you know, with, you know, the most isolated islands with no roads, no cars, no electricity, just super, super quiet. And like the amount of peacefulness that I experienced and calmness in my body. um was really you know so here i am in the noisiest most crowded city you know so um so once in a while i do i do wish to be you know taking away to a quiet beach where all i hear is the sound of the surf that's that's my it's my special place and does that does that help like sometimes uh just having that having that hope that you can just kind of get away once a year sometimes helps um do you find that that kind of um i don't know can kind of

Adeel [15:57]: I'll calm you down during the tough times when there's ACs of all different frequencies going off.

Lynn [16:05]: Not really. No, because then I'm just like, why aren't I there? Why am I here? What do I do? To make some wrong life choices to be here. And also going away for a week, a year is not the goal, the life goal here. To spend long periods of time at these places is the goal.

Adeel [16:27]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what about... So since you found out about it in 2018, do you tell people, friends, or is it something that you're still kind of learning about and just trying to cope with on your own?

Lynn [16:43]: I don't tell people. And as a matter of fact, I told my boss that I wasn't going to be available today. And I don't know why. I was like, you have an interview. He's like, what's the interview? I was like, ah. I was like, well. do you know what misophonia is? He's like, yeah, I'm like, well, I have it. I'm going to be okay. Bye. You know? And so, you know, I think that's the first person I've really told maybe my brother or maybe a friend, but I really, I don't tell people. Um, and you know, I hope that this doesn't sound, but am I, I don't, I still haven't explored. Am I ashamed of it? Or do I feel like a pain in the ass or, um, that's something that a lot of us feel.

Adeel [17:18]: Yeah. A lot of us definitely know we had it. No doubt. We know we had it from early age, but we just, bottled it up um before and after because yeah i mean a lot of us just piled up we have so much shame and guilt from yeah yeah it's interesting to hear your perspective somebody who's just found out about it recently so yeah it's that you know it feels very personal for sure um and but yeah i guess that and i also i don't know yeah i need to maybe tell more people maybe this is the way this is my outing right my outing party so uh yeah and what about like your your family growing up but you said you had you noticed some annoyances did you maybe um were there any things that you incidents that you remember or and my another question is going to be like do you Do you know anyone else who had it maybe in your family when you were growing up?

Lynn [18:14]: I know. I don't remember anybody I know having it. I knew. I don't remember incidents. I know that I was sensitive, like emotionally sensitive. And I was, you know, I do know that. But I don't remember it being related to sounds or anything. scents or, you know, I have a couple of scent sensitivities now, which I never did also. So I don't know if that's related or, you know, I kind of looked a little bit and I didn't see a lot of information about scent misophonia, but I imagine there could be.

Adeel [18:50]: Yeah, no, it's come up like, I guess, a phylactery or whatever, but it's come up once or twice as, you know, whenever I talk to people about mesokinesia, which is the visual triggers, some people mention, you know, other senses that they're sensitive about, like touch or sometimes smell. Yeah. So, would you say that another term that's come up a lot on the show is kind of like the highly sensitive person, the HSP, like being an ultra empathic person. Did you notice any traits like that growing up? Very much. Yeah.

Lynn [19:32]: yeah very much um you know i've always been intuitive um you know and sensitive and um and many times that you're too sensitive you're too sensitive grew up with that notion um i was also very emotional and before you know years of therapy know didn't know how to contain my emotions and handle you know so i do feel maybe maybe these things are connected in some ways um i was also before i was a lawyer i was a therapist so you know that was a natural place to to be empathic for sure

Adeel [20:12]: sensitive became a gift and an asset as opposed to a burden yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean that's just something that overlaps a lot um the the hsp highly sensitive person traits and uh misophonia um and yeah that's it when i heard about that i was thinking back as well and i was like you start to make a lot of sense for for yeah as well yeah yeah and thankfully i mean

Lynn [20:38]: you know, I'm older now and I feel, you know, it's very hard to, you know, I'm not triggered emotionally a lot and I'm not super sensitive, you know, it's very hard to offend me and, you know, I have confidence in who I am and people saying something to me doesn't throw me off. So, you know, I feel that that shifted a lot, which is nice because, I mean, some of these things we're talking about are quite burdensome you know when i'm really triggered by the sounds you know i have a refrigerator and you know when i go into a when i go into a hotel room i'll immediately unplug the mini fridge you know but this is a psychotic thing because like sometimes the plug is in a very inconvenient place i am moving furniture And I am crawling under disgusting, you know, I am, you know, and then a lot of places like you're basically defrosting the refrigerator for, you know, especially if you're in a tropical place. I spent a month, you know, two months in Costa Rica last year and I was unplugging refrigerators all over the place and flooding the hotel room because you're basically. you know so so you know there are some very strange habits that come of it but i can't sleep in a room with a little mini fridge that's buzzing like crazy yeah i mean it's like having a fridge in your bedroom i mean it is having a fridge in your bedroom yes and having a studio apartment i have i had to i'm looking in new york new york is very expensive i moved here in march and you know but i had to have a one bedroom because i cannot sleep in a one room with my refrigerator

Adeel [22:16]: so yeah yeah yeah so then uh okay so you were maybe um i'm curious about the that yeah that when you were a therapist what kind of therapist were you were just general for example or uh yeah

Lynn [22:32]: yeah so right in california there's a marriage family therapist an mft program so i was really you have to get three thousand hours uh as an intern to be licensed and i was about a hundred hours away before i went to law school so i never ended up getting licensed but i got my master's degree in clinical psych and then i worked for a couple of years um two or three i think After school, I did general adult work and then I specialized in eating disorders. Yes, bulimia and anorexia.

Adeel [23:08]: Gotcha. And was that something you wanted to do for a long time before you did that? No.

Lynn [23:15]: no i mean i was an actor for a long time and i needed a break and i um i i was in therapy myself as i mentioned and i really liked the conversation that i was having i had a great therapist and she was an incredible mentor and this beautiful older woman that i inspired and aspired to be And I just really thought the conversations were important and meaningful. And I felt that she had brought me from point A to point B in a really helpful and organic way. And I thought, well, I've been on that journey. I should help other people on that journey. And, um, and then I did end up mentoring, you know, through my, through my practice, younger women who were also trying to, you know, come to a place of healing and integration. And so, um, so yeah, that was, you know, it was, it was sort of like, oh, you, you go on an incredible trip and then you want to help other people. I, and I actually do that when I, cause I travel a lot and I'm always making travel guides for people when they go to places I've been because, uh, why not? It's very helpful if you've been there.

Adeel [24:24]: before so right similar analogy and so this whole uh the whole portion of your career where you're where you're a therapist it didn't the sound sensitivities did not occur to you at all like more maybe it just wasn't uh uh it was normalized for you maybe uh um but but it never occurred to you that uh that misophonia might be a thing

Lynn [24:48]: no but when you mentioned the fidgeting there were i you know what came up for me was that i remember there were you know clients who had a lot of fidgety you know leg movements and arm movements and i would try to stop them not realizing thinking i was helping them control their anxiety but now when you say i'm like wow i was i might have been helping control my own anxiety about it so um you know so so i i that did that does have raised food for thought yeah and did any uh did anything from your therapy career kind of has that is any of that kind of help maybe helped you manage your misappointment now now that you know what it is and um can kind of you know try to Dr. Heal Thyself?

Adeel [25:31]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or it's totally, a lot of therapists have not even heard of it. So there is really a playbook.

Lynn [25:41]: Yeah. You know, I also remembered maybe this, now that I think of it there, you know, maybe Actually, there are two there are two stories. Yes. Now that I'm thinking about the earlier version, what I remember, but still adulthood. But I my one of my therapists had a ticking clock. And that's also a really problematic sound for me. And which I always thought was an existential problem. trigger until i realized no it's probably misophonia too but um and i would i couldn't concentrate on the session unless he put like put away the clock and so it would come before a session he would put it in a drawer so i wouldn't have to hear it and you know and but you know i felt like oh i'm so weird and you know he didn't he said that no other client had ever asked him to do that and and you know whenever i'd be in a room when i'd go to thailand and there'd be a a a ticking clock in the massage room when i was supposed to be getting undressed for one yeah i know and i would hide the clock you know in some room somewhere it was you know i was the crazy uh the crazy farangs you know um you know trying to hide a clock or pulling out the battery you know again that's part of me pulling unplugging refrigerators just trying to manage the sound so i could have some peace But one time it was at my sister's. She had just gotten married and spent the night in the guest room and there was a ticking clock in there. And I put the ticking clock in a drawer in the filing cabinet and then never thought about it. And I guess two, three months later, my sister called me. She's like, I don't know how to ask you this, but did you steal our clock? And I was like, yes. I was like months later, I was like, what are you talking about? And I was like, oh my gosh, that clock. Yes, it's in the drawer. And she opened it and she found it. I'm like, you waited months to ask me if I stole that clock. So we thought you stole it. We didn't know how to tell you. It's a ridiculous thing. So just, you know, it's very dangerous, this misophonia.

Adeel [27:47]: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Lynn [27:49]: But I don't know if I answered your question. I forget the original question.

Adeel [27:52]: I don't even remember the question, but it was you talking about clocks. That reminds me, like I was taking piano lessons not long ago and there was like a ticking clock. And I could not, I could, well, it was interfering with my timing because, you know, because it sounded like a metronome. So anytime I tried to play music, I just could not keep time. I feel you. Until I smothered it under a giant. winter jacket.

Lynn [28:14]: Yes. And then to me, the second part about having this is also being incredulous that other people are not as triggered and annoyed by that. You know, when, when we're somewhere and it's so loud, I'm like, I can't even hear you. I'm like, doesn't bother you. Like what? No, I don't notice it. What's wrong with you? Yeah.

Adeel [28:33]: That's definitely an especially, especially, it's definitely especially a problem before you know what it is. And then you're like, okay, I'm different. Yeah.

Lynn [28:40]: Yes, I know. But even though I know I'm different.

Adeel [28:42]: Yeah, I was going to say it doesn't necessarily help, but at least it's the one data point. Yeah.

Lynn [28:48]: I think I remember your question. Your question was, you know, as a therapist, can I help myself? Oh, yeah. You know, and I just think that, well, look, as you get older, I hope that we all, no matter what we're dealing with, that we have some more compassion for ourselves. And, you know, that whatever our hangups or neuroses are, and we all have them, that we can be kind to ourselves. And, you know, we'll never have other people accept them if we don't accept them for ourselves. So, you know, I tried to practice that. And this is just yet another one that I can, you know, I could feel real down about or I can just say, yeah, that's just my thing. And, you know, love me or leave me. That's what I'm dealing with here.

Adeel [29:33]: That's a great point. Yeah, I mean, self-compassion is something I've been trying to promote more, just in general, but also it's come up in some thoughts of therapy where a lot of folks come on and may have had some tough childhoods or some chaotic childhoods, and there's... you know just a kind of a maybe like a kind of a wounded self that's inside that that has not been healed and so there's there's an idea just trying to talk to that child and just give it some compassion as a way to to to heal i mean that could apply to much more than just misophonia but uh are you talking about yourself are you talking about others or what oh no other others in general yeah and you know uh yeah for myself just to some degree um you know there's a lot of You know, a lot of folks have maybe had, you know, parents with anger issues or parents who are maybe alcoholics or maybe there have been some other debts in the family that were tough. But these are all different things I've heard and that always, well, often correlate with some sensitivity to sound. And so self-compassion is a way to kind of...

Lynn [30:50]: heal the person feel the child who was not supported growing up yeah yeah i heard that in some of the interviews for certain that there is connection to the trauma of of childhood to the adult dealing of the sounds i i heard that a few times and it can come out obviously in different ways not just misophonia but uh sure yeah it's uh yeah look you know we can't help what happened to us but we can certainly uh control what we do with all of that and you know we have choices whether we want to work on ourselves or not um you know let you know let let those traumas uh you know impact us and get you know give us negative experiences an adult or we can learn to heal those parts we right lots of choice

Adeel [31:38]: Yep. The interesting thing there is where I start to think that sound is kind of a link to that past. There's a lot of chaos early on. There's a lot of walking on eggshells. So I feel like... potentially one way this one can develop or amplify is if there was a lot of walking on eggshells at some point in one's life, especially early on, trying not to set off some volatile situation. Switching gears, I wanted to... talk about i guess yeah you're you're you've had music is at least at some point or acting it sounds like it was that part of your life at some point um i think music as well we talked about over email so has music and music has always um has been a big part of my life and a lot of folks coming on a lot of us are very creative um do you feel like that has you know been a source of comfort, healing, whatever for you. I'm just curious, generally, what you do, first of all.

Lynn [32:46]: Yeah, well, I've always been obsessed with music and I worked at a radio station in high school and did a radio show in college. I'm a singer and I'm getting back into singing right now, musical theater. and um and then also i'm in the music business so i have clients who you know who i i represent artists composers bands uh singer songwriters and i also see tons of music a few times a week generally and so yes and i'm always listening to music i make playlists all the time on spotify i'm i'm a music junkie oh we need to follow you then yeah yeah yes please do yeah i make a lot of playlists my actually my friends are like too many playlists I was like, okay. Because every season I make a new list, you know, and it basically becomes a repository for new music and then music from the past that I just want to keep listening to again and again.

Adeel [33:45]: Do you have anything that helps particularly, like, you know, air conditioner hell kind of playlist on Spotify?

Lynn [33:51]: Yeah. Yes. So that... Up until recently, I don't like to live my life with headphones in my ears. If I'm in a noisy place, it's really challenging for me to, or has been, but I'm trying to shift that now. And now I put on music and then I tried to shake my head so I can get, if there's a repetitive noise that's bothering me, it takes a while even with the music off to not hear it. But once you shift or leave the room and come back, you don't hear it. So I think that that music tends to be, I mean, it depends on my mood, but what's been helping most of all is quiet classical, a quiet piano, something really, because I'm very stimulated by lyrics and music that I know. So that doesn't calm me all the time. Yeah. Yeah. So I, classical, quiet classical seems to be helping me a lot.

Adeel [34:51]: Yeah, I was thinking about that recently, like I've listened to music all my life while working, but I feel like I've, you know, so many times when I catch myself kind of like being so distracted and being so into a song that it maybe doesn't help my productivity as much.

Lynn [35:05]: Yeah, 100%.

Adeel [35:07]: Classical is great. But I'm also very, very into like, you know, 20th century John Cage stuff, which is or, you know, can kind of get also kind of distracting in some ways.

Lynn [35:19]: Well, hey, I would love to hear your miso playlist.

Adeel [35:24]: Yeah, I actually do have a miso. I did one a while back. Partly, I did one where I actually made it collaborative so people can add their favorite, I don't know, their favorite tracks that kind of help them feel better.

Lynn [35:41]: On the app?

Adeel [35:43]: yeah um oh yeah yeah no well that's different yeah no i also have that so yeah i can kind of the the mr yeah miss funny app is kind of a um yeah it's an app for just this podcast but it also has a uh a tab where you can uh i have like you know brown noise white noise pink noise like yeah yeah i saw that like that so um So that's super helpful. Yeah, I'll link to that. Yeah, that's a great idea. So that's nice. But also now, I mean, I don't know if you have an iPhone, but since I did that app, so the iPhone has a built-in feature where you can turn on a background noise, which will go over everything you're doing. Like you're on a phone call, anything you're doing, it'll play in the background, even on top of music that you're listening to, which obviously you wouldn't necessarily want to do. But that's kind of a nice because, I mean, you know, to your point, you know, we don't necessarily want to be in headphones all the time, but it's nice to, I have my phone set up. So if I hit the, like if I even tap the back like three times, it'll turn on white noise, which is cool because if I'm in an emergency, I don't want to be fumbling for how to turn on that setting. But if I can hit a button three times and have white noise in my ears, that's pretty sweet. And I can turn it off just as easily, too.

Lynn [37:10]: You're talking about the back of your phone. Yeah, I do the double tap for the camera. Yes, yes. You're saying it's triple.

Adeel [37:17]: You can, well, yeah, so you can set a, it's all programmable, so you can set different buttons to do different things on a triple tap or, yeah.

Lynn [37:26]: Right, okay. What kind of miso do you have? What are your triggers?

Adeel [37:30]: Oh, mine's pretty traditional. It's pretty traditional, like chewing, coughing, throat clearing. Yeah, that kind of... Basically, like, mouth, noise, throat-related stuff. You know, that goes back to... And it's pretty traditional on set, you know, around... whatever like around puberty parents being the first ones um thinking that i was just and me thinking i was just being you know being kind of a teenager kind of thing but uh not realizing so much later that oh you know this is far more than that um and were they sensitive to it did you share that with them No, to this day. Yeah.

Lynn [38:17]: Oh.

Adeel [38:17]: Which is, yes.

Lynn [38:18]: To this day.

Adeel [38:20]: Yeah, yeah.

Lynn [38:21]: Did you know that you do this podcast?

Adeel [38:23]: No, no, no, yeah. Interesting. I was almost going to break it earlier this year, and it's just complicated. Yeah, it's, there's, well, like, you know, going back to, What I said earlier, I mean, there's just a lot of that. There's just years of like decades actually now, I guess, of that, the shame and the guilt. And is it worth it at this point? I mean, only one of my parents is actually even living right now. So it's like worth it at this point.

Lynn [38:56]: Do they care at this point? You know, would they be so shocked?

Adeel [39:01]: Um, I'm pretty sure. Um, well, no, they were definitely, yeah, they were definitely, but then, then it gets, it'll get rolling, you know, as, um, as it did for another guest earlier, I'm sure it will get rolled into some kind of, uh, um, religious conversation. So it's like, do I want to deal with that? Um, so, I mean, I honestly probably should, but it's, uh, it's one of those easier said than done kind of conversations.

Lynn [39:26]: I would just, it's just interesting because not only do you have it, but you, um,

Adeel [39:31]: you know you spend quite a lot of time in the community and this is your podcast so um you know it's a big part of what you do beyond that you experience yeah yeah and there's more i want to do i mean i want to like we we um we i don't we talked about briefly i mean i'm trying to work on music related to misophonia so i want to be even more involved At some point, it'll come out. I mean, at some point, I'm sure it'll come out because I'm kind of doubling down, tripling down on this.

Lynn [40:02]: Yeah, sure.

Adeel [40:03]: Because this is, for me, it's not just, which I think a lot of us realize, it's not just an annoyance to sound. There are all these different layers and dimensions and repercussions on relationships, as we're just talking about right now, that...

Lynn [40:16]: it's yeah I don't know it's deep unexplored landscape of humanity yeah and I imagine also I don't know what your I don't know what your background is ethnic wise or you know you mentioned religion but I'm assuming that there's

Adeel [40:35]: some differences there too for how you know my you know what is your background i mean oh um yeah yeah no so um yeah it was i think background is like uh in in indian indian and pakistani so half and half okay gotcha are you a first generation yeah yeah yeah my parents uh yeah i was born in canada and i thought my parents immigrated in the 60s so say that's my story my parent i'm also first generation my parents immigrated in the 60s as well Yeah, that was a big time to get away from wherever we were. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the the fun 60s over here, the hippies, they weren't exactly hippies, but but yeah, my parents.

Lynn [41:23]: But I'm just thinking about, you know, in terms of other people, other listeners who might not want to share with their families that not only because of their own, you know, shame or fears but they're cultural that my parents you know are you know from israel they're both born in poland they're you know i consider them holocaust survivors and you know there wasn't a lot of patience for all kinds of things which would be including like this thing they've never heard of that they wouldn't be very you know understanding of or you know just get over it kind of a mentality right when you put this funny against the holocaust i would definitely take misophonia do we have to choose do we have to choose but if we do we have to choose which is worse sometimes it feels tough but no yeah i would i would the holocaust is probably worse than misophonia but you know um yes when i'm having a real trigger i should just think thank goodness i'm you know not in a concentration camp and that should help right You know, this is a really, really fun conversation to compare Miso to.

Adeel [42:26]: Yeah, I think this is the first time anyone's, yeah, anyone's compared to that. I'm sure somebody listening is, like, having maybe a more difficult time comparing them. Or maybe we'll have an opposite opinion. I don't know.

Lynn [42:37]: Yes, yes, yes. But not to make light of that, of course. Right, right, right, right. And I think that, you know, in terms of, you know, I do tend to, I think that humor and making light of things without... denying, you know, your experience is helpful for me, at least that, you know, not to take things so seriously. And, you know, we're here for just a limited amount of time and we're all doing our best and I sure am trying and, you know, and so not to take yourself too seriously.

Adeel [43:10]: Humor is a great coping mechanism that comes up a lot. Just, you know, sometimes if we can, you know, somebody's triggering you, they don't have misophonia, but if... uh you know a tasteful joke can be made to kind of lighten the situation a lot of the times it somehow tells our brain that okay this is not a threatening situation so yeah oh obviously in in for the folks who are triggered by you know other people maybe not yeah it's probably hard to joke with the air conditioner but um but definitely

Lynn [43:45]: Oh, I have.

Adeel [43:48]: Oh, I do. What about, actually, that reminded me, like a lot of us have, I mean, you don't have to tell us, but like comorbid conditions, maybe, I don't know, other like OCDs or anxiety. Have there been other things that kind of maybe overlap with misophonia a little bit in your life?

Lynn [44:12]: Sorry, I swallowed everybody. I'm so sorry.

Adeel [44:15]: I didn't even notice. I'll cut it out if I do editing.

Lynn [44:20]: I'm so conscious right now of every sound I make. I'm trying to sit very still and not swallow or breathe. Nothing comes to mind. You know the DSM-IV? Mm-hmm. It's the book of all the... Yeah, the psychiatry codes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it basically represents all the conditions, all the psychological conditions. And the first day of psych school, our professor said... we all have everything to a smaller less you know to a small large degree it's just you know what makes it problematic is it becomes um you know it heeds your ability to work or play or have relationships like when it when it interferes in you know your your life that's problematic but we all have a little We all have a little depression. We all have a little bit of that. That's part of the human condition. And I hope we have all the varying things because that's what makes us all functioning humans. But, um, but I wouldn't say that I have, you know, I have moments of things, but no, I wouldn't say I, I mean, you know, sometimes my contracts, I get a little bit, cause I write contracts and I get a little bit OCD about formatting my coworker chagrin, but no, I wouldn't think that I do. This is the big piece for me, I think.

Adeel [45:41]: Have you, you see, I guess, a lot of clients in your various careers or even in your musical career. Have you met anyone else who has misophonia? Do you know?

Lynn [45:53]: No.

Adeel [45:55]: Not unusual. Yeah.

Lynn [45:56]: Yeah, no.

Adeel [45:57]: Because, I mean, most of us don't even know what it is until, you know, later.

Lynn [46:02]: Yeah.

Adeel [46:02]: But I'm curious, yeah.

Lynn [46:04]: yeah no no i haven't but now i uh you know maybe i'll you know it's you know remember uh peewee's great adventure when he stole his bicycle and then everywhere he looked he saw bicycles so i think once you start you know have the awareness of something you'll see it a lot more yeah yeah yeah yeah cool well um yeah i guess we're getting uh close to it close to an hour is it really

Adeel [46:31]: it just flies by even it really does a million times yeah but um yeah i guess anything else you you want to share about um i don't know what you've learned in the last four years or so uh my fridge just turned on so i'm like what what did you say what did you say If we hear a big hammer hitting metal or plastic or something.

Lynn [46:54]: So when I was in L.A., I spent a lot of time researching really quiet fridges. But I was also quite far from the fridge. And I found a really quiet one. But something happened in the move from the fridge from L.A. to New York. And now it's louder than usual. So I'm having to make a light decision about do I get a new fridge? Do I get a fridge guy in here to just see if they can quiet it a little bit more? You know, and of course, every fridge person would say this is normal. And so we have to find a really sensitive fridge guy or a woman or a person.

Adeel [47:29]: Yeah.

Lynn [47:29]: But anyway, sorry, what did you say? Yeah.

Adeel [47:32]: I don't know what I said, but now I'm curious. What was the fridge that you found that was quiet?

Lynn [47:38]: Oh, yeah. What brand is it? Let's see. I got it at... It's a... Yes, it's quiet. And I actually... I bought one, and then it was really loud, and then they exchanged it, and that version was white. So the one that I got was the same exact brand, but it was off.

Adeel [48:08]: What was the brand again?

Lynn [48:10]: Whirlpool.

Adeel [48:11]: It was Whirlpool.

Lynn [48:13]: But I'm not sure. I can find out the exact, if people want to know.

Adeel [48:18]: The people I think will want it. And I recently just got a fridge, but we are remodeling our kitchen and I researched microwaves. There's one soft close microwave supposedly by Breville. It reduces the sound by at least 8% when you close the door. Oh, does that sound bothering you? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah.

Lynn [48:39]: There's something about, you know, I mean, air conditions bother me, but when I'm sweating my butt off and I turn my AC off, it doesn't bother me that much because I know that it's really giving me something that I truly need. So, you know, like a microwave, because it's short term that I know, you know, my kettle going like. I'm getting the thing that I need from it, so it doesn't bother me. But if somebody else was doing it, I'd be like, when is that? Can you please stop microwaving that?

Adeel [49:08]: Yeah, so that makes me want to ask. So a lot of us, when we get triggered by a person, then we get pretty dark thoughts about what we maybe want to do with the person. When you're triggered more by inanimate objects, do you blame the object or do you blame the person?

Lynn [49:29]: No, the person, the humans. Yes, the people who think that it's okay to have a rattly, junky air conditioner on top of their roof that they don't listen to, but we're all, you know, because there are a lot of apartments right over it. Oh, yes. No, I totally blame humans for that and many things.

Adeel [49:45]: Okay. On that note, we have common ground.

Lynn [49:49]: Yes, for sure. For sure. I mean, you know, I don't love those. It's usually the humans, for sure. But, you know, it's interesting. I needed a tea kettle and, you know, an electric tea kettle because I make a lot of tea. And I think I went through five or six before I just ended up using the one that was at my mother's apartment because they all, I couldn't find one that didn't beep. you know, I needed a quiet, you know, when it, when it boiled the beef and when you wanted to press it through beef and I was, that was kind of a hard journey for me too. Um, that I wouldn't share with people because you just seem like a crazy person. Um, but, but yes, you know, I look at my Amazon history sometimes and I see six kettles that were rich or maybe it was three. I'm exaggerating, but, um, I just have cheap ass Amazon basics.

Adeel [50:45]: Uh, yes, but does it be, No, no. It just clicks when it kind of deactivates the modeling.

Lynn [50:52]: That's the perfect. By the way, the sub-zeros, if you can afford them, are really the ones to get if you're remodeling.

Adeel [50:59]: Oh, for fridges? Yeah.

Lynn [51:01]: Yes. Those are super quiet. Um, well, this is fun talking about MISO on my Friday afternoon. Yeah.

Adeel [51:08]: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's great. I mean, especially since it sounds like you don't know anybody who has it and it's no, I'm all the way alone in my little MISO world. Yeah, but it's, it's great. And you're not the only one. A lot of people have come on, um, who even have known about it much longer. And they're like, this is the first time I've talked about it with anybody. And so it's always an honor.

Lynn [51:30]: Well, you know what? It was really interesting to discover you and this podcast and starting to listen. It's like, wow, it's a whole community that I didn't know about. It's quite a community, yeah. Yes, and it does feel some sense of, wow, I feel seen and understood. It's really helpful. Thank you for doing this.

Adeel [51:51]: No, of course. And I was going to say, now that you're in New York, I mean, I've had a few people on in the New York area. A couple of them are singers, musical theater actors, photographers. If you go, I mean, I can obviously shoot you an email, but Chloe and there's Christina's photographer. There's a bunch of people that... I would love to meet folks.

Lynn [52:16]: Where are you?

Adeel [52:18]: Oh, I'm in Minnesota.

Lynn [52:19]: Okay. Oh, what part? Half a country.

Adeel [52:23]: In St. Paul.

Lynn [52:24]: Oh, okay, because I worked at NPR for a while.

Adeel [52:28]: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lynn [52:29]: I was a lawyer a couple years ago. I did Live From Here.

Adeel [52:33]: Oh, wow. Okay, cool.

Lynn [52:34]: Do you know that show?

Adeel [52:36]: Live From Here? No, I don't.

Lynn [52:37]: It used to be, you know, it used to be, you know, hold on. Please hold. it's called um come on uh garrison keeler you know oh yes yeah yeah yeah american uh prairie home companion yeah yeah yeah so after garrison left uh it became live from here so i was yeah yeah so i did a lot of work with minutes i love minneapolis you know it's great yeah i think i i think i live near his uh the bookstore that he started like it's in st paul and snow oh Yeah.

Adeel [53:09]: I love that.

Lynn [53:10]: Is that where you're from? No, you said you're from Canada.

Adeel [53:12]: No, no, no, no. I'm from Canada. Yeah. But then I was in San Francisco for quite a while. So I'm sure I was in, I don't know if you were in LA for a while, maybe we have, we crossed highways at some point.

Lynn [53:22]: And I lived in San Francisco too.

Adeel [53:24]: Oh, you did? Okay.

Lynn [53:25]: Yeah. Yeah.

Adeel [53:27]: I was there from 01 to 16. So. Yeah, I was there from.

Lynn [53:32]: 02 to 05. Oh, wow.

Adeel [53:35]: Okay.

Lynn [53:35]: Yeah. I went to law school there.

Adeel [53:37]: Ah, cool.

Lynn [53:38]: Okay.

Adeel [53:40]: Interesting. Well, um, yeah, no, this, this has been great. Um, yeah, maybe we'll, yeah, we'll, we'll connect, uh, I'll get an email. I can connect you with, uh, some of the folks in New York.

Lynn [53:50]: That's great. And when you, when you're in New York, let's, I would love to.

Adeel [53:53]: Yes. Yes.

Lynn [53:54]: I'm just curious if you have dinner, what do you do when you sit down and have dinner with people?

Adeel [54:00]: yeah so it is uh i'd like to be somewhere where it's not pitch like um like super quiet so okay um if it's at home i'd like to have some music in the background or i'd like to be um i'll probably generally be eating pretty quickly or just you know moving around the room um but you know music's good um

Lynn [54:26]: Is it every person, every meal?

Adeel [54:29]: Or is it... I would say it's most. I mean, my younger kids don't bother me so much because my brain somehow doesn't assign a threat to them. Okay. But, yeah. I mean, it could be anybody. It's not like... yeah it could be anybody pretty pretty equal i don't i don't feel like it's uh you know it used to be just uh parents growing up but then it uh but then that's kind of all i was around but then it kind of like expanded to pretty much pretty much anybody so i mean if i'm in a restaurant and um a random person at the next table, if I'm noticing it, they'll annoy me as anybody else will.

Lynn [55:16]: But if you're sitting in a restaurant with a friend, what do you do?

Adeel [55:22]: Yeah, that's a good question. So one thing I do, there are situations where you can't just make a scene.

Lynn [55:32]: Yeah, you can't get up.

Adeel [55:34]: Or it's not appropriate to just say something. I think I just take it kind of one course at a time.

Lynn [55:43]: Okay.

Adeel [55:44]: You try not to focus on the mouth area. Yeah. So one thing I'll definitely do is not look because I want to cut the visual triggers. Another thing I tell people, I don't always remember this, but... I try to tell myself that the meal is going to probably end in, what, 20, 15, 20 minutes. And so if I can just make it, then I can get up and relax. I don't think I can just go to the bathroom maybe a few times just to kind of like calm myself down a little bit or just to get some kind of change of pace. so having like a long fancy meal for a couple hours is torture for you it's torture and another thing that really gets me and i think it's because i could get triggered is if it takes forever to get the bill yeah i think it's i think it's separate but it would be bad if i mean it would be

Lynn [56:42]: exponentially bad if i was getting triggered and the bill was taking too long sure totally right if you're an environment where triggers are around and you know that then you want to just get out of here there that makes a lot of sense right do you talk about i know just i'm curious like do you talk about What do people do for your partners who don't have it? What do they do in terms of eating, knowing that that's a trigger? How should people help people with miso food triggers?

Adeel [57:15]: Yeah, that's complicated. In a lot of cases, if you have a partner, they're not going to like it. do things on purpose although there was one time when somebody came and he said uh he had an ex that uh like she would uh like if she didn't want him to be around when she was maybe checking her phone or something she would like trigger by making a tapping sound or something that she okay was a trigger and so aggressive but yeah obviously that didn't last but um And even more sadly, people have come out and said that their mothers, when they were kids, or dads, would do it on purpose because they thought that, I don't know, there is kind of a punishment. But that's a whole other level of nastiness. Very. But yeah, I guess with partners, in a lot of cases, people are generally supportive and will be conscious.

Lynn [58:16]: But if you and I were sitting down to a meal, what would I do? What would you need me to do? What should I be doing?

Adeel [58:23]: to help you while i'm eating my meal across from you yeah so i guess one of the things would be things like uh obviously you know treating with your mouth closed so you can take care of the basic matters right but then another thing um another thing that personally just gets me is if i can hear like you know how sometimes you're eating and then it then you hear kind of like you know then sometimes like in your ear whether it's the food hasn't gone down completely the throat but it's like you need to clear your throat for me that if if you need to clear if somebody needs to clear the throat but they keep talking through it yeah yeah yeah distracting I can't tell like I don't know if you yeah it's like an ET generally and so so it could be a case of like you know drinking you know quietly drinking the water just to kind of get it down but so you know you know that that kind of sonic texture of of where you can tell that there's you know your throat's not clear but some people just feel like they can just kind of keep well some people just kind of keep talking through it, then I can hear that change in the voice and that kind of rattling in the throat. Interesting. That's a big trigger for me. Because, I mean, I think that's, my parents used to do that all the time. And that's kind of where it developed for me, I believe. So if I hear that in other people, that becomes a trigger. So I would, you know, my preference is to, if I'm having a meal with somebody, for them to just kind of, chew and just completely swallow so that when they speak it's just like you know just like we're speaking right now interesting so that i can't tell that you're that we're eating interesting good to know

Lynn [60:13]: we'll come out and we'll have lunch sometime and you can teach me exactly I feel so nice to talk to you thank you for doing this this is a real service of course I hope that you know that people are helped by this

Adeel [60:31]: Thank you, Lynn. Really interesting conversation here. And I hope, yeah, I hope we can meet up at some point. If you liked this episode, don't forget to leave a quick review or rating. And just hit the five stars wherever you listen to this podcast. You can hit me up by email at hello at missafonianpodcast.com or go to the website, missafonianpodcast.com. It's usually easiest just to leave a message on Instagram at missafonianpodcast. Support the show by visiting the Patreon at patreon.com slash musicbunnypodcast. The music is always by Moby. And until next week, wishing you peace and quiet.

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