[00:00:00] Adeel: Deanna, welcome to the podcast. Good to have you here. Yeah, thank

[00:00:03] Deanna: you for having.

[00:00:04] Adeel: Awesome. Yeah, I mean for the audience all I know is Deanna is, Deanna said she, she has stories as we all do. , I'm looking forward to that. But do you wanna maybe start off by just kinda telling us where, where you are, what you do, just basic

stuff?

[00:00:15] Deanna: Yeah, absolutely. I'm in Pasadena, California, and I recently changed my career and I'm doing food styling and I'm doing props, which. Basically anything an actor holds, so they need to be suited up in police gear or shown how to use a lighter or, given a beverage you're in charge of those items and resetting them for camera and.

All that nice. Sounds easy, but

[00:00:48] Adeel: yeah. Yeah. I would assume it's not, especially for continuity and things like that, so a lot of attention to detail. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Interesting Pasadena and yeah, food styling and props. Yeah. Do you wanna tell us it sounds like how's the work then for me?

I might as well start with kind of what you're doing.

[00:01:03] Deanna: I am so immersed in what I am doing and it's so detail oriented and so specific that I'm only thinking about the job at hand and the next steps. The only time I've had challenges are if we are in it's called the Gold Room, where we're prepping and if I'm with a person that is causing. No troubles. But as far as onset I'm, it's not even possible to be bothered. It's just too cra it's too crazy.

[00:01:36] Adeel: It's crazy. Probably lot of stuff going on, A lot of background noise. It's, and very spontaneous and instantaneous. Okay. Yeah.

That's not bad. Yeah.

[00:01:44] Deanna: I did work in restaurants prior to this, which I find very interesting because you. , the amount of noises that are going on inside of a restaurant are miso phons kind of nightmare. But again, there's a lot of things going on at the same time, so you're immersed in that work as well.

But I will say that there are a few things that would happen that would really drive me crazy. And the number one thing is when someone is stirring something hot with a. and they just keep stirring it. And it's like that noise Yeah.

[00:02:21] Adeel: Goes out and then it comes back in, then it goes out, then comes back in.

Yeah. And for

[00:02:25] Deanna: some reason they do it for a really long time. That one actually makes me ragy. It really does. Have you

[00:02:33] Adeel: ever communicated that in. , whatever way. No, .

[00:02:36] Deanna: I It's more of like a walkaway situation. Yeah.

[00:02:39] Adeel: The flight.

[00:02:40] Deanna: Yeah, absolutely. The flight. Yeah. I did communicate in a public space once with somebody, which was, I think, other than my family, was the first time that I like snapped on somebody in public.

[00:02:55] Adeel: .

Which was it a stranger? A stranger?

[00:02:59] Deanna: It was a stranger, yeah. I used to live in New York City and I was on the train and for some reason this woman was snapping this gum in a way that was like sending me and I should have just gotten off and gotten on a different car or Right. Whatever it was.

But there must have been something going on with me where I just. Snapped and I, on my way out, I remember saying to her, you should really think about other people in the car when you chew your gum like that. And her response was, I'm sorry. Okay, . And I felt like the world's like largest jerk, but her response was surprising and my reaction was pretty surprising.

I don't know that I've. Really approached a stranger. In that way. I felt

[00:03:51] Adeel: About anything.

[00:03:52] Deanna: Even, oh no. Definitely about, about thing, about misophonia. No. I try to really do, as I say, do the work. Yeah. I'm doing the work.

[00:03:59] Adeel: Yeah, tell us what is the work? Is it is it just trying to check yourself or is it more than that?

Is it, I dunno. Preparing for the next . Next. Next moment.

it's hard to check ourselves in the moment, so sometimes it's really hard to, the work is in between the moments,

[00:04:18] Deanna: Exactly. The work is in between the like fight or flight. It's like that, like work is like before you choose to do one of those things and sometimes like we just don't have that bandwidth,

[00:04:29] Adeel: a lot of us don't want to, we'd rather not think about it. We'd rather not think about Yeah, absolutely. ,

[00:04:35] Deanna: you're in a car with four other people and you're the only one who's getting irritated by the driver's jacket, like rubbing back and forth. Yeah. And you're just, I had a moment like that where, I had a really crazy injury right before Covid, and it forced me to go back to my home state of Massachusetts and be taken care of by a family member.

I was walking and. and needed a lot of help. So she was doing me this great, kindness of helping me and taking care of me. Yeah. And what happened was not only was I trapped physically, but I was also trapped in the house. , I'm an only child and I am I kind of of protect my space a little bit.

So here I was on the first floor and I was right next to the kitchen. and it was right when Covid started, so the whole family came and lived there. Yeah. So there were five of us, and I was trapped in a bed and listening to someone putting dishes away for 10 minutes.

Someone sniffling who sits at the kitchen table all day, sniffles and I'm just like laying in bed like. Did

[00:05:47] Adeel: you away, did you put headphones on or anything to

[00:05:50] Deanna: No, it started getting to a point that was almost uncontrollable for me because it was like every day, all day, I was being like, triggered constantly. And so by the time I like wheeled into dinner, I was like so done already.

Yeah. And I had found these earplugs called loop. and you got

[00:06:12] Adeel: some hairs somewhere.

[00:06:12] Deanna: But yeah, I put those in just soften the blow. At the dinner table. And that actually seemed to be really helpful. I started wearing those quite a bit. And I did tell everybody, cause it's like you can see that I'm wearing like, turquoise blue.

Yeah. TURs popping outta my ears. But yeah. It was for everyone's good. Yeah. And everyone was cool with it. And it was fine. But yeah, there were a lot of noises and it was also like, I'm trying to come from a place of gratitude where I'm being helped and taken care of. So I really tried to, keep it down.

But

[00:06:48] Adeel: did they know about it beforehand?

[00:06:49] Deanna: One of my, one of my cousins who's younger, knew. Yeah. Understands it and was very helpful. We ordered these, they're like runners that go under the door to muffle the sound. , she bought these things that like late, you put them between the plates.

They're like these little felt. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Those for me. Wow. There, yeah. So it was I felt really bad when I did have explosions because it's like you. , everyone's doing their best around this thing that is like really specific and I'm sure pretty annoying for another person, . I think I'm in this space right now where I just moved in with my girlfriend and I'm trying to not share the things like the long list that I have. Yeah. Yeah, because I think it's, Me personally, this is just how I feel. I feel like it's really unfair to lay all of that on a person and then expect them to navigate every day, all day.

Knowing that you're in like fight or flight maybe, or, yeah, I don't know. So I have told them that they can't really listen to this podcast after it comes on, but we'll see what.

[00:08:03] Adeel: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It's a bizarre thing for someone who doesn't know it to know what to do with and then, yeah, you're right. It's like not only you in fight or flight, but suddenly they're walking on eggshells, which, yeah, basically, two-sided eggshell walking is a weird situation, to say the. Exactly. It could be resentment, resentments that, that build up. So Estonia like I'm sure you've heard it's got, there's all these secondary repercussions and secondary effects, which you wanna be careful about provoking

So you gotta be judicious.

[00:08:37] Deanna: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's like, it feels like choosing the battles a little bit. And Just, it's interesting being with this person have such a genuine, deep love for them that it's a little easier, whereas other relationships I've been in have been problematic for other reasons.

And the misophonia is like worse, which in those situations. In those situations, yeah. In the, yeah. In the former relationships where it's like it's already .

[00:09:09] Adeel: The stress is no, no help for misophonia, right? So if it's no, it'll just get exacerbated. It just gets worse with stuff,

[00:09:16] Deanna: yeah. I, so I'm like 40 now, but I remember the first time that I felt super overwhelmed with anger, and I was about 10 years old, and my father was sitting at the table and we were having B. and he poured this like giant bowl of cereal and proceeded to like, put jam on top of it and then poured like a giant, he was like a runner.

So he would eat like giant portions of things and poured half gallon of milk on top of it and just started on his Wheaties, his yeah, whatever was, and I was like, I hit the roof. I like, I really lost. Was it one,

[00:10:02] Adeel: was it like he was doing it regularly and then one day suddenly? No, there was no change to the routine, but one day, yeah,

[00:10:09] Deanna: that's a good question.

He was my parents had split up and they were trying again at this age, and so it was rare that I was seated at the dinner table or the breakfast table with him. So I thought, wow, I just really don't like the way my dad. And so I started wearing headphones at the table. I was like a Walkman.

. But I remember feeling really like a bad person. Like I remember feeling like a real jerk, like there was something wrong with me. Why would I get to that level of anger? It made me question a lot and I think for a lot of people that are on this podcast and have listened to this podcast, I think a lot of people were really almost relieved when the New York Times came out with that article.

And I think it was like, what's 2011? Yeah. 11. Yeah. I think everybody, I remember three people sent it to me.

[00:11:04] Adeel: I had Joyce Cohen on the podcast. It was, the audio's really bad but she was the one who recorded that ironically, the audio was really, But anyways yeah, no, you're right. It's I think it clicked for a lot of people.

Yeah. And actually go, yeah. Going back to that breakfast again, I'm just I'm just very curious cuz there, you said your parents said, were trying again after splitting up around that time. So was that a, was there something unusual about that day? Was, were both your parents there or was it just in the middle of this chaos that there was this one morning?

Seated at the breakfast table with your parents, with your dad?

[00:11:34] Deanna: Yeah. I think it was just a rare, yeah, it just was rare. And, my mother definitely has meson. So my mom is pretty conscientious when it comes to making sounds. So she has a sensitivity. So growing up as the only child in the house with somebody else who definitely struggles with sounds and anger I think that was, I don't know.

I think it was good and it was bad. It was good because there was like a softness there and there was a little bit of an understanding, but it was also bad because we were totally sheltered together in this way. Did

[00:12:12] Adeel: you know about it before you had experienced it? Did you know that your mom had some kind of sensitivity?

[00:12:17] Deanna: I didn't have that language. was at that age, but, there were certain things that would send my mother like to a place. Yeah. And I just thought my mom was like angry, like a chip bag.

[00:12:29] Adeel: So you, so that's stuff you noticed from an early age?

She Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:12:33] Deanna: And oddly enough, her sister struggles with almost the same. sound sort of triggers that my mom does. So all three of us, when that article came out, we're what?

[00:12:46] Adeel: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then

[00:12:49] Deanna: gotcha. Okay. But my aunt does snap. Yeah. She snaps

[00:12:54] Adeel: okay. Like in public or whatever?

She just no. Doing the work.

[00:12:56] Deanna: She cannot, she's not doing the work. Okay. She is just I will, she does. , and I'm very I walk on eggshells around her, , because I don't wanna, I don't wanna be in that situation with her. But

[00:13:09] Adeel: How is that, have, does she have any story?

You do the work, but has she, have you heard of stories with her in public? Maybe, I don't know. Has sh has it been a challenge for her? At work? Yeah, I think

[00:13:20] Deanna: she really, I think she really struggles, like at work.

[00:13:23] Adeel: Yeah. It's gotta be, if you're snapping all over the place,

[00:13:25] Deanna: Yeah, she definitely her husband is like obviously super aware of her.

That's

[00:13:30] Adeel: so, She has one that's actually that's a good data point that she's still Yeah,

[00:13:34] Deanna: she has a husband. Okay. And he's definitely aware of her miso, but does not give a shit, it's just gonna live my life. Okay. And so I think that's an interesting dynamic. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that there's . I think that's probably the root of the snapping, but yeah. And

[00:13:50] Adeel: What was just going back to their childhood, do you know, do you, was there anything strange about their childhood that would've, maybe something in common that may have, I don't know, something abnormal?

Maybe that

[00:14:02] Deanna: I don't know either. Yeah. That side of my family is very private. They're not really into sharing that much. So I don't really know. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. I've never really thought about it. I just am like if the three of us have it, I, it must be genetic.

But I don't know.

[00:14:19] Adeel: I've seen it show up a lot in families. I've seen it never show up again in families. It's. Yeah. That's ano, that's a code that needs to be cracked somehow at some point.

[00:14:28] Deanna: There's another article just came out in the Times recently, I think a week ago

[00:14:31] Adeel: or so. Yeah, it was in, it wasn't the actual times.

It was like in some newsletter affiliated with the Times, but yeah. Yeah. There, there was something came out. A bunch of past gifts are in that our quoted in that article or mentioned in an article. Yeah, that got sh that got shared a lot too, which is great. It's amazing for.

awareness. Did but until that first article came out, there was probably sounded like about a 20 year period. Where you from when you were at that kitchen table with your dad, and then when you got the article, was your mom during that time, like was, were your how was growing up once, once it started to proliferate for you and you didn't have that language?

Were you getting support? Were you just

[00:15:10] Deanna: No, I was not getting support. No. I had to just it really showed up in my family for me. It didn't really show up with my friends that much. , I. as a kid, I was like a little more, I don't know, relaxed. I didn't have as many stresses.

. But as I started to become a, an adult, that's when like all of the things that you experience as an adult being at a show and someone clapping in a way that. Awful to you. Yeah. I dated someone that was a clap, that clapped that I, it was like piercing.

[00:15:46] Adeel: Yes.

[00:15:47] Deanna: And it's like, how can you tell someone not to clap? They're like expressing their joy, but you're like, could you express? But if

[00:15:53] Adeel: a different way, if they're hand met a one millimeter in a different direction, it would've been probably a lot softer. That's just what I would've been thinking. But yeah.

Yeah,

[00:16:02] Deanna: I definitely had that thought. I really did have that thought. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[00:16:08] Adeel: And did you then, what did you say to, to pe to, to non-family members then as as you were an adult? And did you ever mention that, Hey, I seem to have some kind of a sensitivity, certain sounds, or was it just trying to work around it?

[00:16:21] Deanna:

A lot of the time since I was working in restaurants, I just thought I was overstimulated. And around the age of 29 I had a roommate and we lived in a very small apartment in Brooklyn and he's he's a teacher, he's a special ed teacher, so he has like extreme patience and he's a really lovely person and I felt very safe and comfortable with him.

I told him that, cuz I started cooking dinner. I used to be a cook, so I love to cook. So I started cooking dinner for us in a, certain nights and we would sit down and finally I was just like, there's nothing wrong with you, just start. It's really not you. It's 100% me.

That's a good, that's a good start. Yeah. Yeah. But I just wanna tell you this thing that I struggle with and. , we started turning dinner into like record night also. So we would play records at just metal and,

[00:17:16] Adeel: yeah.

[00:17:17] Deanna: Yeah. Just very soft. Yeah. We would play records at a pretty good level and listen to music at the same time, which kind of took my mind off the other thing.

, which was really helpful. And he, and that was a great experience. That really helps. I think eating in silence is like a bit of torture.

[00:17:32] Adeel: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. Everything is amplified, at least. Yes, it seems like it. Okay. Yeah, no that's a great way to approach that.

And, but anybody else? Did you tell any other friends and

[00:17:45] Deanna: or Yeah, I had two, a few best friends that I shared that with. I think things with them became a little tricky. , we all had like small batch either companies or products or whatever, and we got together and made this space.

They made the space. I shuffled in there and started working with them and. So the first floor was like a large kitchen, so there was like two sides to it. So a lot of really loud noises going on. The walk-in rumbling almost don't bother me. Yeah. But we decided that it was a little too noisy and we needed to move our office upstairs.

Yeah. We moved upstairs to an empty room that was dead silent. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It was really problematic and we arranged our desks in like a pyramid, we were all really close together. Okay. Yeah. And I started to hate them. Them, yeah. Yeah. The worst part is when they would bring their dogs in.

. The dogs would send me, I'm like pinching. I just realized I was pinching my thumb. The dogs. One dog was really big and he had this obsession or tick, I don't know, it was like so annoying. , he would curl his paws in and I'm not gonna make the noise , but he would lick deeply in his paw over and over and over again.

. And my friend, had the dog for 10 years and just tuned it. And she would be like, tune it out. And I'm like, no, dude, I can't I cannot tune it out. I wouldn't be in this situation if I could just tune it out. I would do anything to be able to do that.

[00:19:32] Adeel: Amazing that, that's even normal.

People are able to just tune stuff out. I, the idea of tuning out and just on demand is, yeah, seems foreign to me, but I guess some people can do.

[00:19:43] Deanna: Yeah. So this friend in particular grew up with a very loud and problematic sibling. took the root of like self soothing, quiet, don't bother my parents, and had to tune this sibling out.

. Interesting. So this friend of mine can pretty much tune anything out. Wow. Okay. We both lived in New York City and my exp we would be together, my experie. very different than hers.

[00:20:08] Adeel: Yes. Yeah. And your relationship now with this friend? We're best friends. We're best friends. Oh, you're okay.

Okay. Okay, gotcha. All right. We're best friends. And so tell me about, so other than yeah, putting music on, is there any other, like coping mechanisms? It sounds you mentioned a bunch of music during meals and earplugs. Yeah. In some situations.

[00:20:27] Deanna: The most interesting thing that's happened to me in the past couple months has been I was writing this list for the show and just coming up with a v actually a very long list of things.

Yeah, please. And what happened was two months ago, , I've always had a depression in my life. It's been waves. And I've tried antidepressants and none of them have ever worked. And this doctor put me on a mood stabilizer because I was diagnosed bipolar two.

. At 40 . And it worked within 48 hours. And I've asked her recently if it helps soften these, this misophonia because you. , it's not as bad as it has been always. It's dialed down a little bit. , and I think it's partially due to this medication that I'm taking. , which was, it's called Abilify.

It's a mood stabilizer. But I was writing this list and I was like, this one doesn't really get me there anymore. And this one is, I will say that like a spoon, like a spoon hitting the back of a tooth or hitting a tooth. , it really does

[00:21:37] Adeel: make, when people sound like they're eating their utensil kind of thing or It's so hard.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:43] Deanna: Do you have that? Do you

[00:21:43] Adeel: struggle? I'm not a fan of it. Yeah. I'm not fan of that sound. I'm not either. Yeah. And, yeah. Yeah. There's certain people do it and. It's crazy cuz it's like it, I don't know, it's crazy. But like when somebody's doing that, it's not necessarily every bite.

So you're anticipating is this gonna be the one ? Yes. It's

[00:22:01] Deanna: oh God. That is so true. That is so true. I really, yeah. You're is it gonna happen next? And then your

[00:22:09] Adeel: brain is trying to make ghost sounds cuz you're guessing, anticipating yeah.

[00:22:14] Deanna: Yeah. And you're like, and the whole time you're like, I don't wanna feel.

I really don't wanna be feeling this, and I don't wanna let this person know that I'm feeling this. Cause they're not really doing anything wrong, technically. You're really not.

[00:22:26] Adeel: Yeah. Let's caveat it with tactically you wrong technically, but not,

[00:22:30] Deanna: but yeah. Also you should not be doing that .

[00:22:34] Adeel: It would be preferred. There's not, it's not necessary to do that sound. Yeah.

[00:22:38] Deanna: Move. So I was saying that in the beginning of this I had moved to, or I'm in Pasadena, that's a recent move. Before that I was in Silver Lake, which is like a

[00:22:48] Adeel: near, it's central LA like near Lake.

[00:22:51] Deanna: Yeah. Yeah. And when I had looked at this apartment, it was still Covid. It was different than when the neighborhood was in full sort of, and there was parking, and the apartment was really cute. It was really quiet. That's why I took it. And I, within six, seven months or so, the school started opening up and there was a school across the way.

Ah, okay.

[00:23:16] Adeel: Yeah.

[00:23:16] Deanna: Yes. And it wasn't it's not like a high school, it's, it was like an elementary school. So it was, Screaming.

[00:23:24] Adeel: Yeah. It's tough. Yeah,

[00:23:26] Deanna: it was. I couldn't do it. Yeah. It was horrible because school ends at what, two or three, but for some reason they're there until five,

[00:23:34] Adeel: just after school stuff.

There's, yeah. No, there'll always be kids there for something.

[00:23:40] Deanna: They were always there. They were screaming, and then you're like, wow, I feel like a real jerk. These kids are just enjoying life. But I'm like, can you enjoy it differently? It's so loud.

[00:23:52] Adeel: Yeah. Yeah. It's tricky. Yeah, it's tricky.

Yeah. Because if you, because yeah, during the day, every class has a different recess and they've just been stuck inside for hours, and so they're gonna let out, to them. There's just I'm out, I'm outside for a few minutes, so I'm gonna scream . Yeah. To you it's you're getting in a revolving door with every class coming through, so it seems constant.

You're

[00:24:11] Deanna: inside my apartment, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's what it felt like. Yeah. The so moving to Pasadena has been really helpful because it's so much quieter. And I just feel like there's like a piece that's entered. , which was a little overdue and it feels a lot better. I was wearing earplugs inside my house, yeah. But I lived alone, so it wasn't like there was someone in there that was, it was the children. The children were just just

[00:24:42] Adeel: yeah. And on, on top of, One sound sensitive. Do you also get that, like the visuals, the dyskinesia kind of stuff?

That's movement. Yeah. Yeah. The visual, it's like it could be move, yeah, it could be movement. It could be seeing somebody chewing or eating or something like that. do,

[00:24:59] Deanna: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I wish that I didn't, I honestly, I've thought many times cuz it feels like two different things. And I'm like, if I could just have one of them, it would be so much easier. But the, and this sort of seems like it's a little bit newer to me, is having these movement triggers, which yeah, it

[00:25:19] Adeel: tends to come a bit later, or at least it's noticed later. Yeah, that's pretty common. Yeah.

[00:25:24] Deanna: And it's just I wish I it's a little bit overboard

Yeah, I have that, like I had a friend. constantly. Like when we're just hanging out, like constantly just doing this. Yeah. Like a, stuff like that. People can't really see me, so it's like a repetitive scalp scratch , where you just almost want to grab the person by the wrist and it's really crazy.

But yeah, I've had, I actually wrote some of these down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The movement. There's leg moving.

[00:25:55] Adeel: Yeah. Yeah. I've heard of that

[00:25:57] Deanna: one. Very tricky. Yeah. This is really, I don't know, anytime someone is like rubbing their body or their skin in like a soft way. I, this one is almost at the top for. Really? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's if someone were like softly rubbing their like chin over and over. Or like rubbing their lips or lower my

[00:26:18] Adeel: hand now, but yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:22] Deanna: Very tough for me. And

[00:26:24] Adeel: did that come later as well? And it just kinda leap over?

Yeah.

[00:26:28] Deanna: Yeah. This is like newer stuff. This is totally newer stuff that is not welcome but is on the plate now. It seems to be like I said, it's just like a little bit overkill at this point.

[00:26:41] Adeel: And when you notice that happening, is it just, you just happen to notice and there doesn't seem to be a correlation to anything?

Or is it like somebody in your life happens to be someone who does it a lot and then suddenly you've you projected it onto everybody?

[00:26:54] Deanna: It's hard to answer. It is a certain person for sure. Yeah. And it, yeah, it's very hard for me and I, it, I have been in situations where I've been in a small space with someone and I start to, for a long, like when I work for 12, 14 hours a. So you're really getting to know the people that you're with in a way, and you're in a very small space and I notice everything.

, I don't know if that's part of this me so funny thing, but I notice things that like a lot of people, I don't think notice, like ticks that someone has or repetitive movements or.

[00:27:42] Adeel: Emotional state too, like empathic kind of things too? Or is it all physical kind of stuff?

[00:27:49] Deanna: I'm pretty sensitive. I think I can pick up some stuff

[00:27:52] Adeel: and, because if you've heard a bunch of episodes, you've heard of maybe the concept of a Hs p, the highly sensitive person that's can pick up stuff or just feels things a lot more deeply than the rest of the popul.

[00:28:04] Deanna: Yeah, I honestly have not done any investigating in that I do know someone who says that they're a highly sensitive person. A comedian friend of mine. And I just, I don't really know. I feel like I probably would fit into that category. I just feel like I would love to just not add one more.

One more thing to like the cornucopia that I'm working with, but yeah. Yeah. It's probably very possible. But yeah, sometimes working in a small space with people all day, when you're having three meals with them they're you're having a break with them. You are working with them.

It's too much, , it can be really too much and a lot of times, like I just wanna take my lunch by myself, but it's frowned upon. It makes you look like you are not a part of the team or you're not trying, or and a lot of my work is like who? Your personality too.

We're gonna be around each other for a long time, so get to pick the people you hang out. And if you're a person who's I'm gonna take this hour and be by myself, oddly enough, it's like you're not being, you're not playing well. , you're not playing nicely. Yeah. So it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a tall order to be spending that much time with someone.

[00:29:19] Adeel: Did you so knowing that you have, knowing you have the truth, would, is this. , obviously you love food. It's would another career? Did ever, was that ever another option or is it just that you, that's, it's great that you love this career, but I'm, it's just interesting that, when food or eating kind of related stuff could be an issue that you would've chosen this.

But like you said, restaurants can be a lot of stuff going on, so maybe you made that calculation. I'm just curious. Yeah. Was Ms. Nia a consideration at any. , no.

[00:29:50] Deanna: , because I can feel it on a plane. On a train? Yeah. In my house. At the grocery store. At the doctor's office with the doctor.

Like it's, I, if I were to make choices based on this, I would be like, alone. Yeah. Yeah. I can't really factor that in, and I feel like a lot of people probably feel that way. You have to just, you have to put it in the passenger seat all day.

[00:30:19] Adeel: See he's a backseat driver where it's always yelling at you, but it's Yeah.

But it won't go away.

[00:30:24] Deanna: Yeah. I've had, I've had experiences. I imagine what it would be like to be like in this movie, say it was sitting and having, watching a movie with a friend in a movie theater, and they're just focused on the movie and like the, and what's going on, the dialogue, the plot, all of the things that you're, and for some reason I'm fucking fixated on Yeah.

This woman's every move with her popcorn and the, and the like fabric that her jacket is making this noise and it's . It's so sad sometimes, that like , you can be taken out of things that you really wanna be enjoying. It can be really sad. I feel that during those sort of like episodes cuz I, it I know the person that's with me does not hear that it's not paying attention to that.

And just like my friend was saying, tune it out. I, it's like, where's the pill? What is. What is it? I don't know what it is, but, I do think that like with age, there are some things that add to the list, but I also think for me with age, I've learned myself a lot. I've learned who I am on a deeper level, and I do have tricks that help, and I just don't wanna be the person who lashes.

or snaps or says the wrong thing because I didn't know how to harness my emotions. And I think that the last five years of my life, I've done a lot of work with harnessing my emotions and looking at them and learning what will make me feel better and doing it. And I think with anything in.

it requires your attention and your care if you want it to turn out well. And so with me, I'm like this is one of those things where I have to put the work in and I have to like, do a meditation or there's this breath work thing that I do. It's only 10 minutes, but if I find myself in a place where I'm just like so triggered and so annoyed.

I'll take that time and quiet, quiet myself down. And it really helps. It really does help. But, to tomorrow's a new day, Correct. Yeah. But I do think that it does require action on our part.

[00:32:54] Adeel: Yeah. It. Yeah. It requires some self-awareness. Knowing just knowing the, some of the factors like stress or sleep or whatever, all these other things.

And if you're, you can definitely make things worse for yourself by not taking care of those factors. And so whatever we can do, I think to give us the best chance of not hitting the peak or at least coming in faster, I think is. So how did you get to some of the I don't know, like these tricks that you said you found?

Or was it just just thinking on your own? Did you read a book? Did you talk to people?

[00:33:26] Deanna: I've had the same therapist for about five years and she's very like on the holistic sort of end of things. Yeah. And she has gotten me really into meditation. I'm not saying I'm very good at it, but I do have ones that work well for me.

I'm not like trying to sit in a room for three hours in dead silence, but yeah, I'm more like, put the headphones on and guide me somewhere for about 15 minutes. And it works. Like I said, breath work really works for me, but I don't know. I came from a pretty non, I came from a really Household.

And yeah. Yeah. And family that I mean I had, there was a lot of things that I saw and experience that I probably shouldn't have as a kid. So that led me to having to work on myself quite a bit in order to be like not as feral as maybe I could be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, that was the thing that has kicked.

for many arenas in my life. Not just misophonia, but just trying to overall be a person who slides into society and can make it through the day. And yeah, that's books, that's therapy, that's meditation, that's, not drinking. I feel like if you drink on a regular basis, it spikes your anxiety.

[00:34:42] Adeel: Yeah, I've made the same decisions to. , yeah. Made some observations and it's yeah, it's you're, again you're putting yourself at a higher probability of yeah. A peak that you don't want to get to, so why

[00:34:54] Deanna: bother? Yeah. Exactly. And I feel the, having that night is really fun because I don't know when I'm like having drinks or whatever, I'm actually not thinking about your noises or I'm.

it's easier, and it's not even, it's almost like it's not even there with me. But that next day, if you do have a hangover, which I don't know, at my age now, it really doesn't take much. That anxiety, yeah. Does not help. So it's almost double the next day, which was it worth it, ,

[00:35:26] Adeel: no. Yeah, no. Very true. Yeah. No that's, yeah. That's a good realization. And your going back to are your parents still with us? Do they know about the, oh, does your dad know about the misophonia

[00:35:39] Deanna: or No? I, okay. I've never told him about it. Yeah. Because I don't know that he would be like, I don't know.

No. Yeah. Yeah. My mom definitely, but this yeah. Mom, has it? Yeah. And makes people uncomfortable because she does not know how to harness her emotion. Oh, she doesn't? Okay. Okay. No no, not at all.

[00:36:01] Adeel: She's not doing the breath work

[00:36:02] Deanna: and No, she is not doing any of the work, I'll tell you that right now.

Yeah.

[00:36:08] Adeel: No, boy. Okay. Yeah, that's, Hey, it's interesting cuz I, yeah, I mean it's just even probably even more foreign to people who are about older generation. Cuz yeah, you think we, are just coming to terms with mental health stuff. I mean there was there was very little, it was just like you was insane asylums and, that's the era that they grew up

[00:36:27] Deanna: in.

Yeah, totally.

[00:36:28] Adeel: Yeah. Lithium and sanitariums. Yeah. Your your you mentioned you had some comorbid conditions. Do you feel like they're more under control and your your. Your doctors and therapists are more familiar with those and misophonia, is this the one thing that's hanging out there, or,

[00:36:43] Deanna: What are you specifically what are what,

[00:36:46] Adeel: which one?

I'm just say maybe start with a simpler question. So your it sounds like your doctors and therapist are familiar with like your like things like bipolar and whatnot. Were they at all familiar with Bonia before you went in there? Were they able to help with that?

[00:37:01] Deanna: You. , I rarely tell anybody I have this . Because there's nothing that they can really do for me. Unless you're my partner and we're sharing a kitchen table or a car I don't tell, I don't tell many people at all. I don't think that it's understood enough. And that's not that I have shame around it.

I really don't. I don't want people to know that, like they bothered me essentially. And with therapy, like it's, honestly, I had some bigger fish to fry

[00:37:33] Adeel: than, yeah. So I was gonna say I think that was, I was kind curious about you coming on this podcast, obviously it's a big part of your misprint, big part of your life.

I'm just curious kind of. I dunno if it's a fair question, but how does it fit in with some of the other stuff going on in your life and is it taken seriously by your doctors and therapists? Sounds like you don't even really bring it up cuz you have I don't

[00:37:51] Deanna: really bring it up. I really don't.

I think that I've had to do a lot of work on myself, which was like, be being. More open and more understanding and more patient in general. And with that I've just dragged that in on my own and applied. Yeah. The things that I do to make myself feel better. I applied that, those things to this as well.

I really

[00:38:17] Adeel: Gotcha. Okay. So you, the lessons, you brought lessons. you're bringing from other, you're, maybe you're using as so many other, some of the other work you're doing on yourself to heal from whatever, whatever you're dealing with, you're like applying some of that for misophonia or whatever.

Whatever works. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, it's all helpful. Yeah I totally agree. Everything you're doing is helpful. Less drinking, more breath. Absolutely. And more quiet meditation. Yeah. To kinda give you, give yourself the best, your best foot forward in the day. At least the current day. Yeah.

Yeah. It's very cool. Do you have anything other, although more on the list that you wanted to, that you wanted to share? Was it a list of triggers or

[00:38:55] Deanna: was it a list? I wanna say this because I feel like a lot of people are gonna be like, yes, but I don't know. Recently they've come out with those new plastic bottles that are less plastic.

Okay. Okay. And they're really thin. And they're very easily . Yeah. I'm like, I get it with the less plastic, but my God, those things put me, those will take me over the edge. If someone starts playing with that, I will, yeah. Ask them to stop. Or a pen clicking I'll ask you to stop doing that in a nice way.

I try. There are times where I'm not that nice. But yeah, clicking a pen, sniffling, throat clearing, thin plastic bottle, crushing spoon, stirring in a mug, loud, clapping the throat. Clearing is real. Certain gum chewing, certain gum. Chewing I can be okay with. ,

[00:39:49] Adeel: can be done quietly sometimes you don't necessarily need to know.

You don't need to broadcast that you're chewing

[00:39:55] Deanna: gum. Yeah. Yeah. My girlfriend just quit smoking like a nicotine vape and is now a nicotine gum.

[00:40:02] Adeel: Oh yeah. Ette. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And,

[00:40:04] Deanna: I'm convincing myself that I like the sound of the gum because I think I will have to move on top of the roof or something.

I'm trying to just convince myself that it's. And when I ask you again, curious how that goes. Yeah, we'll see. Apparently it's a four month process and we're about in,

[00:40:25] Adeel: Okay. So she, that's, sometimes that's helpful to know that hey, it's going to end it sucks for now, it's gonna end.

It's better for your best friend's health, and then, yeah, it'll be over in a couple months. Sometimes. That's, yeah. It's better than assuming that this is gonna be a lifelong.

[00:40:42] Deanna: Yeah. I don't think I would, I don't know what I would do if it were life. That's a little too tricky for me.

[00:40:47] Adeel: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Okay. We're getting, yeah, we're getting, yeah, we're getting clo close to an now. Now is there, is there anything else on that list or any other kind of things that, that that have come up? Now that you're. Yeah. You, I guess you, you even passed for a bit.

So you're in the food industry and COVID starting to level out a bit. Do you have any I don't know, do you have any plans going forward? Moving to other, are you sticking at your current restaurant or whatever, or are you planning to, I don't know.

Do you have any plans for the future, basically is what I'm saying now that you've done some work and can maybe, I don't know. Or you're kinda happy where you are, you're away from that school.

[00:41:26] Deanna: I'm pretty good where I am for now. I put a lot of money, energy, time, and care into getting into this field that I'm in and I'm gonna make it work.

For as long as it feels good. Yeah. Great. I don't think that I'm subscribing to anything forever, but for right now, it's okay. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I think for sure there's something probably in the future for me that's a little bit different. I definitely fantasize of having, a very quiet office by myself doing what I don't know, but whatever that office does, it's just being there. But yeah.

[00:42:06] Adeel: Are there any other therapies or I don't, things that, it sounds like you tried a bunch of work. Is there anything that you're curious about that you. , maybe try, not that there's a lot for miso. There's no cure, but C B T therapy or C B T, like cognitive behavioral therapy or anything else that you've,

[00:42:23] Deanna: I've seen that, that helps.

I just I can't imagine that would help. Talking about it yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think I'm more action based. Like I, I must do something that's gonna. I don't know. Give me a result. Not that talking doesn't, obviously it's very powerful, but I don't know. I think I need something that's like a little bit stronger than that.

, or I need to like step outta my mind and body for a little while or . , listen to music on headphones or start a pro, start a cooking project. Cooking is very meditative for

[00:43:00] Adeel: me. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's like coding for me maybe. Yeah. Okay.

Interesting. When you're cooking, are you zoned out a little bit? Oh yeah. It must be nice you get that crackle if you're, if you've got stuff on the stove

[00:43:09] Deanna: yeah. No, it's very meditative. It's very calming. It makes me feel like, it's a bit of a hobby, I think it's really important to have, purpose. And I feel like that's a little bit of a purpose for me. And I am very, I immerse myself in it to a point where I can tune, I actually can tune things out. You

[00:43:28] Adeel: Oh, you can when you're cooking. Yeah. I can do that. But that's interesting cuz sometimes when if you're focused on something that you're really interested in, a sound that can knock you out, could be Annoying because it's knocked you out, but you're, it seems like for you, you're able just tune things out because you're so immersed in it.

[00:43:46] Deanna: The good thing about cooking and when you're in control is you're the one that's doing all the noises. I'm the one who's creating all the noises, which I don't know about you, but I rarely get annoyed by myself or, yeah. So most people don't. Yeah, I think there's a lot of.

I think that's really interesting. I think it's like I'm putting myself in a position of control. Because if someone else is cooking in a way and they're stirring something in a really irritating way, then I'm like pissed. And I don't, I would rather not be pissed. So I think being the cook.

and control is, yeah. Helpful. Yeah.

[00:44:23] Adeel: I would, I'd rather not be pissed. Maybe. Maybe that's a good closing

[00:44:26] Deanna: I'd rather not be pissed.

[00:44:27] Adeel: Yeah. Yeah, anything I guess, yeah. Any, anything, any final thoughts or advice you wanna share with people? This is super yeah. This is super helpful already.

I think I'm gonna, yeah. Go meditate a bit before I go to this bed, but

[00:44:38] Deanna: yeah, I think. The most helpful thing for me has been, if you can find it on like insight timer, there's like a little app. You come down there. I heard that. Yeah. There's really quick breath work, 10 minute breath work.

That's what I was gonna ask

[00:44:54] Adeel: you. If what, yeah. Which app did you do? You use it a headspace, whatever word, but it's insight timer.

[00:44:58] Deanna: Inside Timer. I'll even give you like the person. I think it's really helpful. Her name is Julia and her last name is Al. It's f r o d a at HHL. Okay. And there's a few meditations that she offers.

One of them is her calm and anxiety. Okay. Okay. And it's breath word and it's about 12 minutes and it's incredible. Very helpful. Okay. It just dials your heart down. Yeah. It dials everything down and gets you to a really good place. It's, you can do it on your lunch break, you can do it, it's like e is approachable.

[00:45:34] Adeel: Is it like a, does it involve like a. Breathing out longer than you breathe in. Totally. This what a lot of these are about. Okay, cool.

[00:45:41] Deanna: Yeah, you work up to that and then Yeah, exactly. It's very helpful.

[00:45:44] Adeel: No I've heard that from manyon related kind of therapists, so Yeah. Yeah. I'll put, I'll probably put a link, link to that in the show notes.

That's super helpful. Yeah, that's a good one. Cool. Okay yeah, Deanna, thanks. Yeah, thanks again for for chatting. Yeah. Super. Yeah, super helpful And thinking, I know it. I help a lot of people who can relate and yeah. Good luck. Good luck with everything .

[00:46:06] Deanna: Okay, cool.

[00:46:07] Adeel: Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much, Deanna. If you like this episode, don't forget to leave a quick review or just hit the five stars wherever you listen to this show. You can hit me up by email at hell of misophonia podcast.com or go to the website@missonpodcast.com. It's even easier to send a message on Instagram at Miss podcast.

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