Woman So Annoyed By The Sound Of People Breathing She Asked Doctors To Make Her Deaf

A woman says she hates the sound of breathing so much she asked doctors if they could make her deaf.

Karen, from Scotland, called into today's episode of This Morning where she spoke to hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford about living with the condition, which is called misophonia.

People who suffer from misophonia have a strong response to certain sounds - in Karen's case, breathing.

Speaking on the show she said: "So it's the noise of people breathing. When I hear it, the more angry I get. The louder I hear it, the angrier I get.

ITV

"I just need the noise to stop and that's how I feel. I just get so angry."

But as Eamonn quite rightly pointed: "And they can't stop because they need to breathe!"

To which Karen admitted: "And that's the problem."

Asking her to unpack what it is that makes her so angry, Ruth said: "When you said 'breathing' I thought you meant heavy panting or breathing loudly but just softly breathing?"

And, yep, it turns out that just normal breathing is enough to get right on Karen's nerves.

She explained: "If someone is deliberately breathing to annoy me that doesn't bother me.

"But if it's somebody just breathing, that triggers me."

In fact, the situation is so bad Karen has even asked if there's any way doctors can make her deaf.

She told the hosts: "I did ask the doctor one time if I could get an operation to make me deaf but they wouldn't do it."

When asked if it really was so severe she'd consider something that extreme, Karen added: "It's that bad, yes."

Although it's probably little comfort to Karen, dozens of viewers flocked to social media to report having the same issue.

One person wrote: "Glad misophonia is being highlighted, the sound of people chewing, tapping keyboards etc makes me wanna literally tear my hair out, it makes me SO enraged, it's absolutely awful, I have to put my earphones in to block it out."

ITV

Another added: "The problem with this is, everyone will see this This Morning and say 'oh I've got this'. No, if you had it, you'd already know.

"It ruins my life on a daily basis and I'd give ANYTHING for a cure. Instead of being basically laughed at by doctors and told to 'get over it'."

While a third wrote: "I'm so glad this has been discussed. @RuthieeL I thought I was just easily irritated but heard about misophonia a few years back.

"My triggers are whistling a repetitive sounds. I really appreciated Paul's advice."

Topics: Interesting, Weird

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]

@ClaireReid19