Both Nesbit and Kaufman are in their 60s, but, like many misophonics, they remember first being repulsed by sounds when they were young. Nesbit, a Brooklyn occupational therapist whose voice is as booming as her frame is tiny, says there are plenty of people, her own mother included, who don’t believe misophonia exists at all. “She feels it’s me—that I’m being controlling,” she says. Nesbit ardently believes misophonia is a neurological disorder. Over time, she has learned to cull especially loud co-workers, friends, and romantic partners from her life, she says, recalling with warmth an old boyfriend who switched to plastic utensils for her.

Kaufman, who has three college-age daughters, has inadvertently conditioned his children to cover their mouths while eating, and he admits that misophonia has caused strain in his marriage. “You feel like it’s trivial and you shouldn’t even be bringing it up,” he says, “but they don’t understand what’s going on inside and how it’s terrorizing your head.”

In 2013, a team of Dutch researchers published in PLoS One a study in which they recorded the shared characteristics of 42 misophonics. The authors concluded that misophonia should be classified as a distinct psychiatric condition. Other researchers have put forth the theory that misophonia involves a neurological dysfunction in the connections between the auditory and limbic systems. Such an explanation suggests that this condition is not new, but simply was ignored in previous times.