Why does someone else’s gum smacking enrage you? You might have misophonia.

Misophonia is a complex disorder that causes decreased tolerance to specific sounds or stimuli associated with those sounds. These can be as simple as the noise coming from someone chewing or smacking their gum. (stock.adobe.com)

Shortly after her parents’ divorce when she was 13, Lindsey Baatz would hear a person chewing gum or a speaker playing music with heavy bass and bubble with rage, disgust and panic. Sixteen years later, she still can’t tolerate those sounds. 

“My stomach drops, I feel a rush of adrenaline, my heart starts pounding, and I just panic,” said Baatz, 29, of Seattle.