How I alleviated my misophonia (not cured but improved)

I didn't know what else to add as the flair.

I'm just one guy so idk if what I'm saying will help anyone else, but I hope so. This obviously isn't medical advice or scientific evidence or anything. I've mentioned in this sub a few times that my reactions have gotten less severe over time, and a couple times people asked me to elaborate. I honestly don't know what I did, and I still have misophonia but it's true that my reactions have gotten less severe and distressing. I hope sharing my story can help someone else.

I developed misophonia when I was 16. At that time I was very depressed, I'm talking suicidal thoughts 24/7. I also had undiagnosed Autism, ADHD, and CPTSD. I remember thinking for whatever reason that I was causing people to make my trigger noises by giving off the wrong vibe to them or something.. so I felt immense suffering which I didn't understand and I thought I was the cause of it. It was horrible.

Even though I didn't understand it I did try to avoid my trigger noises whenever possible. I was seeing a therapist at the time and eventually told him I was suicidal, then he told my mom and I got on antidepressants. I slowly recovered. I learned how to avoid and stop negative thought patterns that made me spiral into suicidality.

Then maybe a year later I saw a tiktok of someone explaining misophonia. I was overjoyed to find out I wasn't insane and I was experiencing something explainable and others shared my experience. I also had big issues with sleep. I still do but for now they're somewhat managed with the help of medications. My insomnia has always made everything else worse. My misophonia, my depression, my ADHD, my anger, even intrusive thoughts. So managing the insomnia has been huge for me.

And yeah.. ten years have passed since I developed misophonia and I'm not sure what I did exactly, maybe a combination of things, but my reactions are definitely less severe. On my best days I hear my trigger noises and hardly care. I speak up about my misophonia to ask people to be aware and try to not make the noises at work, and in other settings, and I put in earbuds to block out noises whenever I possibly can. I've been doing that ever since I discovered the concept of misophonia. And my mental and physical well-being as a whole is also better thanks to getting more sleep.

I don't know what I did but I know it's possible for it to get better.