Hello fellow silence lovers

I've always had manageable misophonia symptoms, but I let a friend stay with me and the sounds she makes has made my symptoms unbearable. I'm just really looking to not feel so alone in this.

She is allergic to my pets, so she is constantly blowing (honking) her nose and snort/sniffing. She also has sleep apnea and when she doesn't use her c-pap (which they make very quiet these days but she still barely uses), when she's asleep or just waking up she makes this incredibly loud and jarring big stretch sound, if you know what I mean? And she groans in her sleep.

Dealing with this for six weeks has hit my mental health SO HARD. I feel panic most of the time, although when it's muffled through closed doors it is more of a disgust feeling. The panic though is like, I have to GET THE HELL AWAY RIGHT NOW. And because I'm always anticipating the sounds, I'm tense and anxious all the time at home. I can't be nice or polite much anymore because it's taking all my energy not to FREAK OUT.

I'm wearing noise canceling headphones about 14 hours a day. So much that I started to get a rash on my ears (sensitive skin) and had to start wearing a bandana between my ears and the headphones. When I go to sleep I wear earbuds and listen to meditations or sound baths. I miss being alone while I work and just listening to a podcast without having to have the headphones on. Also introverted so never being alone is killing me too, but nowhere near as bad.

I'm unable to manage any additional stress because my baseline is so high strung. Yesterday my daughter went skydiving with her dad for his birthday and then they came back to my place for a little birthday meal. Normally yes I would be anxious but I could manage it without meds. This time I took anxiety meds, they did NOTHING, I cried and hyperventilated as soon as they left for the airfield and when they came back I had to go outside several times with loud music on my ear buds to regulate my nervous system. My ears are probably being damaged with as often as I have to do that to drown out these triggering sounds.

It's so bad for me that I'm going to have to ask my friend to leave asap. She's got nowhere to go so I feel like a huge asshole but I can't function, I haven't been this mentally screwed up since the death of my son a decade ago. I have a household of three plus three pets that I provide for and manage and I'm increasingly finding it harder and harder to get up every day and work and just literally EXIST in my own home. And at this point, now EVERY sound she makes pisses me off, even ones that never used to trigger me like laughing or even just talking.

I can't believe this feels so horrible. 😭 There are some boundary and courtesy issues here too but honestly even if there weren't, the sound issue is impacting me so much that I still couldn't keep doing this.