OCD/Misophonia and Anger

Hi all,

I am new here, and find myself here because of anger issues that I find becoming a bit out of control.

I am a 38 year old single female with a demanding career. Most of the other people in my office are older men, 50+, and I am known as being very competent but high strung and *****y (to be honest).

I have a pretty good support system, but no one that necessarily "gets" what I have to contend with in terms of my OCD. I have had OCD (mostly intrusive thoughts, without compulsive behaviors) for well over 20 years. More recently it has become severe in terms of not being able to let go of negative thoughts, and becoming angry.

In addition, I have unfortunately developed misophonia recently (less than a year ago). Certain sounds that other people make cause me great distress.

I was on Paxil for about 7 years, and that stopped working. I am now on mirtazapine, which is not indicated for OCD, but does help somewhat with the anxiety that I experience, and depression.

I am wondering if anyone has any advice on how to deal with the anger/OCD or tips on misophonia. I have a great psychiatrist but I think she would just want to try me on another SSRI, and I have a very difficult time both getting onto and getting off of SSRIs.

Any suggestions would be wonderful!

Hello Calmdown: I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral. You might also find the work & careers forum, here on PC, to be of benefit. Here's a link:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/work-and-careers/

I don't know as I have any particular suggestions to offer you, although I have some similar issues. Hopefully other members will have some suggestions they can offer. By the way, you mentioned you work with a bunch of 50+ year old men. I'm a 50++ year old! (So you have my deepest sympathies.)

I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

Hello!

I'm Ashley and I don’t have misophonia, but I do get overwhelmed easily by stimuli. As a spoonie, I've learned to avoid most situations that will drain me. For example, if the movement of air or the presence of light irritated my eyes, I will either close my eyes or entirely cover my upper face with a scarf or my hands.

Often when we mention avoidance, there are fears of developing unhealthy coping mechanisms. However, a distinction must be made: avoiding entirely any potentially difficult environment (not going somewhere) is unhealthy whereas simply withdrawing from part of the environment (i.e. covering my eyes) is healthy.

Regarding auditory stimuli and stimuli in general, here are a few suggestions:
- taking sensory breaks: in the event that you cannot avoid parts of the harmful stimuli, having moments to recuperate is very very important. In highschool, I overtaxed myself attempting to talk more to people (which was probably not noticeable from their perspective) and I ended up non-verbal most of the time. So I would end up lying on my desk listening to music very loudly to block out all unpleasant stimuli.
- which leads us to the following question: there are surely types of stimuli which you enjoy. On days which you know will be especially taxing, you can surround yourself with them (ex: soft clothing, nice smells).
- removing other irritant stimuli even if they are unrelated to misophonia. What challenges me the most is the cumulation of irritants along the day, which contributes to my general distress.

Also, there may be accomodations that could be made with your employer, such as changing the seating place or allowing you to wear nose-cancelling headphones.

Best wishes,

Ash