How to stop having an intense disgust reaction?

September 18, 2009 12:04 PM

I need help to stop myself having an intense disgust reaction to something that everyone else finds normal – namely, sniffing. This is making my life miserable, please help!

Background: when I was little my mother smacked me every time I sniffed, and my nanny reinforced this by telling me that when I sniffed it was like drinking snot (I realise this sentence reads like I grew up in a Dickens novel, but it’s true). So I’ve found sniffing disgusting for as long as I can remember, but through the years its been getting progressively worse (I have no idea why). The sound of sniffing from some distance away disgusts me; people sniffing on the tv or at the cinema disgust me.

As soon as cough and cold season hits my life becomes hell. It’s an incredibly intense disgust reaction – the only way I could think of describing it would be the sort of reaction normal people would have to someone eating their own feces. Now imagine that in your work, on your commute you’re surrounded by people who eat their own feces every few minutes or seconds. I tense up, I get headachey, I feel sick – I’ve had to leave an important meeting to throw up because I was sat next to someone who was sniffing every few seconds. My iPod is my lifeline – I spend as much time as possible with the music turned up loud enough to drown out the sounds of sniffing (which of course isn’t doing my hearing any good).

Some of my friends know about this, and are very nice about it, but have no ideas about how to stop my reaction. I’ve asked colleagues at work to stop (very, very politely, explaining that it was a problem I had and I was really sorry for asking), and have either been ignored or been given a lecture that I had no right to ask. I find it very difficult to talk about this, because it’s such an odd thing that people have had very negative reactions (and I haven’t been demanding they stop or anything like that – I try really, really hard to tamp down how much it upsets me).

I’ve pre-existing mental health problems (cyclothymia/Bipolar II depending on which doctor you ask). But I’ve been really well recently, and everything is good – apart from the sniffing thing. It seems to me to be independent of my other mental health issues, but I could be wrong. I asked one therapist about this, and he was sympathetic but didn’t have any ideas on how to deal with it.

In general I’m not germphobic, nor am I squeamish – people throwing up, eating food that’s been dropped on the floor I’m fine with. This is an incredibly specific disgust reaction.

The couple of strategies I’ve tried:
- Rational/CBT approach. I ended up knowing a lot about the respiratory tract, and the fact that mucus makes its way down to the stomach even when you’re not sniffing. This logical, rational knowledge has made no impact on the disgust reaction.
- Hypnotherapy. Made me very relaxed, right up to the point that I heard someone sniffing again.

I hope someone can help me. Sometimes I just want to be a hermit on my own so I don’t have to feel like this.

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (17 answers total)

I have a less intense but otherwise similar reaction to open mouthed crunching sounds. When my partner or children eat carrots, popcorn, celery, potato chips ... well, anything like that, I often find myself on edge. Sometimes it is so bad that my whole existence seems to be a creature who is waiting for and dreading that next CRONCH CRUNCH RUNCH CHOMP CRUNCH sound. I've talked to them about it and for the most part they try to do a little better but really it's quite unfair of me to expect them to go way out of their way. I'm also sometimes bothered by shrill children's voices.

What helps me is a combination of things: maintaining a good mood so that I'm not predisposed to be sensitive to negative environmental influences. Masking sounds when possible; open a window or put on some faint background music. Distractions; conversation and so on. Trying to maintain a buddhist calm helps too; being accepting of the crunch as it passes through me without me hanging onto it emotionally. And reassuring myself that I'm being unreasonable, and that the problem is mine, not theirs.

I would suggest, for you, a good set of earplugs so that you can give your ears a break. It won't deaden the sound completely but it will cut it way back. And then you can try to deal with it at a softer volume level. One thing's for sure: if you mask the sound completely, you'll never get over the problem.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:25 PM on September 18, 2009

Jeez, I'm sorry anon, this sounds tough to deal with. It seems to me like you've got to get back into therapy. To be frank, people sniff: that's not going to change, and I would also find it rude or at least perplexing if you asked me to not sniff.

I've heard good things about EMDR, but can't vouch for it personally. Seems like it (or something like it) may be helpful for you?

Also, perhaps try meditating, and working on some mindfulness around this issue? Moving yourself into a place where you are just watching your own reaction to sniffing--rather than reacting--is the place to begin changing your training (what your mom and nanny did to you).
posted by dubitable at 12:26 PM on September 18, 2009

Maybe pursue the rational angle further. Consider what the options are if people don't sniffle, realize that the odds of everyone having a handkerchief at hand at all times haven't been very good odds since your Dickensian childhood.... and maybe that will help you.

Also, never ever ever go to Japan.
posted by rokusan at 12:31 PM on September 18, 2009

Are you currently seeing a therapist? This sounds like something that would actually be great to work on in therapy--not sure why that one therapist didn't seem open to trying. It seems to me that working with a therapist who is familiar with CBT and obsessive-compulsive disorder and phobias might be a good in-road; not saying I think it's specifically an OCD behavior or phobia, but I think it sounds similar enough that a therapist experienced in the cognitive processes of OCD/specific phobia could have a lot of help to offer you.
posted by so_gracefully at 12:37 PM on September 18, 2009

Holy shit. I was this way as a teenager. I didn't think anyone could be as much of a bastard as I thought myself to be. I'm...weirdly touched. ;v) Sniffling still sends me into a rage if I sense that the person isn't doing anything about it (i.e. blowing his nose, as I constantly was as an allergy-ridden kid)...

Have you tried prolonged exposure just to the sound, to become inured to it? I know this is crazy, but I'm talking about, like, a 30-minute mp3 of just various sniffling sounds, which you can put on sometime and just live with. It seems to me you have no choice but to learn to live with the sound. Is that the sort of thing one can simply practice?
posted by waxbanks at 12:40 PM on September 18, 2009

I have a similar reaction to the hard sniffing that I sometimes hear even though I understand why people do it and have done it myself. It may be related to post nasal drip or something like that.

First of all you should think about the alternatives. These people could start blowing their nose all over the place. They could also spit wherever they are. These 2 options gross me out even more than the hard snorking.

For what it's worth my aunt and grandmother hated this as well and would give any of us dirty looks or worse and tell us to spit it out.
posted by mokeydraws at 12:41 PM on September 18, 2009

You should be able to find a CBT practitioner who can do controlled exposure exercises with you. Not fun, but a pretty well proven technique for an anxiety with such a clearly-defined trigger.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:16 PM on September 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

I wonder if you spend as much time anticipating being disgusted by it as you do actually being disgusted by it. This is a poor analogy, but when I'm in a meeting and someone is intermittently bouncing their foot, I sit there tensed up because I'm anticipating the next bounce. I can get incredibly tense and angry not from the act itself, but from the anticipation. Like I said, a poor example, but in your case it's a phobia, so I agree with those who say you need to desensitize yourself. You may shake, cry, puke, sweat, etc. but you will not die.

I don't know where the hell you'd get an mp3 of people sniffling, so perhaps invite an allergy-ridden but sympathetic friend over. Make them fully aware of what you're trying to do so they're not shocked if you freak out. Don't eat beforehand because you're going to be sick to your stomach. Do it in a comfortable environment, preferably your own home. Don't play music or otherwise aurally distract yourself. You may have to do this in really small doses and ramp up. The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook covers desensitization techniques and I highly recommend it.

That's the best I got. Good luck.
posted by desjardins at 1:23 PM on September 18, 2009

I have a considerable problem with sniffing as well. Though my reaction isn't quite as strong as yours, it does seriously impact me. I find myself very anxious and annoyed when I hear it.

Could you get some noise cancelling headphones and play music at a low volume? I think the "seal" from the headphone to your ear would block most noise and some soft music would block the rest. I use this method when I'm studying in a quiet library and I can hear sniffles or coughs.

Possibly desensitizing yourself helps, I'm not sure. I make sacrifices to avoid hearing sniffling. For example, I no longer go out to movie theatres because I realized I was paying $12+ to feel really angry at other people for three hours.

I also realized that I am more prone to irritation at different times of the day. I hate hearing noises during my morning commute but later in the day it doesn't bother me as much. Could you focus your avoidance on certain hours and expose yourself the rest of the time?

Something else that helped was feeling sorry for the person sniffing. (Don't get me wrong, you are fully allowed to rage on the really gross people who just refuse to do anything about it and snork really loud in public, but hear me out.) One time I turned around angrily, just about to tell someone off and then I saw their face: puffy, red, miserable because they had a cold. My anger dissipated because I saw they really couldn't help themselves.

One time I asked a professor to keep a box of tissues at the front of the lecture room and let them know how distracting I found it to hear sniffling. Fortunately they felt the same way and reminded the class every now and then. YMMV on this one - work supervisors may find it a bizarre request.

Finally, not everyone finds sniffling normal. There are several questions on AskMeFi in the past that relate to disgusting noises (eating, sniffling) and though there were no conclusive answers it may help to see that you're not alone. Feel free to MeMail me if you want to talk about this more... I clearly have a lot to say!
posted by cranberrymonger at 1:24 PM on September 18, 2009

My reaction is much less intense than yours, so this may not apply, but I definitely agree that trying to "get inside the head" of people who sniff is really important in terms of the anger/irritation part of the reaction. I am completely amazed by this fact, but there are people who think sniffing is less impolite than blowing their nose, and there are certainly lots of people who have no idea how disgusting they sound. Realizing that they honestly don't realize how disgusting they're being reduces, for me, the "affront" part of the reaction.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 1:40 PM on September 18, 2009

I knew someone in college who had this exact problem with the sound of someone clearing their throat. He "solved" it by carrying a hankie scented with Peppermint Oil (which had a good, strong, positive association for him) and smelling the peppermint hankie every time he heard That Sound. He said after a couple of weeks he started looking forward to hearing That Sound because it meant he got to smell the "happy hankie" (his words) again.

This was 20 years ago; now I'm sure that they'd call it CBT or positive reinforcement or some such. And I have no idea how he finally weaned himself off the hankie.
posted by anastasiav at 2:50 PM on September 18, 2009 [3 favorites]

I am completely amazed by this fact, but there are people who think sniffing is less impolite than blowing their nose

There are cultures in which this is 100% true, and in which blowing the nose is something you do in private. I don't know how many of the people I encounter in the US sniffling are people who were raised in cultures where that was the rule, and how many are operating lazily on US cultural mores, but if sniffling disgusts you, there are huge swathes of the world where you can never go, because it's the genteel response there.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:37 PM on September 18, 2009

You've said where your reaction comes from: from being traumatized. You might try to find a good therapist who deals with trauma. (most therapists do)
posted by DMelanogaster at 6:07 PM on September 18, 2009

As someone with sinus problems, let me say that first I often don't realize I'm sniffling. When I was in high school and went to take my SATs, I had a bad sinus day. Because of complaints of my constant sniffling, I was left to have a huge stack of kleenex on my desk and a clear plastic baggie to use as a garbage bag (clear because of the risk of cheating) and had to let the snot run out my nose and into the kleenex. It was a miserable experience. So, would you rather I sniffle, or would you like to see me holding a tissue under my nose knowing snot is running out, and see me wiping my nose every few seconds?
posted by IndigoRain at 9:59 PM on September 18, 2009

Well, I think it's important to point out that vast majority of the time that people sniff they are not "drinking their snot". All that goes through is air. It's simply a way of 'scratching' the inside of the nose.

Again, what you think is happening when people sniff is, most of the time not happening. Obviously it's possible, but most of the time all people are doing is blowing air through their nose, and, again, nothing but air goes leaves their nose.
posted by delmoi at 10:50 PM on September 18, 2009

Seconding Desensitisation therapy.

As to the how (other than with a therapist) - are you bothered by the sight of people smelling flowers? Smelling wine?
No? Good. Watch a bunch of those, no audio. Stay at the level at which you feel 'ok'.
Get some more, with audio.
Then look at ones where people are really 'sniffing' those flowers, or that wine - wine programs should be great for that. Keep progressing, no sound, quiet sound. Water noises that sound like 'sniffing'. Everything innocuous that seems similar, so you stop associating it entirely with a fear/disgust response.
Then, some cute ones of say... a kitten sneezing with a look of surprise on it's face and then giving a teeny little sniff. Work your way up to watching humans.
:)

Finally - pretend to be an actor, your cue? To sniff. Try to make the most ridiculous, the worst sniffing noises ever.

Then, get a friend to do it with you. No one with a cold, just sniffing-acting! See how it makes you feel? If you feel guilty or bad, and then think - so what! I'm a grown up! I can sniff if I want to!
Then see how it goes...

:)

(These are ideas to work with with your therapist, if they couldn't figure out for themselves how to use desensitisation with sneezing).
posted by Elysum at 7:57 PM on September 23, 2009

"my mother smacked me every time". If you know or are pretty sure it's linked to how you were raised then it sounds like the perfect candidate for good old fashioned psychotherapy (not the CBT kind) -- and while you're about it you might turn up some other inconveniences planted by your mother and fix those too.
posted by y6t5r4e3w2q1 at 7:36 PM on January 5, 2010