My stepdad chews with his mouth open. Always has. I had to deal with this living under his roof from the time I was 9 until I was 17. It made dinner an excru

My stepdad chews with his mouth open. Always has. I had to deal with this living under his roof from the time I was 9 until I was 17. It made dinner an excruciating experience, but I was brought up in an environment which precluded addressing it head-on, so I had to grit my teeth and bear it. When I moved back in with him in 2022 to help him recover from cancer, I was finally mature enough to have a frank conversation with him about it. From then on, we ate separately. All good now. On another note, I taught English overseas in Shanghai, China from 2007-2013. When I arrived, I learned that in mainland Chinese culture, slurping your noodles is considered a sign of respect to the chef. I somehow made it 6 years there. Not so much because I loved it there, although expat life is fun. It was mostly because I was in a transition period in my life and didn’t know what to do next. TBH, hearing that 20% of people are similarly afflicted is a relief. Misophonia is an incredibly lonely situation for me. It isn’t talked about much, I’ve never met anyone who also claimed to have it, and when I told my stepdad I suffered from it, he had never heard of it before.