Please, Just Chew With Your Mouth Closed

Have you ever been sitting at a dinner table and wondered why it seems so difficult for some people to eat with their mouths closed? Whether it’s loud chewing, heavy breathing, or someone slurping their spaghetti a little too enthusiastically, you quickly find yourself hoping they'll notice the polite hints you're dropping. It's enough to make you wonder when basic table manners became entirely optional. 

Growing up in the late 70’s early 80’s, I was taught proper dinner etiquette. No elbows on the table, keep a napkin in your lap, and eat with your mouth closed. These were the main requests every time we ate. However, I started to notice that others didn’t follow these simple “rules”.

At home, I became a self-appointed noise inspector, constantly pleading with my own family to chew like civilized human beings. Between listening to someone aggressively slurping spaghetti and my son's habit of biting down directly on his fork, I felt like I was losing my mind on a daily basis. My husband would just shake his head, look at me like I had lost my mind, and tell me I had a problem. My internal defense? Yeah, right—you people just don't know how to eat.

When hosting my own family gatherings, I found myself far more focused on the seating arrangements than the food I was preparing. I would stress out knowing certain people were coming, trying to carefully map out the table setting so I wouldn't have to sit too close. But honestly, it didn't even matter—sound always finds a way to travel. 

Of course, it doesn’t stop at the dinner table. It follows you right out into the world—like sitting in a quiet movie theater while someone tears endlessly into a bag of popcorn, or listening to the person next to you aggressively crunch on potato chips and slurp the absolute last drop of soda through a straw. The real kicker, though, is looking over and realizing their mouth is completely closed. They're following every rule in the book, but that sound alone still manages to test your last nerve.

Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there, eventually radar expanded to heavy breathers. They entered the chat, pushing me to the brink of yelling, "Why do you have to breathe so loud?!" It practically drove me nuts, especially when it happened out in public around people I couldn't actually yell at.

One day I was at my mother-in-law’s house and I noticed her watching me and listening to me “yell” at my kids a million times about their “chomping” sounds, and she started a conversation. Now my mother-in-law, rest her soul, was a very wise woman. I never truly appreciated her wisdom at the time, but, this particular day, it all made sense and I realized, it truly wasn’t my fault. 

She proceeded to ask me questions and she asked me if I ever heard about misophonia. Miso what? Was she serving soup? She went on to tell me it’s a condition where specific everyday sounds trigger an intense response Hearing her explain it felt like a massive weight instantly lifting off my shoulders—for the first time in my life, I realized I wasn't just losing my mind, and I actually had a name for what had been driving me crazy all those years.

So, naturally, I had to look it up. Turns out, misophonia is way more common than I would've guessed—studies show it affects anywhere from 5% to 20% of people. For most of us, those lovely little triggers like slurping, heavy breathing, or throat-clearing started way back in late childhood or our early teens (around 9 to 12 years old). This explains why I’ve been secretly losing my mind over snack noises since middle school.

Once I realized what was going on, I went on a mission to figure out how to actually cope with it without losing my cool. Since there's no magic cure, you basically just have to play defense. For me, that means just excusing myself for a minute to breathe or stepping away to reset. If I’m trapped and can't escape, I'll try to find a way to distract myself, take a quiet moment to catch my breath, or—let’s be completely honest—just look my family dead in the eye and beg them to please, please chew with their mouths closed.

-Jackie