The Misophonia Workbook
Stop guessing what sets it off. Map it, test it, decide. A practical journal for adults and teens, to print or fill in on your device.
Describe it. Map it. Test it. Decide.
By Adam Bucklow, founder of The MisoGo Misophonia Support Programme. A field notebook for home, work or school. Not a treatment, and it never asks you to push through trigger sounds.
“Sounds are difficult” is true. It is also not very useful.
This workbook helps you turn it into something specific enough to work with: what sets it off, what makes it better or worse, what is worth changing, and how to ask for it. At home, at work, at school, at the dinner table.
You map your triggers, test small changes that are easy to reverse, and keep only what helps. Twenty-two small experiments, filled-in examples, and a page to share with the people around you.
The radio station running the show in your head.
There is a radio station running in your head and four presenters share the decks. They have been broadcasting for years without name badges, which is why it all sounds like one big noise. DJ FM is how you tell them apart.
The Dragon
Mobilises fast and keeps you safe. Fast, loud and protective, and it does not do paperwork. It needs settling, not slaying.
A racing heart. A clenched jaw. An urge to leave, right now.
The Judge
Cares about what is fair, and hands down verdicts fast: “Rude. Deliberate. Guilty.” Sometimes it is right.
“How dare they.” “What is wrong with me?”
The Fact Checker
Separates what actually happened from the story about it. It does not care how you feel about the facts. It just wants the facts.
“What did I actually hear? What do I know, and what am I guessing?”
The Mirror
Shows you what is there, calmly. What you do, what changes, what matters beyond the sound. No verdicts, no alarms.
“What do I notice? What do I want my life to hold?”
The aim is not to silence anyone. Every one of them is trying to help. They just shout at the wrong person, get the order wrong and skip the evidence. A useful picture, not a scientific model.
Where DJ FM might live in the brain.
DJ FM is a picture, not a diagram of your head. But each of the four presenters lines up with brain regions that research has linked to that kind of job. The workbook itself does not teach anatomy. This is here for anyone who likes to know the science behind the picture.
The Dragon
Anterior insula
Helps you notice what is going on inside your body and flags what matters. It works closely with the amygdala, but it is a separate structure. Research has linked it to the fast “something is wrong” alarm.
The Judge
Ventromedial and orbital prefrontal cortex
Areas involved in attaching value and meaning to what you experience, including quick verdicts about what feels fair, rude or wrong.
The Fact Checker
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and hippocampus
The first helps you hold information in mind and weigh it up. The second helps you compare the present with what you have actually experienced before. Together they ask: what do I really know here?
The Mirror
Medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate
Regions linked to self-reflection and noticing your own state. They support the calm stance of “what am I feeling, and what do I want my life to hold?”
Pages you can actually use.
Find your patterns
A personal snapshot and trigger inventory, situation maps, a variation log and a five-second reconstruction.
Run small experiments
Twenty-two small experiments, including a calm toolkit. Easy to reverse, so you keep only what helps.
Make informed choices
Pages for preparing appointments and asking for changes at work or school.
Bring people along
A page to share with the people around you, and a simple way to check claims you meet online.
Plus filled-in examples of the main pages, an optional 30-day field journal, a clickable contents page with a “back to contents” button on every page, and a resources section with support lines for the USA, UK, Ireland, Channel Islands, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
For people who want specifics, not slogans.
- Adults and teens who find certain everyday sounds very hard
- Partners and parents who want to understand what is going on
- Colleagues and friends who keep asking “what can I do?”
- Anyone who has been told to “just ignore it”
Choose your way.
PDF from this site
Instant download of four PDFs. Print it, or type straight into it on your phone, tablet or computer.
Get the PDFPaperback
Prefer to hold it? The paperback is on Amazon, in the country of your choice.
Paperback on AmazonThis is an educational self-reflection resource. It is not medical, psychological or diagnostic advice and it is not a treatment. If you are worried about your hearing or your mental health, please speak to a qualified professional. PDF files are for personal use only; please do not share or resell them.
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