Misophonia can turn even the simplest sounds into a battle for sanity, and in places like a crowded restaurant, it’s an uphill one.

But when one teen tried to manage her triggers during a family dinner by escaping to the bathroom, it only led to a bigger conflict with her mother.

Read on for the full story.

AITA for excusing myself from dinner because I was overwhelmed?

I (16F) was diagnosed with misophonia at age 12.

Some of my family knows that – specifically, family I frustrate enough to know that.

They’ve respected it, and haven’t used it against me if we get into a disagreement or if something doesn’t go their way.

She explains further.

For those who don’t know, misophonia is when someone has strong reactions to certain sounds/triggers, and it overwhelms them, brings them to tears, go into fight or flight, etc.

Tonight I was at a family dinner, and quite a few of my triggers popped up and kept happening.

A few of them were: sniffling, open mouth chewing (mouth sounds), very heavy breathing, and lip smacking.

She tried to manage it in a calm and collected way.

I was controlled in the situation and simply excused myself from dinner for a few minutes.

Just to relieve myself from the ongoing noises at the dinner table.

But it seems this still wasn’t good enough for her mother.

After around 5 minutes, I went back, but my mother was very quiet and cold towards me the rest of the night.

When we got back home, I asked her if there was something wrong or if I didn’t something to upset her.

Her mother had a lot to say.

She started talking about how rude it was for me to excuse myself from dinner just because of “simple noises that I was overreacting about”.

But the teen doesn’t see it this way at all.

The thing is, I didn’t even say to my family that I was overstimulated, I just said I was going to the bathroom.

The mother claims to know better, despite the teen not vocalizing her thoughts.

To my mother, however, I apparently have a specific look on my face whenever I get overwhelmed/overstimulated.

I sort of knew about it, but I try to keep it straight whenever I get like that.

She still feel justified she did the right thing, even if it upset her mother.

I feel I wasn’t in the wrong for just taking a few minutes away from my triggers, and just calming myself down.

She said that it was rude of me to “interrupt” dinner, when I never actually did. I just said I was going to the bathroom.

AITA?

What was meant to be a quiet escape turned into a loud confrontation.

Redditors chime in with their two-cents.

This user encourages the teen to exercise the agency to leave a situation whenever she needs to.

Out of all people, the mother should understand – or at least try to.

Someone is causing a problem here, but it’s not the teen.

This commenter wonders if the mom truly understood what the alternative was here.

This teen tried her best to avoid a meltdown, but she didn’t know she’d trigger a showdown.

It wasn’t the sounds that caused the most discomfort – it was the silence that followed.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.