Melissa Gilbert of Little House on the Prairie fame has sadly revealed that she’s been battling the neurological disorder misophonia since she was a child.
Gilbert’s Neurological Disorder
While filming Little House on the Prairie in the 1970s and 1980s, Gilbert could be provoked to anger by everyday noises on set. These noises included chewing, popping gum, nails clicking, and even hands clapping. She had no idea what or why it was happening.
Gilbert, 60, told People Magazine that “if any of the kids chewed gum or ate or tapped their fingernails on the table, I would want to run away so badly.”
“I would turn beet red and my eyes would fill up with tears and I’d just sit there feeling absolutely miserable and horribly guilty for feeling so hateful towards all these people—people I loved,” she added.
Gilbert described this as “a really dark and difficult part of my childhood.”
It was only many years later that Gilbert was diagnosed with misophonia. This condition causes people to have strong negative reactions to seemingly innocuous things, particularly sounds.
“I sobbed when I found out that it had a name and I wasn’t just a bad person,” said Gilbert, who now wants to raise awareness about this disorder.
Related: ‘Little House On The Prairie’ Star Melissa Gilbert Doesn’t Miss Hollywood
Gilbert ‘Felt Really Bad’
Prior to her diagnosis, Gilbert’s family thought she was just a fussy child who “would just glare at my parents and my grandmother and my siblings with eyes filled with hate.”
“I really just thought that I was rude. And I felt really bad,” she lamented. “And guilty, which is an enormous component of misophonia, the guilt that you feel for these feelings of fight or flight. It’s a really isolating disorder.”
Even Gilbert’s own children knew that she could be triggered into anger by something simple like chewing.
“I had a hand signal that I would give, making my hand into a puppet and I’d make it look like it was chewing and then I’d snap it shut — like shut your mouth!” she recalled. “My poor kids spent their whole childhoods growing up with me doing this. They weren’t allowed to have gum.”
This only got worse as Gilbert entered menopause.
“I was more touchy,” she admitted. “As the estrogen leaked out, the anger seeped in and it started to really affect me on a daily basis with loved ones.”
It was only last year that Gilbert finally discovered Duke Center for Misophonia and Emotional Regulation at Duke University’s School of Medicine.
“I wrote in just randomly and said, ‘I need help. Please help me,'” she said.
Gilbert Gets Treatment
Gilbert then underwent sixteen weeks of “intensive” Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
“This is an emotional issue. It’s about self-regulation and self-control,” she said, adding that with CBT therapy, “I realized I could ride out these waves but that they’re not going to go away. They never go away. But now I have all these tools to enable me to be more comfortable and less triggered. It made me feel in control.”
After her successful CBT treatments, Gilbert’s life has turned around in a big way.
“Everyone around me doesn’t have to walk on eggshells,” she gushed.
Last Christmas, she even gave her children packs of gum to chew, telling them they no longer had to be afraid of how she’d react.
“It’s changed my whole life,” Gilbert concluded.
We’re so glad to see that Gilbert was able to overcome this neurological disorder. We hope she has many years of happiness to come!
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