This was the first time I've actually looked up this little quirk of mine and it surprises me that I wasn't the only one who is tortured by this noise.
As far as I can remember, I never really found myself irritated by anything in the noise category until about 18 months ago. At my old job I sat across the aisle from a woman who would literally SLAM her thumb down on the mouse button (she used one of those trackball mice because of some "tendonitis" that bothered her if she used a conventional one) and it was so loud and so grating on me that it brought me to the brink of snapping. Every day I would go in there and have to endure that noise over and over and over again. I told her about it and she said there was nothing she could do as the only way she could click her mouse was with her thumb and not her index finger as it was designed for. I got nowhere with her so I spoke with my lead clerk about it and all that did was bring down upper management on me because I was "making a big deal" out of it. They told me that I was acting immature and unprofessional to obsess on something as "innocent" as a mouse click. I repeatedly asked to be moved to another cubicle and was denied every time. So I endured it...there was nothing I could do.
Fast forward to about a year ago. I was up eating dinner with my folks when out of nowhere the sound of the sloshing of the beverages, the crunching of the chips, the grinding of the meats, the chewing, chewing, chewing sounds...they were REALLY bothering me. Since it had never been an issue before I figured it would just alleviate itself so I ignored it. Until the next time I ate with them. Same thing. Chewing ice, just chewing food in general...they made so much noise that I had to get up and leave the room because it was bothering me SO much that I couldn't concentrate on anything other than the chewing, swallowing, and the relentless guttural "mmm...mmm...mmm..." that escaped the throat of my stepfather as he chewed his food. To this day it haunts me. I simply cannot be in a quiet room with someone who is eating because it will make me crazy. My only "escape" is to leave the room or, if I have no other choice, I put on my iPhone's iPod and throw on some headphones to block out the noise.
Other noises like forks on plates make me feel like my skull is going to split but rarely occurs but once in a blue moon. There are other sounds that bug the hell out of me but nothing is as bad as eating sounds others make. I no longer work at the company with the woman who clicks the mouse so that is one less annoyance in my life.
How does one treat such a condition? I'll freely admit that I obsess on it but only because I let it get so out of control...what can I do?