One of those voices you just want to slap

We're back!

In fact we never really went away, but Cactus and I have both needed a bit of time when everything's not all about the Misophonia. Other fish to fry. She's had important exams to study for, and we've both had other things to think about. For the most part she's doing remarkably well at learning to live with her condition and I'm more convinced than ever that she's not going to let it dominate her life. She has tamed the Miso Monster and, whilst it doesn't exactly roll over for belly rubs, it no longer rampages out of control through the house.

We're also able to talk about it with curiosity rather than with anger and discomfort. The other day we had an interesting discussion about voices. Cactus was pairing her Bluetooth headphones, and we both heard the little robotic female-neutral-midwestern-US voice say "pairing..." as the connection was made. Cactus huffed. "She really annoys me, I don't like her voice". I told her about my experience of using a mindful meditation app with a variety of voice options. Some of them I found the very opposite of relaxing. Some of them made me feel downright stabby. I was only able to relax and get the most out of the app when I found one that I could live with.

We moved on to talk about computer generated and AI voices. I'm a newbie beekeeper, and there's a woman who posts a lot of videos on social media about swarms and colonies that she's called on to remove. She's a young woman operating in Texas and I imagine she has the most beautiful southern accent, but she uses a text-to-speech app for her videos that I find somehow disappointing. The voice has a bland, singalong quality that just doesn't do it for me. I would rather hear her real voice.

Cactus listened carefully, and told me that in most cases she actually preferred these "robotic" voices, as they don't come with all the triggering sighs, sniffs and mouth noises of a real person. Little Miss Bluetooth being a rare exception.

Wow. How insightful. And how interesting. I'm sure somewhere a Misophonia expert has already done some research on this, but it inspired me to blow the cobwebs off this blog and tell everyone about it in the hope that it might give another parent and another Cactus something to talk about.

I told her about an experience I had many years ago with a particular voice. We are, sadly, becoming immune to the numerous TV charity appeals that ask us to give £2 a month or a gift in our wills to one cause or another. The stories are all heartbreaking and the sheer number of them can be overwhelming. One particular day the late Alan Rickman was voicing an appeal. Now, I could listen to Alan reading the back of a Rice Krispie box on repeat all day and never tire. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. "Give us £20 today" said Alan, and I was off to the post office with my £20 cheque within minutes (this was many years ago when PayPal was yet to be invented and cheques were still a thing, and when £20 was a lot of money). I have no idea what the charity was, or where my money went, but Alan told me to do it and I was powerless to resist. When he died I was so saddened at the loss of a great talent and a beautiful voice, but a little part of me thought "damn, he still owes me twenty quid!"

Cactus laughed, and I felt the Miso Monster retreat a little further into its cage. Perhaps it too will respond to a change of voice now we're not scared of it any more. Now we can talk to it calmly and assertively. Now we can show it who's boss.

But I bet Alan could have made it purr like a kitten.