#fr tho misophonia is a bITCH.

[starry-skies-116]

Neurodivergent Michael Headcanons (Part 1/3)!

Michael was diagnosed with dyslexia at age four- he often loved to listen to stories, but had little interest in letters or words and had extreme trouble with reading to the point where he would throw tantrums and have meltdowns if he had to read books. However, his synesthesia and misophonia due to hyperacusis was never diagnosed, and he was often bullied by his neurotypical peers (which resulted in him developing and internalizing hatred of people his age- that is, until he met his friends).

Michael’s favorite auditory stims include the sound of distant thunder booming, a spring breeze rustling, and the sound of a crackling campfire that has JUST RIGHT crackling noises.

Because Michael has misophonia, whenever Evan’s crying, his ears also start screaming bloody murder. It’s more of a situation secretly that has Michael saying that Evan crying is annoying, but it’s more of a case of “AYO DON’T CRY, IF YOU CRY I’LL START CRYING TOO BECAUSE MY EARS ARE TWO WHINY LITTLE BITCHES THAT BEHAVE LIKE AGGRESSIVE FERAL HISSING CATS AT THE TINIEST HINT OF NOISE”. He indiscriminately behaves like that around everyone, unbeknownst to everyone else.

Michael is not exactly a fan of uncomfortable textures, bright lights, foul odors or disgusting tastes, but among all five senses, sound is his biggest upsetter and the one he is most sensitive to (just as Evan’s biggest upsetters are smell, touch and sight, and Elizabeth’s biggest upsetters involve touch and taste).

Misophonia is one of the bitchiest of bitches to deal with. Basically Michael was sent to the principal’s office when he was eight because he snapped at a kid in his music class for playing the trombone too loudly, and nearly stabbed a kid in the thigh with a pencil because said kid was repeatedly sniffling too loud during a test. He also screamed at a kid to ‘shut up’ when they were eating a sandwich and making sloppy chewing and eating noises with their mouth open. There were many more incidents involving sensory overloads due to this, of which I can’t go into detail about because then we’d be here all day, hehe.

And crowds. Oh, god, where do I BEGIN with crowds? Michael hates them to the point of being borderline agoraphobic, and he didn’t even know until he attended one of Hurricane Middle School’s pep rallies with his friends- not precisely because of the close proximity of sweaty young teenagers packed up against him in the masses, but the sheer amount of sensory input was driving both his synesthesia and misophonia up the wall- countless onslaughts of colors were flashing before his eyes in the masses, assaulting his sight even when he had his eyes squeezed shut so hard that it hurt. Tastes were on his buds, clashing furiously with one another and it brought tears to his eyes- was this what an epileptic attack felt like, but with sound?

Michael ended up being hospitalized because of the serious condition he was in due to his nervous breakdown requiring stabilization and treatment. William saw it as a bit of an inconvenience, whereas Eleanor, Elizabeth and especially Evan were worried sick about him. The cup of warm milk he had when he came home was so soothing it might as well have been the best damn cup of milk he’s ever had in his entire life.

STIMS! Stiiiiims! Everybody loves stims, especially neurodivergent people! Michael tends to stim via fidgeting with the rim of the fabric of his fingerless gloves, picking at any bandage gauzes that might be covering his skin, twisting any rings he might wear around his finger, chewing/nibbling at the clay beads on his necklace, etc. When he’s sitting down, he may bounce his leg, fiddle with the pages of a book in front of him if there is one, or chew on something.

Speaking of chewing, this man HAS to have something to chew on, or he will, as another one of his restless stims, pop, click and twist his tongue sore and grind his teeth to smithereens. He always carries either a pack of chewing gum, or spare pocket change to spend at bubblegum machines- he’s nigh-unparalleled at blowing ridiculously big bubbles with gum because of the fact that his brain ALWAYS NEEDS HIM TO BE DOING SOMETHING WITH HIS MOUTH.

Michael LOVES stimming with gum and chewy foods such as marshmallows- when Easter comes around, his friends find it incredibly endearing how he basically gorges on Tootsie Pops, Peeps Marshmallows, gummies and basically anything with a chewy texture or chewy, stretchy gelatin candy (that doesn’t make a too-loud popit sound). Why? Because “texture good”.

Speaking of which, if you buy him a walkman with a set of headphones and complimentary earplugs (for when he doesn’t feel like listening to music), he will thank you and you’ve basically got a friend for life. His misophonic self HATES sound, and gets easily startled by loud noises, such as speakers, buses, chatter and screaming. Headphones greatly calms him, and he basically fiddles with the cord of his walkman. He also tends to semi-tap dance as a stim when he’s walking on occasion.

Additional stims Michael has is singing his favorite verses of certain songs to himself, drumming his fingernails against the desk, and twirling a pen masterfully between his fingers (a stim he shares with Evan despite the former having substantially superior motor skills).

Lexical-gustatory synesthesia and chromesthesia makes Michael associate certain colors and tastes with certain words and songs, as well as certain voices of other people- they can be sounds he craves and enjoys (Evan’s voice when he’s calm sounds, tastes and looks incredibly pleasant to him), sounds he hates (really loud or sudden noises that make him flinch or jerk), or even sounds he fears (William’s voice taking on any tone).

Whenever sensory overloads brought on by Synesthesia or just neurodivergence occurs, his brain basically completely, wholly and utterly BREAKS AND SHUTS DOWN ENTIRELY due to his brain failing to process all the stimuli around him. He can only make noises (at best stuttering out an incoherent string of slurred words) since his brain doesn’t have the capacity or energy in that moment to translate everything into sentences to convey what’s wrong. In this moment, he just covers his ears and goes nonverbal to prevent basically making noises, stuttering, and slurring, since that’s all he can do when he tries to speak during a sensory overload-caused meltdown. He just cries, silently sobbing, and rocks back and forth trying to soothe himself.

Whenever Michael is VERY happy, he basically claps his hands in a flappy-type motion and jumps up and down a few times, making a verbal exclamation of sorts and giggling to himself- just like his siblings. That, or he does really rapid and fast high knees while squealing and hitting the edge of his wrists together multiple times rapidly (his hands flap and flail while he’s doing this, EVERYONE thinks it’s freaking adorable and Evan joins him 500000% of the time- in other words, every damn time, without question, without exception).

Bro. His special interests being music, movies, Disney, theatre, filmmaking, songwriting, singing and just a passion for stageplay and the fine arts in general? And his favorite music secretly being from the soundtrack of Swan Lake instead of some edgy-ass rock band? AND IF ANYONE WITHIN A 15 MILE RADIUS EVEN VAGUELY MENTIONS OR EVEN SUBTLY DRAWS REFERENCES FROM COMEDIA DELL’ARTE? PLEASE.

He will INFODUMP SO DAMN HARD whenever someone even remotely, vaguely or slightly MENTIONS ANY of these things. He is a GAY THESPIAN THEATRE KID, through and through, loud and proud.

As Glamrock Freddy, Michael has accommodations in the form of special features implemented into his programming that let him muffle/cancel out noises (espeically trigger noises) and let him selectively listen to the ones he wants to hear as he pleases. To his annoyance, these accommodations are disabled when he’s on emergency power mode- however, Gregory’s presence and wellbeing seems to calm and please him alone. One look into those glimmering dark eyes, so large and gentle in their gaze that observed all under it’s watchful eye, and he felt as though he were looking at a calming night sky alight with stars. He instantly calms himself after looking at or just interacting with the boy that reminds him so much of his brother (hmm I wonder why… probably because the brunette boy IS your brother ahaha~).

When the animatronics were first made and were about to do a rehearsal performance/test run of their programming, Glamrock Freddy was visibly having a breakdown in the form of his wires fizzling and him spritzing out because Michael was basically screaming inside due to the sheer amount of NOISE around him. He could feel the low frequencies, the electronic pulsating of the stage and the music, the colors flashing before him and the phantasmal sensations of taste on his tongue EVEN WHEN he had long since forfeited his mortal flesh. Freddy/Michael basically collapsed onstage due to the sheer sensory onslaught of stimuli, and emergency maintenance had to be performed because an animatronic had a mental breakdown.

Ever since then, Glamrock Bonnie was the one that recommended and fought tooth-and-nail for Freddy to receive the feature of muffling out noise due to him basically constantly exhibiting misophonic behaviors and symptoms of both dyslexia and synesthesia (even when Michael was existing in a state of metaphysicality as a spirit possessing a robotic host). The other animatronics soon quickly followed.

[disabilitybitch]

Misphonia is a bitch. I got a question tho since i just realized I had it.

So does anyone else with misophonia have like body spasms when they hear their bad sounds? Mine can get so bad sometimes idk. Sometimes If I hear my bad sounds my back like planks and I start flailing like a fish. Sometimes I kick involuntarily or have neck jerks. I've straight up let out an involuntary cry of pain a few times. I've let out involuntary short screams. Sometimes I also punch the nearest surface and its all completely out of my control.

Fr why are specific sounds actually so painful that I cry sometimes. Bro what is this BULLSHIT!?

Does anyone else have these involuntary things happen bc its scary sometimes.