Melissa Gilbert, known for her portrayal of the sunny "Half Pint" on "Little House on the Prairie," has revealed that behind her cheerful exterior, she battled a dark and difficult childhood, struggling with a sensory sensitivity that would provoke intense anger at everyday sounds.
While many other people would not think much of it, Gilbert, who suffers from a neurological disability known as misophonia, would struggle with sounds like a person chewing, the popping of gum and nails clicking.
As People noted, misophonia is a condition in which those suffering from it can experience intense and unpleasant emotional, physiological, and behavioral responses to sound.
Looking back at how it affected her childhood, Gilbert, 60, told People that when she filmed scenes for the show in the school room set, "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."
It was, "a really dark and difficult part of my childhood," she added.
Years later, Gilbert learned why noises were so triggering to her — because she was suffering from misophonia.
"I sobbed when I found out that it had a name and I wasn't just a bad person," she said.
Until that point, friends and family thought she was just a fussy kid 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. 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," she said.
Gilbert has since learned coping mechanisms, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
"This is an emotional issue. It's about self-regulation and self-control," she said.
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."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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