Little House on the Prairie alum Melissa Gilbert reveals she has misophonia and confesses disorder made her feel like 'a bad person'

Little House on the Prairie alum Melissa Gilbert just revealed she suffers from a disorder called misophonia and it was 'a really dark and difficult part of my childhood.'

People with misophonia experience intense fight-or-flight reactions to triggering everyday sounds such as chewing, slurping, crunching, throat-clearing, and clapping.

'If any of the kids chewed gum or ate or tapped their fingernails on the table, I would want to run away so badly,' the 60-year-old Emmy nominee recalled to People on Tuesday.

'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.'

Melissa continued: 'I 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.'

Gilbert only got 'more touchy' after menopause: 'As the estrogen leaked out, the anger seeped in and it started to really affect me on a daily basis with loved ones.'

The former SAG president eventually reached out to Duke Center for Misophonia & Emotion Regulation director Dr. Zach Rosenthal, who finally diagnosed her: 'I sobbed when I found out that it had a name and I wasn't just a bad person.'

Melissa then underwent 16 weeks of 'intensive' cognitive behavioral therapy, which changed her whole life and made misophonia more manageable.

'This is an emotional issue. It's about self-regulation and self-control,' noted Gilbert, who clenches her feet before an attack.

'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.'

The LA-born, Catskills-based grandmother - whose younger sister is Sara Gilbert - added: 'Now everyone around me doesn't have to walk on eggshells.'

Melissa even bought her 35-year-old daughter Dakota Brinkman and 28-year-old son Michael Boxleitner packs of gum to chew last Christmas - a treat they were deprived of growing up.

Other celebrities who reportedly suffer from the disorder include Kelly Ripa, Richard E. Grant, Melanie Lynskey, Sarah Silverman, Lisa Loeb, and Kelly Osbourne.

'I've walked up to people I don't know and ripped the gum out of their mouth,' Kelly revealed on Loose Women back in 2018.

'It makes my knees buckle and makes me sweat. Don't ask, it's another tick on my box of insanities. I can't handle it, it drives me nuts.'

Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett told W Magazine in 2023 that her conductor character Lydia Tár suffered from it in Todd Field's 2022 psychological drama Tár: 'She has misophonia. That is an acute sensitivity to sound, and it can send people into a deep rage. The sound of air-conditioning would have driven her to distraction.'

Gilbert hasn't had an acting gig since voicing K.I.M. in the 2022 podcast Marvel Wastelanders: Black Widow and portraying Ruby in Joanne Hock's 2020 sister drama When We Last Spoke.

The Harris Walz supporter has been married to her third husband - Emmy winner Timothy Busfield - for 11 years but she previously romanced Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Timothy Hutton, John Cusack, Scott Baio, Billy Idol, and Dylan McDermott.