why does seeing people eat in public trigger me

[thesupremegentleman]

btw, the visceral reaction i m describing itt completely disappeared when i was on some meds (ssris or snris, can't remember now). i'd be in the same environment and feel absolutely 0 negative emotions whatsoever. what to make of this?

certain brain region like the insula may be overreacting to input from the eyes, ears etc. insula is responsible for both feelings of disgust and also interoception (awareness of internal bodily state), and as such those can be percieved as overlapping in our minds. Aka u see someone chewing = u feel disgust.

when u increase serotonin signaling and norepinephrine using drugs , those somehow fuck with amygdala -> insula loop. not sure how exactly but it seems to dial down hyper reactivity to emotional/sensory stimuli tbh. so when ur serotonin is higher, ur brain is less likely to flag those stimuli as threatening/disgusting