I’m not alone.

That’s what readers assured me after I published an essay two months ago confessing to a puzzling “pet peeve” that has bedeviled me for much of my life.

I wrote about how I become really irritated or feel panicky when I’m around people chomping on gum, breathing loudly, repeatedly clearing their throats or making other noises.

In emails, some dozen readers suggested that these intense feelings probably weren’t due to a mere pet peeve, but to a little understood condition called misophonia.

“It’s not well-known,” says Rebecca Stanwyck, a psychotherapist in Pleasanton and Castro Valley. “In fact, I hadn’t heard of it until I had a client with it earlier this year.”

Stanwyck and other readers said misophonia — or “hatred of sound” — is characterized by feelings of anger, disgust and despair at hearing certain noises, usually associated with eating (lip smacking and swallowing), but also with breathing and even movements of the hands or feet, such as pen clicking or toe tapping.

Danielle, who said she long felt “alone and crazy,” directed me to a celebrity sufferer. In 2011, ABC morning talk-show host Kelly Ripa came out about her “select sound sensitivity,” as misophonia also is called. Ripa told “20/20” that certain eating sounds have bothered her for as long as she can remember.

Sometimes, she said, it’s difficult to listen to the chewing or swallowing of her husband and kids during a family meal. Known for her cheerful, good-humored persona, Ripa also shares my particular aversion to gum chewing. “(It) can really enrage me,” Ripa said. “I feel like I can turn into the Hulk.”

So, apparently I’ve got what Kelly Ripa’s got. That’s actually good news. Sure, I might have a “condition” or a “disorder,” but it’s a relief to know there’s a reason for why I need to sit as far away as possible from other people, except for my husband, when I go to the movies. Of course it would have been nice to know this before I wrote about this in January — or to have known it for much of my life. Through the years, I’ve mentioned my strange hypersensitivity to counselors. But none suggested this possibility — probably because they hadn’t heard about it themselves.

Apparently, the term has only been around for the last 20 years, and it doesn’t yet rate an entry in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

That’s among the things I learned after readers’ emails sent me off on a journey to remote online corners to discover websites, academic research, support groups and even an annual sold-out conference that took place in Chicago in October.

One academic I came across is Barron Lerner, a professor of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center.

“I can’t stand it when someone behind me at a movie chews popcorn with his or her mouth open. I mean, I really can’t stand it.”

That’s how he opened his 2015 misophonia essay in the New York Times, which generated more than 1,100 impassioned comments. A few people derided the misophonia label as another example of our culture rushing to pathologize every quirk of the human experience, but many others opened up about the varying degrees to which misophonia has hurt their work lives, relationships or ability to go out in public.

Lerner told me he had received hundreds of emails from sufferers, as well as family members. “Families were at war with one another at times,” he said.

Sufferers describe the sound as activating a “fight or flight” response, while Lerner said some studies find an association between misophonia and obsessive-compulsive disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder.

As with many mental health issues, the mechanisms of misophonia are mysterious. Lerner says early data suggests a hyperconnectivity between the auditory system and the limbic system, the part of the brain responsible for generating emotions.

Other researchers noted that misophonia often starts in childhood or early teens and is triggered by a particular noise made by a parent or other loved one. That was the case with me. At around 12 or 13, I started to become irritated by my father chewing food with his mouth open. All this about misophonia’s onset makes me wonder how much the disorder is tangled up in adolescent development or family dynamics.

Treatment is possible, Lerner said. Medication can help accompanying psychiatric disorders, but cognitive behavioral therapy is usually recommended, he added.

In a phone conversation, Stanwyck told me that therapy addresses the “meaning” people assign to their heightened sensitivity. That is, helping people identify the immediate thoughts and feelings they have in response to a noise.

For me, I told Stanwyck I often feel helpless because I feel silly speaking up and telling someone that the noise they are making is rude or annoying. That helpless feeling gets mixed up with anger, fear and despair.

Stanwyck said my first thought — that the person is being rude — is a judgment that sets off, domino-like, the rest of my feelings. By being more aware of those feelings, “you can have more conscious control over what’s happening to you,” she said.

Another strategy, which she’s using with a client, is to gradually expose a sufferer to the aggravating sounds and help them learn to calm their response.

As I said, it’s nice to know I’m not alone, and it’s also a relief to talk to people who get it. And I’ll see if Stanwyck’s calming tips help next time I’m stuck some place next to a gum chewer.

But I don’t think I’m ready to try exposure therapy. Next time I go to the movies, I’ll still find my way to my usual spot alone, up in a top corner seat, and as far away as possible from all those annoying sounds.