Melissa Gilbert Reveals Rare Neurological Disorder: ‘Really Isolating’

Heavy/Getty Melissa Gilbert with husband Timothy Busfield in June 2023

Best known for her starring role on “Little House in the Prairie” when she was a child, actress Melissa Gilbert, whose roles as an adult have included multiple Hallmark movies, just revealed that the hardest part of playing Laura Ingalls Wilder was dealing at the same time with a rare neurological disorder.

Gilbert, 60, opened up for the first time about her condition, known as misophonia, in a social media video on August 20, 2024 — part of her new partnership with the Duke Center for Misophonia and Emotion Regulation.

Together, they hope to raise awareness about the disorder which, according to the advocacy organization SoQuiet, causes a “decreased tolerance to specific sounds” which can “evoke strong negative emotional, physiological, and behavioral responses that are not seen in most other people.”

Proud to be one of the only — if not the first — public figures to have admitted to having the disorder, Gilbert explained in her video, “I would get so upset, like fight or flight upset, over certain sounds — chewing sounds, snapping pens, fingernails on a table, clicking — and I thought that I was just fussy or bratty. It turned out that I had a disorder called misophonia, but it didn’t have a name at the time.”

Melissa Gilbert Struggled With Misophonia Throughout Adulthood Before Finding Treatment

In her video, Gilbert said that she eventually got help for her disorder via Duke, explaining that “it didn’t take the misophonia away, it just gave me the tools that I needed to deal with it and to control it rather than having it control me.”

“I sobbed when I found out that it had a name and I wasn’t just a bad person,” Gilbert told People in her first interview about her journey. “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 told the magazine that once she became a mom, her children knew all too well that certain sounds — even the sound of someone chewing gum — could trigger her.

“The Christmas Pageant” star recalled, “I had a hand signal that I would give, making my hand into a puppet and I’d make it look like it was chewing and then I’d snap it shut — like shut your mouth! My poor kids spent their whole childhoods growing up with me doing this. They weren’t allowed to have gum.”

Once Gilbert went through menopause, the pain of hearing certain sounds grew even more intense and she admitted she would lash out at others, she told People.

“As the estrogen leaked out, the anger seeped in and it started to really affect me on a daily basis with loved ones,” she said.

Finding Treatment ‘Changed My Whole Life,’ Melissa Gilbert Says

GettyMelissa Gilbert and her husband, actor Timothy Busfield, on June 20, 2023

When Gilbert discovered the Duke Center for Misophonia online, she told People, “I wrote in just randomly and said, ‘I need help. Please help me.'”

Gilbert heard back from the center’s director, Dr. Zach Rosenthal, who told her help was available and that she wasn’t alone. Finally feeling validated, she underwent 16 weeks of “intensive” Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that was life-changing for her.

“I realized I could ride out these waves but that they’re not going to go away,” she explained to People. “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 relief she’s experienced has been palpable professionally and personally, she told People, revealing that she even gave her kids packs of gum for Christmas in 2023.

“It’s changed my whole life,” she said.

Gilbert now runs an apparel brand and blog inspired by her childhood TV show called Modern Prairie. Meanwhile, reruns of “Little House on the Prairie” still air regularly on Hallmark Family.