'Little House On The Prairie' Melissa Gilbert Finally Gets Diagnosed For Struggles Since Childhood

A "dark and difficult" part of Melissa Gilbert's past is officially over, and she wants to save others in similar situations.

The Hollywood veteran, known for her role in the "Little House on the Prairie" series, recently opened up about suffering from a neurological disability. She shared that this condition had plagued her life since childhood.

After years of pain and wondering if she was spiteful, Melissa Gilbert finally got the help she needed. Now, she is teaming up with the Duke Center for Misophonia and Emotional Regulation to help others.

During a recent heart-to-heart interview, Gilbert dived into her struggles with the neurological disability known as misophonia. This condition causes strong and unpleasant emotional, physiological, and behavioral responses to sound and sometimes visual triggers.

Misophonia was "a really dark and difficult part of my childhood," Gilbert recalled. She noted that everyday noises like chewing, popping gum, nails clicking, and hands clapping would provoke her to anger.

This made shooting school scenes on the "Little House on the Prairie" almost unbearable for the actress. Gilbert told PEOPLE she desperately wanted to run whenever the other children "chewed gum or ate or tapped their fingernails on the table," adding:

"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."

As a child, Gilbert's family believed she was just a nit-picking kid who "would just glare at my parents and my grandmother and my siblings with eyes filled with hate." She had similar thoughts about her personality, confessing:

"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."

Several years later, Gilbert discovered she wasn't the problem after learning her intense reactions to certain sounds were caused by a neurological disability. Her diagnosis took the crushing guilt off her shoulders, with the 60-year-old noting:

"I sobbed when I found out that it had a name and I wasn't just a bad person."

Thanks to misophonia, Gilbert's family had to walk on eggshells around her because they knew sounds like chewing would upset her. She recalled using a "hand signal" like a puppet to get her children to stop eating loudly.

"My poor kids spent their whole childhoods growing up with me doing this. They weren't allowed to have gum," the 60-year-old lamented. The problem only increased when she reached menopause, with her anger levels spiking quickly.

"I was more touchy. As the estrogen leaked out, the anger seeped in, and it started to really affect me on a daily basis with loved ones," the TV personality explained. She never knew misophonia could be treated until 2023.

Gilbert discovered a way forward when she contacted the Duke Center for Misophonia and Emotional Regulation at Duke University's School of Medicine. "I wrote in just randomly and said, 'I need help. Please help me,'" she recalled.

The center's director, Dr. Zach Rosenthal, wrote back, assuring Gilbert she wasn't alone and could overcome her misophonia. The positive reinforcement significantly helped the actress during her Cognitive Behavioral Therapy treatment.

She underwent 16 weeks of "intensive" CBT, which helped her realize she "could ride out these waves but that they're not going to go away. They never go away." Instead, Gilbert had the tools to become "more comfortable and less triggered."

After taking back control, the 60-year-old joined hands with the Duke's Center for Misophonia to spread awareness about the neurological disability. She also lifted the chewing ban at home by giving her kids packs of gum last Christmas.

Apart from misophonia, Gilbert struggled with aging and body image. The Blast reported she opened up about feeling self-conscious during her 2012 appearance on "Dancing With The Stars."

The entertainer confessed that she worried about how her colleagues and the audience viewed her, noting it was a time when cosmetic procedures reigned supreme. In her words:

"The pressure that I put on myself was to stay as young as I could for as long as I could and remain an ingénue as long as I could, which is impossible."

Melissa Gilbert may not be the bombshell she used to be in her twenties, but she looks even better at 60. She remains a beloved Queen!