Avoidance in Misophonia

"Like nearly everyone with misophonia, my young adult son avoids sights and sounds that trigger reactions. He removes himself or keeps away. These strategies appear universal. For example, someone triggered by chewing might avoid both a movie theater and a buffet. Avoidance is extremely effective. No trigger, no reaction, no problem. Coping costs no money. People consult neither doctor nor Tarot deck for this informal strategy. Avoidance is ubiquitous in misophonia."

"For example, people with misophonia generally use "freeze/flight/fight" and "defense response" to describe reactions. The phrases paint an accurate picture of the body. Both objectively real threats and objectively benign triggers activate the autonomic nervous system. However, neither phrase describes the danger. Threat! Where, what? The way that language and the nonconscious defense system work draws attention to what's missing."

"We are impelled to focus on the threat we cannot see. But sufferers aren't primarily avoiding the threat (trigger). Focus on the threat feels right, but leads us in the wrong direction. Sufferers are avoiding the trigger's inevitable aftermath. Your sister's laugh or her gum aren't real problems. The problem is the toll that reactions take on mind, body, psyche, spirit, your day, relationships-you name it."

People with misophonia commonly avoid sights and sounds that trigger reactions, using removal or distancing as universal, cost-free coping. Scientific research on misophonia has accelerated recently, with many more publications in the past year than during the condition's first two decades. Lived experience supplies practical knowledge and directions that science has not yet fully provided. Misophonic reactions resemble freeze/flight/fight and defense responses, with autonomic nervous system activation triggered by both real threats and benign stimuli. Sufferers principally avoid the inevitable aftermath of reactions—the cumulative toll on mind, body, psyche, spirit, daily life, and relationships—rather than the external trigger itself.

Read at Psychology Today