Note: the date of this post is when I added it here, not when I wrote it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Misophonia is still poorly understood. It resists being boxed in by a simple explanation. It is full of apparent contradictions: for example, the misophonic response feels visceral and immediate, and yet it is highly sensitive to context and social dynamics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The aim of this page is to gather together some of the recurring themes, and metaphors I\u2019ve used repeatedly, when thinking about misophonia from various angles. The idea is that these might provide useful vocabulary and interesting avenues to explore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Metaphors are not to be taken scientifically. It would be easy to slip into pseudoscience with technical-sounding metaphors and analogies, and I want to avoid this. Their only purpose is to help us talk about phenomena that don\u2019t have well-established names yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Metaphor from electricity, with ungrounded being \u201cabnormal\u201d, something to pay attention to, unresolved, something that can quickly build up a large static charge ready to pop off. Grounded = normal, normal flow, resolved, healthy energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A jaw that sits comfortably, providing a background sense of functional bite and all the implications for balance, smooth movement, and general biomechanical health, is a grounded feeling. See left molar sense<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A jaw that can\u2019t find a good resting spot \u2013 like your author\u2019s, where the most comfortable position for the TMJ would put the teeth in an edge-to-edge or underbite \u2013 creates tension, discomfort, and deprives the brain of molar sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being touched by a feather seems to create a paradoxically strong sensation and may also be a helpful image for the idea of an ungrounded charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In some ways, trigger stimuli become like words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trigger\u2019s \u201cmeaning\u201d is the ensuing sensations and negative response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Themes of power and powerlessness come up often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being seen as someone who is powerless, helpless, or incompetent feels very similar to a misophonia trigger for me and certainly feels like it primes me for worse reactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (There is a more complete version of this section that is too personal to publish.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Invoking unresolvedness similarly to the grounding analogy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amputees can have an itch that resolves when they scratch a model arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wanted to get this in here, also, as it is an example of the weirdness and mystery of the mind. It spans the physical and the psychological: how can a phenomenon arising from such a blunt physical mutilation \u2013 the physical itch felt on an arm that\u2019s not actually there \u2013 be affected by the kind of high-level cognition required to make the \u201cscratching a fake arm\u201d trick work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another element of this, which I\u2019m not sure about now, was to do with my sense of how my skull is shaped vs. how it is shaped. At some very general level, I think I have an idea of how my skull should be shaped \u2013 informed by years of trouble with how it is shaped, by my knowledge of craniofacial dystrophy, intellectual knowledge of how it should be, and estimates of how it would have to be shaped for my jaw to feel comfortable \u2013 and I almost sense this shape as a phantom limb. This is itself a metaphor and may not really be analagous to the phantom limb effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clicks and pops from the mouth can indicate jaw joint dysfunction. This relates to the whole misocfd category, cfd being craniofacial dystrophy. In my own triggers there is an overlap between them and objective CFD that seems too great to be coincidental, but it could just be that those triggers relate most strongly to me own anatomy, which is quite severely affected by CFD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some triggers are less clear, like leg swinging or foreign accents, so this seems unlikely to be the ultimate explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another interesting element is that the other person\u2019s disposition toward the trigger seems to matter. Triggers are worse if the other person seems to get some kind of satisfaction from, or be oblivious to, the sound they\u2019re making or the action that produces it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I subscribe to the construction view of emotions. Emotions are concepts, and similarly to how we might put together some visual stimuli and context and conclude that we\u2019re looking at a chair, we might put together some internal sensations and context and conclude that we are angry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n See How Emotions Are Made<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of my speculation about what makes misophonia triggers enraging could be the kind of after-the-fact, narrative rationalisation that can seem very convincing without much real evidence supporting it. Memory is fallible. The brain likes stories that make sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I suggest thinking of a misophonic reaction in two stages. The first is the \u201ccore\u201d of misophonia, and it\u2019s the fact that the stimulus somehow was felt inside the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Factors leading up to this might include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n (See The brain basis for misophonia<\/a> and The motor basis for misophonia<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this model, there isn\u2019t any emotion yet \u2013 just the raw sensation that we have been penetrated by something. I doubt this as I\u2019m writing it \u2013 it\u2019s hard to separate the raw sensation from the emotions that seem obviously to follow from it \u2013 but it\u2019s one way to think about it. It is my working model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The emotion comes after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The raw penetration sensation directly produces negative affect<\/em> and increased arousal<\/em>. Affect and arousal are some of the core ingredients of emotion but they are not emotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The creation of emotion involves high-level cognition (sloppy use of terminology here, may be technically inaccurate). The same combination of affect and arousal \u2013 which exist within the body \u2013 might produce anxiety in one context and anger in another. \u201cProduce\u201d is even probably the wrong word \u2013 we<\/em> actually create instances of emotion concepts from the underlying stimuli. The brain is active in the creation of emotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think the rationalisations also come afterward, possibly after emotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we have:<\/p>\n\n\n\n raw sensation of penetration -> negative affect, increased arousal -> construction of an emotion (anger or panic) -> rationalisation, narrative<\/p>\n\n\n\n A concrete example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I believe the pathology that produces misophonia may only go up to the second step above, that is the production of negative affect and increased arousal in response to a sensation of having been \u201ctouched\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Descriptions of misophonia commonly contain descriptions of anger, anxiety, and mention the importance of interpersonal dynamics. These are all true, but they may not be fundamental. A more accurate description of misophonia might read something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Misophonia is a condition in which external stimuli can be felt inside the body.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Anger and anxiety are obvious results of this, but they are not fundamental to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The above description is incomplete. It neglects to mention the importance of context and interpersonal dynamics in whether the stimulus is felt inside the body in the first place<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It might seem like this brings us back to a more complex model where complex cognition is involved from the start. And I suppose it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I think it\u2019s still important to separate out the process of a misophonic trigger into those steps, and the model is still valid; we just need to explain more about how step 1 happens. We may have a situation where:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s important not to try and create a simple overarching narrative that lumps the two instances of \u201ccomplex cognition etc\u201d into a single explanatory model for the whole sequence of the trigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also important to recognise that the emotions and narratives may be kind of arbitrary, and therefore might be misleading when trying to figure out what\u2019s actually going on. If we feel a sudden increase in negative affect and arousal, the brain will<\/em> try to construct an appropriate emotion and our more autobiographical\/narrative self will<\/em> try to figure out why we\u2019re feeling that emotion. The reuslting story may be just that, a story, no matter how convincing and concrete it feels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The brain will probably also have a bias for simple stories that are easily understood by the part of the brain that deals with keeping track of social dynamics. Bear this in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All that said, we still need to explain why some stimuli \u2013 or the same stimuli in different contexts \u2013 are triggers and some aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In summary, the best approach may be to only look at step 1 and what happens before it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing I\u2019ve noticed in myself is that I\u2019m much more prone to triggers when I\u2019m with family than when I\u2019m with strangers or acquaintances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know this is separate to the well-recognised observation that family members are more likely to be triggers because I have triggers that come from myself. Those triggers \u2013 such as from the shape of my mouth \u2013 are worse in the presence of family, and are even sensitive to the conversation topic. More personal, and more inward-focused, topics = more sensitivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s as though I have a \u201cfocus\u201d of inner sense, and the more this is pointed inward \u2013 along with another variable which is something like how integrated the person is into my bodily regulation<\/em> \u2013 determines how sensitive I am to triggers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I\u2019m with strangers, my focus is directed more externally, and the people I\u2019m around aren\u2019t as integrated into my bodily regulation as family or close friends. In these situations I simply don\u2019t feel the rage that I sometimes feel from the shape of my own mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This rage comes when I\u2019m on my own, in certain states, and when I\u2019m with family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It may have something to do with the default mode network. Need to look into this more; DMN was mentioned in the Brain Basis paper and I think is associated with inner sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversation topic also has a large impact on whether I get the self-triggered rage in the presence of family. \u201cDo you want to \u2026\u201d can create unbearable rage, whereas \u201cWhat do you think of [some political thing]\u201d can take my attention away from my mouth and actually avoid the trigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think hypermirroring, as described in the motor basis for misophonia<\/a>, is a good candidate for a direct cause of step one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HM itself depends on social context, as mirroring is stronger with people we have stronger bonds with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anticipating a trigger causes heightened stress, which may further increase sensitivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My sense is that there are multiple factors required to get to step 1, which I\u2019ll refer to as \u201cbeing touched\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One factor may very well be misophonics\u2019 inherent heightened interoceptive sensibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We may also have some kind of problem with distinguishing between internal and external stimuli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hypermirroring may be another, and\/or it may depend on some of the above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A metaphor I keep coming back to to describe my own experience with self-triggered misophonia\/misokinesia is that of being in a strait jacket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tongue tie is known to cause all kinds of bodily restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The teeth and jaws are known to be important in posture and balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are near the vestibular system, which is also important for balance and fluid movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are also near the ears, which, while the connection may be indirect, seems to point to the possibility that dysfunction there could interplay with sensitivity to audial triggers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a bone in the middle of the head called the sphenoid, which as been described as a mirror of the pelvis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s hard to get a sense of this unless it goes wrong, but the teeth, jaws, and neck alignment are essential<\/strong> for overall biomechanical stability, agility, and comfort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n See Releasing the Psoas<\/a> for just a taste of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How this plays into misophonia is unclear but there is a definite interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also have lip and buccal ties, and certain lip movements (in others) are also triggers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I found out about jaw expansion I basically booked a flight immediately, and got the first stages of treatment on credit cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This ultimately contributed to a financial collapse which saw me move into a caravan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had some bad days and the height of anger seemed to rise when I was aware of being restricted at multiple levels of abstraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the lowest level, my tongue \u2013 I think the tongue is really central to all this \u2013 doesn\u2019t fit inside my mouth. It\u2019s also tethered (\u201ctied\u201d) to the floor of my mouth, which may be a large part of why my skull didn\u2019t grow big enough to accommodate it in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I have this background sense of being trapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, the immobility of my tongue and the misalignment of my skull causes me to feel more generally trapped inside my body \u2013 unable to move fluidly. It creates a kind of clumsiness where my movements are janky and robotic and I\u2019m prone to brush things off surfaces and making the fine movements to e.g. put a toothbrush back in its glass requires a frustrating amount of concentration and gross motor effort. It electrifies the nerves going all along and through my body, makes me hyper aware of the constant tension in my pelvis that probably comes from an inability to get my teeth to sit together properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, moving around like this janky robot, I\u2019m stuck inside a caravan, which is a small and awkward space to move around in even if you have the normal amount of agility and fluid movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, the caravan is on a piece of land that I don\u2019t own and therefore don\u2019t have control over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, in life generally, I have no money, so I\u2019m mostly powerless to change any of these aspects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Around this time I also had another health issue, thoracic outlet syndrome, which makes even walking around troublesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This multi-level feeling of constrictedness and powerlessness really made for some exquisite crescendos of all-consuming rage. At the center of it all, and really most directly distressing, was my tongue not being able to move around as freely as it should. Human bodies are fascinating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some sufferers describe a sense of the stimulus feeling like it\u2019s temporarily controlling them, that they\u2019re not in control of the relevant part of the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Misophonia often comes with a sense of violation. I think this is understandable given that it feels like the stimulus touched us inside our body, and it doesn\u2019t really need explanation beyond that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I read in a paper or article the suggestion that misophonic rage could have something to do with being unable to achieve a goal (goal in the sense of any state of affairs, not like a life goal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This rings true to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wonder if part of my tongue-related misophonia comes from tongue restriction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some tongue-related sounds are related to movement of the tongue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe these sounds somehow remind me of my tongue\u2019s restrictedness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking at this from a mirroring perspective, maybe these sounds cause patterns of motor neuron firing corresponding to me making that sound myself, but my tongue is restricted, so this runs into unresolvedness<\/strong> and frustration of goal-directed behaviour<\/strong>. Unresolved because I can\u2019t achieve the feeling I expect to be able to achieve \u2013 I expect to feel (from mirroring) what it would feel like<\/em> (at some level of cognition, not necessarily fully experiencing it tactilely) if I made that sound. But my model of my tongue \u2013 the model my brain uses to try to execute that simulation \u2013 includes the fact that my tongue is restricted<\/em>, so I\u2019m unable to run the simulation (a goal) and the discrepancy between expectation and reality creates a sense of tactile unresolvedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tentatively, this could be generalised to the leg swinging<\/em> trigger \u2013 which I can\u2019t talk about in much detail because I don\u2019t have it. But the idea would be that seeing leg swinging creates a similar tension and frustration based on the sufferer\u2019s bodily restrictedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bring some of these themes and observations together:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think a component of misophonia might be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n mirroring an action that relates to a restricted body part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, I have audial triggers that are mouth sounds that specifically involve the tongue, and I have a restricted tongue \u2013 both in terms of the space it occupies and, mor importantly I think, in terms of being tied to the floor of my mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have visual triggers for some lip movements, and I have restricted lips (tongue tie etc are referred to as \u201ctethered oral tissues\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of my triggers is a specific pronunciation of a word that suggests restriction of the mouth in general \u2013 a mandible that\u2019s trapped behind a downswung maxilla (CFD).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had all or most of these triggers before I knew about CFD or TOTs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There could be a long term and a short-term component to the mechanism. Long-term, a restriction might create a kind of background anxiety around that part of the body. The brain is keeping track of how mobile the body is \u2013 it needs an accurate model of the body in order to control it effectively. It also \u2013 I assume \u2013 has some expectations and\/or goals for the body. It wants \u2013 by some mechanism; I know the brain is flexible and can adapt to a large range of body configurations \u2013 a certain range of motion and flexibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wants to achieve certain postures \u2013 the tongue and jaws want to sit \u2013 obviously I\u2019m using \u201cwant\u201d as a shorthand here \u2013 in harmony. The teeth, TMJ, tongue, and lips need to work together in order for the face to be both relaxed and working well. Nasal breathing, teeth lightly touching, lips sealed, lip competency, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Difficulty in achieving this \u2013 such as by CFD or TOTs \u2013 will create chronic tension via whatever means you use to compensate \u2013 forward head posture, not having a proper lip seal, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This will be tracked in the brain and will create a general sense of unease and charged\/unresolvedness around these structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This may prime them to be extra sensitive, somehow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The brain may somehow perceive these structures as body parts that it doesn\u2019t have full control over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversely, maintaining correct rest posture easily will contribute to a sense of ease and control around these areas. Use of these structures \u2013 all the fine control involved in eating, speaking, etc \u2013 will also reinforce a sense of \u201ceverything is working well\u201d in the brain\u2019s model of these structures. The brain will learn by repeated experience that the mouth works in harmony, has a good range of motion and flexibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In general, a sense that the body is working well will create positive affect and reduced arousal. A kind of reassurance loop of sensing what the parts are doing now (proprioception, tactile sense) and using experience to simulate and predict function (range of motion, flexibility, ability to control as precisely as needed). Groundedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the short term, (hyper) mirroring of affected areas may temporarily exacerbate feelings of not being in control, tension, and ungroundedness in the affected area. The brain may get into a rapidly escalating loop of sensing the discomfort, attempting to control \u2013 or simulate control \u2013 of the body part, and being unable to achieve the reassuring sense of connectedness and control because of the restriction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are various ways this could interact with the process of the misophonic response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It could be one of the necessary components<\/strong> to create the \u201ctouch feeling\u201d \u2013 the core sensation of being touched on the inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It could also carry on beyond that and into the emotion generating phase, while not being necessary for the generation of negative emotion (touch feeling is sufficient), but possibly escalating it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can\u2019t quite reconcile this with the model where the stimulus causes the touch feeling \u2026 see below; I started this subsection then googled \u201clist of misophonia triggers\u201d for reference and found a site I haven\u2019t seen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Found this at time of writing. (2026-03-08)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dozier apparently finds that misophonic response consists of two stages, physical reflex then emotional response. Contrary to currently accepted view of single stage. Chimes with my theory!<\/p>\n\n\n\n But diverges significantly, in that it doesn\u2019t matter the nature of the stimulus, just has to be conditioned to be associated with a physical reflex (and with some kind of anxiety\/anger? yes all examples so far seem to have that as well).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I couldn\u2019t quite figure out where the negative-ness of the restriction fit within the process in my model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was it necessary for it to be negative, in order for it to be a necessary part of the creation of the \u201ctouch feeling\u201d? (which is probably identical with Dozier\u2019s physical reflex stage).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the touch feeling seemed to be negative in and of itself, creating a bit of redundancy. Not necessarily a deal breaker \u2013 it is true that we attend to negative things, so maybe that would prime the restrictedness to be more likely to be involved in the creation of a touch feeling. But as I\u2019ve written before in relation to the jaw dysfunction hypothesis (earlier version of my model, more specific to jaws), some other things seemed possibly sufficient to create that \u2013 such as hypermirroring. But then you ask why certain stimuli are HM\u2019ed? And it kind of goes around in circles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trying to merge my model with Dozier\u2019s \u2026 maybe Dozier\u2019s is the more general model \u2013 Pavlovian conditioning is completely general I guess \u2013 and physical restriction is just a possible ingredient of the \u2026 how the stimulus comes to be associated with both a negative response, and a physical reflex?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interesting that Kumar et al and Berger et al don\u2019t mention Dozier. Maybe they don\u2019t know? Note: I struggle with your fidgeting (on misokinesia) does mention Dozier). Motor basis mentions but says unlikely to be a physical reflex due to involvement of complex neuro motor \u2026 could this be a misunderstanding, a too-literal interpretation of reflex as in the spinal column-only reflex of being tapped on the knee?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dozier actually mentioned in GWAS as well \u2013 obviously well known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reading miso experiences makes me think maybe it is just that my personal triggers happen to be CFD related. And maybe the restriction is not a part of it either? But no, there has to be something there. A deeper connection \u2013 maybe it\u2019s that they each stand apart \u2013 miso and CFD \u2013 and \u2026 somehow my physical reflexes are SO related to restriction though. tongue restriction, jaw trappedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coming back to this 90 minutes later, have listened to a bit of miso podcast with Dozier<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe mirroring is just a way that triggers can develop easier. An easy pathway from stimulus to response, and eventually stimulus to conditioned response (reflex).<\/p>\n\n\n\n E.g. I hear \u201cwun\u201d, mirror it, something something, I flex my jaw muscles \u2013 or maybe not even my jaw muscles, I just tense something<\/em> because of the dysfunction of the \u201cwun\u201d, and you have a conditioned response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So maybe the physical thing around teeth \u2013 that could have triggered something, via AL, that was already a miso trigger, and hooked into the network like that. Maybe if A is a trigger and B becomes associated with A, we eventually shortcut and B becomes a trigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe this explains some of the involvement of \u2026 high-level cognition \u2026 things can go via however cricuitous a route you want, through complex cognition, but the brain eventually shortcuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leaving some threads open here, physical teeth \u2026 there could have been a seed there, ready to connect an anomalous mouth sensation with the possibility of vocal triggers, then it just kind of happened, maybe via prediction, rumination, \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe an explanation for the quality<\/em> of sounds being kind of important is something like \u2013 it\u2019s to do with the \u201cechoing down the spine\u201d effect, rippling through the body, that some auditory stimuli have to begin with, just because of the characteristics of the sound. So some sounds are inherently more likely to be triggers \u2013 chewing, crunching, sounds that have that sparkle, that texture \u2013 but aren\u2019t inherently triggers. Eating sounds are \u201ccrunchy\u201d to begin with. Breathing sounds\u2026 maybe weird that we\u2019re not more sensitive to baby crying, as that\u2019s obviously associated with tensing. Or nails on chalkboard. Why don\u2019t we get conditioned there? Is it because it\u2019s normal<\/em> to have a response to those, so it doesn\u2019t bother us somehow? That seems tenuous, like why would \u201ca reasonable person would tense up here\u201d have such an effect \u2026 but that does need an explanation. Surely inherently unpleasant<\/em> sounds should be prime candidates for miso triggers by Dozier\u2019s view?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But maybe we don\u2019t encounter those kinds of sounds enough to build the conditioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe the sounds have to be emotionally significant in some way. Mockingbird chirping\u2026 Annoying. Motorbikes, also annoying. Clenching the teeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How does Dozier explain unwanted arousal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Misophonics often generally tense people, according to Dozier. Maybe tongue tie contributes to this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to explain my conversation topic<\/em> sensitivity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Note: the date of this post is when I added it here, not when I wrote it. Misophonia is still poorly understood. It resists being boxed in by a simple explanation. It is full of apparent contradictions: for example, the misophonic response feels visceral and immediate, and yet it is highly sensitive to context and … Continue reading Triangulation – rough notes from before\/after I discovered Dozier<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Metaphor: triggers are like words<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Theme: Power, powerlessness, being seen as a child\/someone who needs protection<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Speculation\/analogy: phantom limb<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Speculation: misophonia triggers are often objectively unhealthy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Intent, obliviousness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bias, subjectivity, interpretation of emotions, ascription<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Stages, sequence, overall model<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Interpersonal dynamics do affect step 1 though<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Stages: Before step 1<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Default mode network, body budget, social contexts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Hypermirroring<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Anticipation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
General<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
CFD, tongue tie, strait jacket<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Other ties<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Restrictions stacked like Russian dolls<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Control<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Violation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Frustration of goal-directed behaviour, mirroring, restriction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Hypothesis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Mechanism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Questions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pavlovian responses – Tom Dozier, Misophonia Institute<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
More on Dozier<\/h2>\n\n\n\n