I propose the name Misophonia Induced Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder for this poorly understood symptom.
I discovered the name for sounds causing a fight-flight-freeze reaction in 2021, when I read an article on misophonia. As someone who has suffered from this condition as long as I can remember, you can imagine just how earth shattering it was for me to learn that I was not just a “crazy bitch” and there were others out there like me, and perhaps there was hope for a treatment?
I’ve searched far and wide for help for my condition and in all my searching, I learned a lot about this condition. However, what I’d like to highlight here is the phenomena that happens to only some misophones while they are being triggered. This only happens to a certain subset of us, so it is incredibly rare and hasn’t been researched.
From what I can tell, this phenomenon is similar to Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder. Those of us who experience this phenomenon feel an unpredictable, uncontrollable physical sensation associated with sexual arousal, with the absence of desire during misophonic triggers. In my personal experience, it is not dissimilar to being molested and is incredibly traumatic for the sufferers.
What I’ve also experienced is that this phenomenon does not have a name associated to it, which makes it all the more difficult to speak about it. Typically, my narrative would go something like this, “It’s a sexual excitement that is completely unwanted.” Which, as you can imagine, would often be taken as dramatic, exaggeratory, or just the wrong way entirely. Trying to convey to others just how much these noises make me suffer has proven incredibly challenging for me, my entire life, so imagine how hard it is to explain this extra layer of suffering.
To help others suffering from this phenomenon, I feel that at long last, we should give this monster a name. I propose Misophonia Induced Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder, or MIPGAD, based on Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder which has been observed by scientists in academic studies. I believe this would be an appropriate name to shed light on the condition and hopefully spur researchers to take a deeper dive into what sufferers are having to live with daily. However, as this is not a research-paper, I understand that this phenomenon should be studied in literature to confirm its mechanisms and name it officially.
