One question I am asked now and then is “how to visual triggers relate to Misophonia?” and while that’s a great question, and one I wish I knew the answer to, it’s unfortunately one that we do not know. In 2014, Schröder proposed the term misokinesia for visual triggers that were present in patients that had Misophonia. This term was not meant to coin a new disorder, but more to explain a phenomenon that was not encapsulated by the disorder as it was known at the time.
We do not yet know if all persons with Misophonia also have misokinesia (ie. they are the same disorder), or if some persons with aversive reactions to sound (Misophonia) do not have an aversion to visuals (Misokinesia). It is possible that these aversions happen on a spectrum and are different in each clinical case. This is something that has not yet been researched.
At this time, however, what I can say is that many in the community (myself included) have both visual and auditory triggers that manifest with a similar fight-flight-freeze reaction. For those that do have misokinesia, there is little difference between the nature of the trigger after the outset. Our fight flight systems are engaged, we feel discomfort, sometimes pain, and then negative emotional effects.
The name “Misophonia” is not the greatest anyways, since we do not “hate” sounds (or visuals), but are merely experiencing aversive reactions to the way our brains are processing these stimuli as a threat. Yet, this is the name that the popular press and research have clung to and landed upon, so we must accept it for now. In the meantime, it is important to realize that much of the knowledge that we have on both auditory and visual triggers are in the beginning stages of discovery, and nothing is set in stone.
Reference
Schröder, A., van Diepen, R., Mazaheri, A., Petropoulos-Petalas, D., Soto de Arnesti, V., Vulink, N., & Denys, D. (2014). Diminished N1 auditory evoked potentials to oddball stimuli in misophonia patients. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 8(123). doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00123
