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Analogy: "my Hypervigilance Feels Like..."

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My hyper-vigilance is pretty bad. I'm planning going to my husbands Police graduation tomorrow. This will involve hundreds of people and lots of noise. If I wasn't on seroquel I wouldn't be going. I'm still dreading it though for several reasons.

A friend who is coming with us for support - suggested earplugs, or an ipod or something to take away the noise problem. But I can't do that as I really need to hear what's going on around me, even though I hate the noise. I need to be FULLY aware of everything and anything going on. I don't think she understood that.
 
Every time a person is hyper-vigilant, it FEELS like a life or death situation. You feel highly alert, because if you don't something bad could happen to you. No one else can protect you. At least, that is how it feels for me.

If I didn't have PTSD, i probably would have understood immediately what was going on. But because I was hyper vigilant, it seemed so much more intense than it really was ... something... I registered as "out of place," therefore possibly dangerous, in my hyper-vigilant state.

Well put.
 
I orinally thought that tempoal lobe epilepsy had made me highly percetive including things that were not in my immediate vicinity. After learning what hypervigilence was and realizing I had it, and had it bad. I was so wired that I could sometimes feel people talking about me and then I would call them and they always say "we were just talking about you...". I feel like I can hear every conersation going on in a 100 yd radius. I see things out of the corner of my eyes. When I worked, I could see solutions and fixes to extremely complex problems and sometimes without even looking at the problem.

I am basically on guard fulltime and over-react to everything. I believe the brain is reacting to intense fear and therfore turns up the perception sensitivity knob for survival purposes. Whether the fear/danger is actual or imagined doesn't really matter.
 
My hyper vigilance is less about the physical world around me and more about looking for behavior I need to guard against. I am constantly watching and analyzing peoples behavior for signs of trouble. This causes me to replay conversations in my head looking at it from every possible angle. It is exhausting and causes me to come to false conclusions. It also makes it difficult to be fully present in my day to day activities.
 
My hyper vigilance means I turn and look at people before I even realise, then they wonder why I am staring at them.

That the world is a very bad place and those around me may hurt or kill me.

I react before I think, before I even realise what I have done which sometimes scares me. How can my arm react before I even think?

I notice when people are looking at me and stare at them, like a sixth sense even if they are behind me. I will suddenly turn round which shocks them.
 
Almost always on alert. Usually when I am out and about. I'm pretty good at home, though, at times my other senses such as hearing and smell really kick in. I try not to pass that on to my children but I have been told more then once that my oldest, tends to pick up on the things around him, including the emotions of others. Teachers have noticed him observing and absorbing. This from a very introverted child, soon to be adult. All I could do as he was growing is help him understand it. So hard for an adults mind to understand it much less a child's.
 
Now that I'm processing my traumas, my 'high alert' states don't last as long nor are they as debilitating.

I notice now that I do still always have an undercurrent of a higher setting than 'resting' or 'relaxing.' As I try to learn how to rest and relax, this base setting seems to be getting lower, but it still is always there.
 
In a manner of speaking, my hyper-vigilance accentuates both the best and worst aspects of my person. I love my interests in the social sciences, but these interests were prompted and amplified for being laid atop many a recollection of trauma that colors my message. I do believe that many would equate my odd reportage and susceptibility to traumatically-tinged emotional recall as consistent with what a lawyer or judge would identify as a 'bad witness'. Why lend much weight at all to what he does or says, for isn't it plain that he is an unstable and not like us? It seems at times that my interactions with others is tonally akin to the Cold War film 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' to the extent that what humankind doesn't understand is habitually viewed with the greatest suspicion.

My reading lends context to situations that at times seems bizarre to others, but then I am forced to consider that the greater bulk of the people in my immediate circumstance aren't inclined to question, aren't inclined to explore, aren't inclined to inform what are usually folk impressions of so very much. What does it matter that I possess some precious subjective viewpoint if for speaking and for writing so little penetrates to the outside world? A fleetingly interesting signal (sometimes), although the transmission system is often faulty and the frequency band chosen not quite what is called for. Quite sad for speaking clearly by my measure equates to needless obfuscation as registered by almost anyone else...

In short, when I P.T.S.D. trigger or 'trip', I suppose in a positive sense I have more material and/or insight to bring to bear to lend enhanced contextual awareness of what is going on. The awful truth though is that I lose on two levels to the extent of mixing with others for 1.) Most haven't the experiential background that equates to being a trauma survivor, and 2.) Most are habitually disinclined to investigate so very much with anything like persistence. For myself, these qualities and qualifications are deeply intertwined, whereas for others in my immediate circumstances I'm something of a freak for being so-impacted (via traumatic legacies), and so-inclined (via atypical application to study, at least within my immediate socioeconomic circumstance).

It is terribly upsetting in total; i.e. to be in a circumstance where one is begging legitimacy to perceptions that one forms in response to what others are disinclined and are often incapable of seeing. Though works that speak of the creative fire that may be teamed within the person, within the mind of a manic-depressive, I've really not seen material that speak of a heightening of the senses via P.T.S.D. that too may lead to pathways of effectiveness for not being able to strictly look away at everyday misunderstanding and brute ignorance altogether too plain to see in many a social circumstance, in many a policy sphere, etc.

I suppose I'm registering disappointment and regret for some experiences over the holiday where some attempt (again and in vain) was made to enlist my family as supporters in relation to lingering C-P.T.S.D issues where not even trace understanding of roots underlying the dynamic exist. My hyper-vigilance has me feel like an elaborate Cold War-era intelligence gathering apparatus. I'm flooded with signals, and yet strive without much outside direction to lend context to much that the outside world cannot strictly relate to. The outside and non-specialist world is to whom I'm ultimately accountable, but in point of fact they (family and non-sympathetic outsiders) at best struggle to relate to my task and can turn on me in an instant if they choose to mobilize on the basis of their shared ignorance about so much. I so need to escape this provincial burg where speaking plainly and often ignorantly is always preferred to professorial discourse however well reasoned!

Sorry - just regretting recent holiday adventures where the relevance of psych. care was haphazardly dismissed by family, where again people close imagined that for snapping their fingers I'd 'snap out of it'. In particular, it grated that for no educated assessment of the parameters of P.T.S.D. made by them, the perception established seemed instead that I'd latched onto to some quack faith. How does one accept that family members, while for circumstance appear upper middle class seem for application intellectually working class for what seems undeniable anti-intellectualism? Very sad, predictably discouraged by all of this, hence into hyper-alert exile I go again. I don't wish to be strictly alone, but the quality of my social contacts and social support (at least as manifest by my immediate 'family') is really quite poor at present. Thanks...

M.
 
Mine is a combo of physical guarding but also psychological guard from harm as well. I am like the eagle in the sky, looking down at everyone, making sure they have nothing to hide from me or any way of hurting me or others. Trains are the worst experience. Maybe I am not like the eagle, but my eyes never stop to close and relax.
 
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