I have episodes of severe hyper-vigilance, which manifest mainly in public - on the pavement and in shops. Mostly these are less frequent and controlled now, with the help of psychotherapy and complementary medicine. But just this morning one came unexpectedly, and it's distressing.
To the untrained general public eye, these episodes can look a lot like paranoid schizophrenia, or drug caused stuff.
I've never taken drugs in my life, nor drunk alcohol, not even smoked.
And I don't have paranoid schizophrenia [even if I did, it's no excuse for public ridicule]. I have been assured over and over again that I don't have schizophrenia.
The hostile looks my dissociated other throws out are to 'protect' me from anyone who might come close and attack me - like I was Back Then. They are also the looks my father threw at me as a child, when he was paranoid and suffering, and took it out on me.
My behaviours, and the paranoia causing them, come from being a trauma survivor. Trauma that included persecutory mobbing by my peers, and which also took place in public places i.e. the road home from school, as well as at school.
Anyway.
What I'm getting to in this post is these behaviours often result in strangers looking at me, laughing, and saying "What's wrong with you?" Which, as you can imagine, is very distressing, humiliating, and stirs up the dissociation/flashback mode all the more.
Two questions -
1) Has anyone else ever had to deal with similar, from random members of the public, who feel under threat from your feeling under threat [even though the threat was in the past...] - or who think it's cool to laugh at someone in distress?
2) What could I say if/when anyone asks that again? The only moderately 'sensible' come-back I can think of is "and what makes you so perfect?"
Also.. what's a good way of dealing with such stigma in general?
Thanks,
s.
To the untrained general public eye, these episodes can look a lot like paranoid schizophrenia, or drug caused stuff.
I've never taken drugs in my life, nor drunk alcohol, not even smoked.
And I don't have paranoid schizophrenia [even if I did, it's no excuse for public ridicule]. I have been assured over and over again that I don't have schizophrenia.
The hostile looks my dissociated other throws out are to 'protect' me from anyone who might come close and attack me - like I was Back Then. They are also the looks my father threw at me as a child, when he was paranoid and suffering, and took it out on me.
My behaviours, and the paranoia causing them, come from being a trauma survivor. Trauma that included persecutory mobbing by my peers, and which also took place in public places i.e. the road home from school, as well as at school.
Anyway.
What I'm getting to in this post is these behaviours often result in strangers looking at me, laughing, and saying "What's wrong with you?" Which, as you can imagine, is very distressing, humiliating, and stirs up the dissociation/flashback mode all the more.
Two questions -
1) Has anyone else ever had to deal with similar, from random members of the public, who feel under threat from your feeling under threat [even though the threat was in the past...] - or who think it's cool to laugh at someone in distress?
2) What could I say if/when anyone asks that again? The only moderately 'sensible' come-back I can think of is "and what makes you so perfect?"
Also.. what's a good way of dealing with such stigma in general?
Thanks,
s.
