General Tackle Hypervigilance Club

[chicken sammich]

Hyper vigilance is the term my boyfriend used to describe one of his symptoms of PTSD. I noticed him looking around constantly and asked him about it. He told me a bit about his progress and how he had overcome in the past year - from hearing a helicopter overhead and running into a closet to hide, to now being able to breathe through the sound of it flying. It does vary from person to person, but I am not going to tell you that you are wrong, and neither should anyone else. This is a forum you started and I appreciate it. Lets keep moving forward... if others don't think this forum suits their needs, then there are others, or they can simply start their own. There is no right or wrong answer, only support and helping one another here.

 

[holdenmonty]

I'll join but in all honesty I like being vigilant but not hyper vigilant. If that makes any sense. I enjoy having my "bubble" until it gets to the point that when my kids are trying to play with me and I'm not ready to play with them yet that they aggravate me.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

@patiomermaid: I am glad to hear about your husband success. Did he get some kind of therapy or medication?

@holdenmonty: I am happy you want to join. I am not sure if I understand what you said about liking being vigilant but think my husband has the same feelings about this.Why do you like it?
He is a fan of coffee, energy drinks, energy gum and the like. In fact we had a big argument about energy gums and he found a medication that helped him sleep but discontinued it because he felt it knocked him out and he would not be able to defend us.
How old are you kids? We have two boys - a toddler and a baby.

My husbands does not like to go places like restaurants and the movies because they are crowded, they are loud. People are sitting in his back doing all kinds of things. He does not hear well on one ear. That makes it difficult to "locate" a sound - at least for him. Anyway - my husband wants to take us there and in the past we were getting ready to go there and he called it off, or he refused to get out of the car. On other occasions we had to leave because he could not tolerate it anymore.
He does not talk much about it. I am a practical minded girl - some tips would be great.

Going to a restaurant - what can we do? When we enter: give him some time to "go to the restroom" so he can check it out? Let him choose the seats? What else?

 

[Deleted member 28812]

BTW my husband found chewing gum helpful though he has no idea why.

 

[Mr Man]

Sounds like hypervigellance is a personal thing. My comments were based on what my Therpapist told me, and inline with Lemontree's views. I also find chewing gum helps with stress, I read somewhere why, but forget now. Also I make a hot cup of coffee, and when I come downstairs into the shop and someone has come in and I hadn't heard, I jump out of my shoes and the coffee goes everywhere. People normally laugh - I guess it is a bit Faulty Towers. I have since worked out how to get the doar to beep if someone comes in, saves me a fortune in coffee.

 

[holdenmonty]

@Lemontree: I guess I feel safer when I'm vigilant almost like if something happens then I will be ready for it kind of like giving into the paranoid thinking that bad things happen all the time and that I refuse to be a victim of chance because I will always be aware. Also I feel like being vigilant is a way of protecting my family that if and when something happens that I will be able to protect them. I do enjoy myself some caffeine but have been trying to watch how much I have because it can make my anxiety worse... I have a hard time sleeping as well but it's because when I lay down I have all kinds of thoughts running through my head about anything and everything so I take a 5mg melatonin supplement about half an hour before I go to bed because melatonin occurs naturally in your body and makes you sleepy and it helps my mind stop going so I can sleep but when I wake up in the middle of the night I am still aware and it doesn't knock me out like sleeping meds do.

I have a three year old and a one year old. They are five days away from being two years exactly apart. I have slowly gotten better about restaurants and movie theaters but with the three year old and one year old usually we only go when we have our date nights so not having the boys there helps a little. I would say for the restaurant thing if you are able to get seating so his back can be to a wall. I have the same issue with a lot of stuff going on behind me. I can't keep an eye on what is going on behind me so I don't feel safe. No matter where you go ask him where he would like to sit and give him some time to scope out the area to pick a safe place. If you guys are in a crowded place like a shopping mall if you guys aren't busy with the boys ask him if you guys could hold hands or ask him if you can put your hand on his shoulder that way without necessarily saying the words you are telling him that you are there or put your arm around him.

Something else that helps at times but also makes things worse some times is our boys. Sometimes they distract me from what is going on around me and I'm able to focus on just them and have fun with them but other times I feel like I have to protect them in other situations. Also sometimes holding them in my arms keeps me from acting out for instance we were walking into the mall the other day in the cross walk and a car came flying through as we were in the cross walk and came about 2 feet away from hitting me and my family. I was so furious I wanted to chase after them and let them know how angry I was but because I was holding our one year old it made me realize that I can't go running after that car with my one year old plus I would put him into danger if I chased after the car with him in my arms.

I'm sorry for the extensive post but I can relate and I want to help so much. Is he talking to a therapist or anybody about the stuff. It is really tough to open up about how we are feeling because it seems like for us guys and being military we aren't suppose to talk about our feelings and are suppose to be tough. I know it is probably super difficult to deal with some of his stuff at times but if he's anything like me the fact that he wants to be able to take you guys to a movie theater but calls it off, stays in the car, or has you guys leave early frustrates himself as well, and let him know that you love him no matter what and that your boys still love him. Also you can tell him about me and let him know that he's not alone. Also this is a great video and if he hasn't started getting help see if he will search for this video on youtube What is PTSD? (Whiteboard Video) it might help him realize that he needs some help if he isn't getting any right now.

 

[holdenmonty]

I will have to start chewing gum more. I have had to get a lot of dental work done in the last year or so and have started to notice that I tend to clench my teeth quite a bit maybe chewing some gum will help that

 

[chicken sammich]

Can I say that I am vigilant about his hyper vigilance? Being aware of his habit, I now consider more aspects of an event or date idea that I had previously. For instance, I was asked to volunteer at a chili cookoff and asked my boyfriend if he wanted to volunteer as well. What I didn't foresee was his reaction when he read the description of the volunteer work needed: crowds of drunk people at a country concert/chili cookoff with very little room to maneuver. Can you say DUH???? He replied to me "do you think that is a good place for me to be?" I felt so stupid for not thinking that through. But I am learning and growing and he is not upset with my goofs.

 

[holdenmonty]

That is awesome patiomermaid. I'm sure he really appreciates you being aware of different situations. My wife is slowly starting to get there but I'm just appreciative that my wife is starting to stop staying ignorant about my PTSD. I talked to my therapist about how Ali could help but she told me that as long as I don't avoid all situations that make me feel uncomfortable or my uncomfortableness will only get worse but I still can't do massive crowds no matter how much I try to expose myself but I do it in short spurts hoping that I won't get overwhelmed as fast but I still haven't been able to be in massive crowds for more then 10 minutes before I need to escape the crowd.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

Sounds like hypervigellance is a personal thing. My comments were based on what my Therpapist told me, and inline with Lemontree's views. I also find chewing gum helps with stress, I read somewhere why, but forget now. Also I make a hot cup of coffee, and when I come downstairs into the shop and someone has come in and I hadn't heard, I jump out of my shoes and the coffee goes everywhere. People normally laugh - I guess it is a bit Faulty Towers. I have since worked out how to get the doar to beep if someone comes in, saves me a fortune in coffee.

That's interesting. My husband found out that chewing gum helped him but we did not know that there was any scientific basis for that. Now that you told me I googled and there seems to be a lot of research all supporting that chewing gum helps against PTSD symptoms by as much as 50 percent. It pumps blood into your frontal lobe. That'S how it works.
Learned something new!

 

[Deleted member 28812]

I'm sorry for the extensive post but I can relate and I want to help so much.

I am really thankful for your extensive post. My husband is a former Bundeswehr guy and unfortunately there aren't much ressources and there aren't many Vets. Well of course there are the old guys who served in WWII but either they don't have PTSD or nobody is interested in it.
I think there isn't a good support network but that's only my personal opinion. They offer some cost free counseling but my husband thinks it is not any good and was not interested in it.

I used to have no idea what my husband was going trough. I had no idea there were people who were afraid of crowded places. Never heard that this symptom even existed... and then slowly trough talking to other Vets and spouses it dawned to me. Testemonies like yours help us so much. Thank you!

Hope I don't kicked out because my hubby ain't a cool marine sniper. I happened to meet a redcoon marine with PTSD in a bar who when I told him my mostly behind the fence former Bundeswehr guy had PTSD became abusive because he believed he had no "right" to claim to have PTSD. But he does have it and if people hold the Bundeswehr in low regards they do not need to talk to me.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

Can I say that I am vigilant about his hyper vigilance? Being aware of his habit, I now consider more aspects of an event or date idea that I had prev

That's so sweet of you. You seem to be a great spouse! But be sure to take good care of yourself!

In the past if have somitimes gotten my husband completly wrong. We went to a theme park a had a meeting point. That was back then when his symptoms were better and he could do this kind of things. Be there at this time and I got delayed by ten minutes. He was so angry at me and I was angry at him for being angry at me. Only much later I understood how anxious he must have felt.