Situational awareness: all or nothing

[Kintsugi]

Wasn't sure where to put this. It's somewhere between "anxiety" and "dissociation," hence the "All or Nothing"-ness. For a minute I thought about posting it in childhood, but I'm sure it's broader than that.

Anyway, on to my issue. I've noticed that I either have absolutely no situational awareness or all the situational awareness. If I do not immediately feel threatened/in danger/hypervigilant, I would literally miss a bear on a tricycle or a pink elephant walking by. If I feel threatened? I know what every item in the room is and where it is and calculate quickly how long it would take me to get to any point within that space.

Anyone else?

I would really like to get to the point where I have some normalcy in terms of being able to remember features of a space like a normal person. I hate that my memory is utter shit. I've thought about maybe using Lumosity for this, or just doing lots of exercises around spatial awareness and recall.

Thoughts?

 

[joeylittle]

Makes me think of mindfulness, really. Part of being mindful is 'taking in' all the details one by one. It feels slow at first, but really - our minds are super-adept at doing this. If you think about how people can read facial expression - how quickly we process tiny bits of nearly invisible detail, and combine it into a total memory of "she was tired and frustrated", "he was thrilled", etc.

The mindfulness part is the action of seeing. Memory is the action of attending, or recording, the image. That's where games just help your brain get better at it. But the mindfulness part is pretty key. If you can figure out where in your life you do it regularly, it makes it easier also. Like, do you remember snippets of conversation without trying? Or sentences you have read? If you do gaming, how good is your peripheral focus, and if it's good, can you learn to apply it to just seeing all the objects in a room by looking at a point right in front of you? For me, I know it's either when I'm receiving tons of information quickly (usually kinetic and image-based), or when I'm doing something slow and methodical (washing dishes is my favorite), those are the times that I am most easily mindful, without stress.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Kintsugi]

I can almost always remember what I've read verbatim, and I remember things that are spoken to me when they have to do with emotions of any kind. I won't remember things like, "After X happens, you need to do Y," but I will remember, "Last week my best friend was really sick," and I will remember that statement for months.

Things that slip past me are numbers. Even when I'm super attentively reading something and remember practically a whole article word for word, I won't remember data, figures, percentiles, etc.

Visual stuff--unless it's words--is just gone unless for some reason I am narrating the situation moment-by-moment in my head, as if I were realtime journaling. For instance, when my best friend told me a bunch of really personal stories, I remember those hours as if they were happening right now. I remember where everything was. I remember what everything looked like. The only thing I can't completely recall was the icon or words on her black shirt (there was white visual stimulus somewhere near the center). I remember how she had her hair, which coat she was wearing, how deep the snow was, that there was a tiny snowman to our left... All that sticks, because it was a momentous occasion, and my mind recorded it as if filming.

I am so bad at visual cues that I have to reeeally pay attention to landmarks if I want to know whether I'm in the right place on these rural roads. They all look the same to me. That's how I got insanely lost in the mountains several weeks ago, even though I passed SO MANY glaringly obvious landmarks that should have told me I was headed in the wrong direction. I've taken that drive maybe a hundred times or more, and I just completely zoned out. I was also badly dissociating... but it's like I am always badly dissociating unless I'm hypervigilant. >.<

 

[joeylittle]

Visual stuff--unless it's words--is just gone unless for some reason I am narrating the situation moment-by-moment in my head, as if I were realtime journaling.

You could try just doing that, next time you are out driving...I attach to words too, so I totally understand what you are saying. I can see how this:

but it's like I am always badly dissociating unless I'm hypervigilant. >.<

Would be annoying as hell.:sour:

 

[Kintsugi]

When I am driving, I either feel like I am super high or tripping. Like, normal people dissociate whenm driving familiar places. I like... CRAZY dissociate. Like, ego disintegration. My head is an intergalactic mess of associative stream of consciousness. I get some of my best processing done, and I totally relish it, but sometimes it leads me astray.

 

[Friday]

I do some of my best thinking with highway sliding beneath my ass. That's more ADHD, though. The constant changing flood of information washes out a lot of the noise & leaves clarity & a grin in its wake.

What I f*cking hate about this hypervig crap is that it completely messes with my situational awareness. When I'm doing well, I'm still mad vigilant ... Probably hypervig compared to most folks... I'm aware of everything, all the time. That's part ADHD, part military, part PTSD in a rock solid 3some. It's a kickass tripod. I really do love it. Yes, I'm jumpy and prone to startle, but whatever. I like the upsides far more than the down. When I'm doing badly? Pfft. My world is so f*cking narrow. That works fine when someone is actually shooting at me, or I'm stalking something, or whatever. It. Does. Not. Work. when I need to be taking in more info. Everything goes blurry & pounding & my world shrinks to about 18" around me visually (except for single points, that shift so frequently they induce migraines, because there is no actual "there" to focus on) while auditory is noticing every squeaky wheel within 50 meters in the grocery store, and everything just becomes this stop the damn world I want off kaleidoscope of madness. It is soooooo not helpful.

 

[Roman one]

Wasn't sure where to put this. It's somewhere between "anxiety" and "dissociation," hence the "All o...

Have you tried small doses of Mormon tea or ephedra? It helps me to at least feel at peace

If you have PTSD then I recommend this 124 mg ephedra 500 mg caffeine
Once daily immediately after waking up

My situational awareness doesn't subside however my emotions are not causing anxiety

Give it a try

 

[CT_Girl]

Thank you SimplySimon for posting this, I have the same thing

 

[Gamergirldelux]

Have you tried small doses of Mormon tea or ephedra? It helps me to at least feel at peace

If you have PTSD then I...

Try valerian root too! It works well!