Am I Hypervigilant or Just Paranoid?

[Darkhorse]

Well this word has never been said to me before, ive just been called paranoid.

Yet, i am jumpy at people going in and out of the bottom flat door. When it bangs i have palputations, fear, and on full 'alert'.

When i awake in the mornings i am like a speed train, everything i do is ultra fast, even talking takes an hour to 'calm down'.

People, crowds, social gatherings, im on full alert, culumating into social anxiety, and the total avoidance.

Anyone that i dont recognise, im ultra cautious off, to the point of distrust and uneasyness around them.

Phone rings, makes my heart thud, i hate it, jump out of my skin.

Any loud noise outside, sends me into
Anxiety/panic state, have to keep my doors bolted and i know this sounds bad, but weapons availiable if i need them. Which i never do.

i hate new people turning up on my door, and as a rule i dont let them in, unless they are maintance gas people then i have too see i.d.
If someone unexpected comes to my door, i have to shout through it, who are you?, what do you want? and why are you here?.

Friends or relatives that bring people round with them, are generally told not to, and if they bring someone 'new' in, there fairly quickly turffed out the door.

I am suspicious of anybody that wants to do me a good turn.

Well thats some i can think off, am i paranoid or hypervigilant or both.

I know i can be paranoid, as sometimes i can believe for a little while that close friends want to do me harm, but this normally passes once talked through.

But i am sick of people calling me 'paranoid', i knows i have trust issues, wish it was diffrent but that i cannot help right now.

 

[Darkhorse]

Paranoia or Precaution?

Fri/sat 22nd

Fairly good days, except yesterday night, someone came to my door, rang my bell, i didnt let them in the bottom door.

I asked what they wanted, they asked if my flat was number 47 i replied yes.

This guy was a big guy, stocky around 6ft, with short brown hair, meduim build, wearing casual/tracky clothes and had a big chain round his neck.

I didnt know why he was there and was instantly suspicious, even worse after i asked again what he wanted,,,, he lied and said he was here deliveing 'yellow pages',,, i know he wasnt as the yellow pages had been there for some time.

I looked out the window where he appeared to jump in a white nova hatchback of some sort.

I became paraniod on his motives for being there, why my flat? Why did he want access?, why did he lie?,,,,, i spent hour watching out the window. Then the car came back, same car driving up the road, i jumped up and turned light off in front room..... Looked out the window, to see the car do a three point turn and screetch back off up the road.

My friend told me im being paranoid, cause i always am a bit paranoid, but this time i dont think i am.

So im a bit uneasy sitting here tonight, sort of on edge, listening out for the same car, but im forcong myself not to look out the window.

My friend said if it was someone that wanted a piece of you, they would have came through the door, to this, i thought he was right.

But still im on edge as it is, dont need things like this happening.

So rest easy i think, and woppie my friend left a bottle of milkshake in the fridge. ' Taxed'.

 

[anthony]

Paranoia and hypervigilance are both symptoms of PTSD. If you have PTSD, chances are you have both... Nothing to fear, they get better as you attack the cause, the trauma. Don't try and deal with symptoms because you are fighting an endless battle. Go at the trauma itself and the symptoms subside as a result.

 

[Darkhorse]

Thanks antony

 

[lost girl]

I have too much trust in strangers but I can become extremely untrusting of those close to me. Somebody close to me did the damage though.

I still don't let people in my house. If somebody knocks I'll either act like nobody is home or I'll talk to them through the door. You don't have to let people in other than utilities people and you don't have to feel bad about it either. It's your space and your sanctuary.

About your phone: is it the actual sound of it ringing or the fact of it? Would a different ringer make a difference? If it's not the ringer, what about turning the ringer off entirely and having an answering machine or voicemail?

That guy at your door sounds creepy. Maybe he was giving away knock-off yellow pages? I think most creepy guys would have gone on to be creepy elsewhere by now.

 

[dust]

I agree with Anthony on this. I was hypervigilant and paranoid while experiencing the worst of the symptoms. Once the trauma(s) were addressed in therapy the hypervigilance stopped.

 

[Deleted member 1606]

From my point of view, you seem to have anxiety which, when you obsess on it long enough, makes you fear what others may do. This can create hypervigilance.

It sounds like some paranoia in the colloquial sense, but not in the clinical sense. Do you hear voices? If you were a paranoid schizophrenic, you would.

IMHO, you may want to start by dealing with the anxiety. Do you have a therapist? Are you any anti-anxiety meds?

 

[Darkhorse]

The phone ringer and doorbell, make me jump cause the noise and all of a sudden, its like, who's that?, what do they want? why are they hear, and get worried that it might be someone that wants to hurt me, and makes my heart pound.

Im not really sure why i have these ideas, cause no one has come to my door yet and wanted to hurt me, its just the way i think and get bad panic anxiety. Except for the murder in maidstone, that person just walked straight through my front door cause it was broken.

I have no enemies that i can think off , i never do anything wrong to anyone, and there is no reason out there why people would want to hurt me. I keep to myself in this area, which is quiet a rough area.

Or on the phone, its mainly the noise, cause im sitting there in my own thoughts, and bang it rings and i jump out my skin and my heart thunds and races, my heart thuds so hard i can hear it like pressure in my ears. Good suggestion on changing the ring tone, ive made it now so it lights up when it rings, thanks for that.

I do have a therapist, which im seing tommorow, and see every week, i also see a enhanced community phyciatric nurse once a week also, since i had a bad phase of deppression a while ago and nearly lost my life through self harm. I have a phyciatrist that i see monthly, and im on waiting list to start CBT. I also attend group sessions in the week up the local phyciatric hospital for alcohol problems i used to have, but no longer drink.

I dont hear any voices, but do take Zyprexa Olanzapine 20 mg a night, due to paranoia, can become delusional, sleep problems, and mood swings.

And i dont take anxiety meds anymore, i used to take benzo's but became addicted to them, used to give me mirtazapine, but i didnt want to take that anymore due to low libido. Also they gave me propanalol, but they didnt really help.

 

[Deleted member 1606]

I wonder about antidepressants instead of downers or hypertension meds. Anxiety and depression are closely related. I'm on a combo of Efexor and Wellbutrin, for instance.

 

[anthony]

It sounds like some paranoia in the colloquial sense, but not in the clinical sense. Do you hear voices? If you were a paranoid schizophrenic, you would.

This is not correct Karma. The DSM clearly outlines: "Preoccupation with one or more delusions or frequent auditory hallucinations" in the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. The clinical sense also encompasses Paranoid Personality Disorder which is quite often encapsulated within PTSD dependant upon the severity of trauma. Clinical diagnosis consists:

1. suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her
2. is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates
3. is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him or her
4. reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events
5. persistently bears grudges, i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights
6. perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack
7. has recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner

You will find many with PTSD could be labelled with this, however; PTSD encompasses these issues within its diagnosis. Clinically, paranoia is a diagnosis.

 

[Deleted member 1606]

Good points. Perhaps I'm just responding from the fact that I exhibited many of those symptoms you mentioned, yet I've created a radical change toward not being so burdened by such terrible feelings.

Conditions such as paranoia are often dealt with today as an organic disease and my therapists in my teenage years neglected to look at this. I guess i should have noticed that I have a big issue with this kind of diagnosis.

I have noted, as I've concluded that while the exploratory side of psychology has much to offer, the treatment side is startlingly primitive. I see a lack of scientific basis for categories, and this leads to, in my view, the incorrect grouping of "similar" conditions.

For instance, paranoid schizophrenics are often lucid and so seemed to me to be grouped with the wrong conditions. Clearly, the therapists who worked with me as a teenager were either unconcerned or incapable of telling the difference between organic and inorganic conditions. And obviously, such a differentiation is vital, since each calls for very different treatments.

I grew very weary of convincing one therapist that I knew what I was talking about, and then having to start all over as I moved on to another. Perhaps this is what I was reacting from.

 

[Roo]

Hi, Karma ... I've been reading some of your posts ... Regarding hypervigilance and paranoia, my sense of hypervigilance is that it's related more to how we perceive (rather than think about -- perception is through the body's senses) what's going on around us ... Kind of having a scanner in the mind that is always on, always scanning 360 degrees ... always on the lookout, ears always acutely perked; "sensors on maximum." Paranoia, per Anthony's recent post, seems to be more related to cognition and thinking.

I used to be so chronically hypervigilant that I could be walking down a lovely, genteel city street on a sweet spring day ... and constantly looking over my shoulder for an attacker ... scanning every face ... "sniffing" out everyone around me like a dog sniffing for bombs.

This past April I was very close to a violent event that shook me to my core; for a time I couldn't feel safe anywhere, including in my own home (I live with my husband and our three cats -- all are gentle souls). I'm still reluctant to go out anywhere, except to the library for my weekly stash of books :wink:, and occasionally to the grocery store.

My sleep cycle is once again dysregulated -- I take forever to get to sleep at night, even when on medication to sedate me, and as I live with a man who has never, in our seven years together, given me any reason to believe he will harm me. I'll sleep on and off during the day.

I guess another way to understand hypervigilance is that it's like having eyes and ears all over my body. Always scanning, always listening, waiting for a disaster or an attack.

I hope this clarifies things a little for you ...

Best,

Roo