Feel like PTSD is my shield - can’t give it up

[Cypress]

I just realized that in my core self- I feel like PTSD is my protection from harm. If I give up being hypervigilant and avoiding people- then something terrible will happen. I won’t be paying attentIon or will trust someone I should not and then everything will burn down. This is superstitious I know - bad stuff happens and there is nothing you can do about it - how did those of you further along than me convince yourselves that it was ok to let down your shield?

 

[Friday]

I have to draw a hard line between hypervigilant & vigilant.

Vigilant? Useful. It means I’m paying attention to what matters.

Hypervigilant? OMFG! There’s a bag blowing. across. the. street! :eek: RUNFORYOURLIFE!!!
(Not useful).

:bored:

Because Black & White reasoning likes to say I’ve only got 2 choices, hypervigilant (I’M ALERT!!! Very. Very. Alert. :wideeyed: ) or duh-duh-duh what’s up Mr. Axe Weilding Maniac? Would you like my home address so you can come by and have cookies? Here, hold my debit card, careful don’t lose the stickie with the code written on it stuck to the back, and my car keys, while I get a pen and paper. (Clueless & oblivious).

There are more states of situational awareness than just ManicSquirrelOnCrack & Moron. Vigilant being one of them. And a durn sight more useful than either extreme. Even if I have to talk to myself very sternly, and speak quickly, to get myself to believe that.

I never have to let my guard DOWN. I can ‘just’ set it to appropriate levels.

 

[Sideways]

It feels like a shield. Actually it’s a mental illness. I went through a period where a had very small tolerance for conceding the bleeding obvious: things like “I have a disability”, and “this way of life is really intolerable and I think I’d like to experience something more worthwhile”.

It feels like a shield. It isn’t. It’s an illness. And if it’s impacting your life sufficiently that a doctor has diagnosed you with ptsd, then actually that’s the doctor’s way of saying “Your ‘shield’ is making you really unwell”.

The turning point for me? When I decided I had to start not just saying, but really accepting the bleeding obvious? When I was prepared to say “I am really disabled and it’s not okay with me”, was when that social phobia that was meant to be ‘keeping me safe’, got me to the point where I was too terrified to go out and check my letterbox. That’s where it ends when the “society is too dangerous” is allowed to run it’s course to its logical conclusion.

There is a great big grey area between ptsd-hyperarousal and doom. So, is your life, how it is right now, really working out for you? If not, no one is asking you to put on your idiot hat and go hunt down some doom. Just try shifting your boundaries a bit. Try out noticing when you’re checking under cars for a knife-weilding psychopath and decide to notice the trees instead. Try out challenging that black/white thinking when it reappears. That black/white thinking feels logical enough, but it’s a symptom of your illness, and isn’t anything like as logical as it seems right now.

 

[Justmehere]

Hypervigalence actually reduces safety. It’s unstainable in any useful way. Vigalence is totally useful.

Isolation is less safe than being connected to people. The most safe people in the world have solid support systems. Study after study shows they survive better and longer than those who are isolated from others.

 

[frogthroat]

If I give up being hypervigilant and avoiding people- then something terrible will happen. I won’t be paying attentIon or will trust someone I should not and then everything will burn down.

This right here is everything. I've been this way for years. I've been in therapy for nearly a year now and I'm just starting to be able to slowly let go. It hasn't been easy. I'm realizing I've been terrified of feeling all the hurt and shame I felt during my trauma but the more you process your trauma the more you're able to seperate it from your core self. Now I'm finally able to see that most people aren't so bad and that they've been hurt, raised a certain way etc etc. too. This has really allowed me to settle down and be more comfortable with myself AND with other people. Also, I'm not constantly agitated by my trauma all the time now so I'm finally starting to be able to seperate it from how I feel about myself now. It's really been a good experience to not let PTSD and my trauma define me but I really have wrestled with that this whole year. If various traumas were your whole childhood (like mine) then you have to be gentle with yourself. You didn't know any better and you were taught to be your trauma.
It takes time. I'm dealing with the humiliation and shame right now and all I do is cry but I know It's just processing through and I won't be a hot mess forever. I numbed myself for so long so I didn't have to feel all these feelings but I'm glad they're finally coming out. It's scary but it's worth it.

 

[lynn T.]

It sounds like anticipatory anxiety at a level that doesn't seem reasonable to the ptsd sufferer. I've had too much of that in the past and came to a rational decision that about 90% of what I feared might happen did not happen. It can slip into superstition and some OCD behaviors of checking out things, etc. (I might check out door locks too often or refuse to sleep in my bed if it were in the back of the house. The anticipation or fear of driving somewhere was clouded by the what if's. Then, one day, I was hit in the center of the rear of the car and could have been killed but I had not been anxious at all that day! So, something terrible happened and I never anticipated that event nor felt worried that day. Kinda proof to me, at least, that bad stuff will happen (hopefully rarely), but we have such little control over many things. But if we operate all the time with fear, it robs us of being open to opportunities that really could be fun or enlightening or meant to be. I guess it comes back to acceptance and just getting out there and trying to use our good common sense and intuition, esp. about other people. Maybe a gift of ptsd is being more highly attuned to the personalities we all ought to be cautious of. Don't be too hard on yourself. Having expectations that don't pan out happens to everyone.

 

[grit]

These are extremely great posts.

I was isolated and I have a lot of support now including therapist and group therapy etc etc.

Looking in retrospect, when I was isolated, the greatest thing was I could also isolate the hyper-vigilance. in support or in connection with others, there are way too many factors involved so it may (just putting it out there) be hard to say what is your hyper-vigilance or what is your triggers from those around you.

In isolation, I was hyper-vigilance. I could spend hours thinking about everybody I knew from work, the guy in the subway who sat beside me, the cashier at the coffee shop, a friend whom I saw occasionally (not to mention my family members or the last date)...thinking they were all up to harm me some ways and i have to be STRONG to withstand. Just imagine. It is all fiction. My own!

I went through the dark night of the soul and long story but the day I realize, I was hyperV due to the past, was when I allowed to get hurt in today's world. And so far, knock on wood, no one hurt me as much as when I was a child. One of the vehicle of finding this was journaling. I let the crazies come on paper...sit there and stare at me and no one was there to harm me but me. Now, today, if I go hyperV, to me I am just hyper-Violence the self. It is all inside of me.

It is not easy. and it does help to have at least one person who can show you safety in real life - one person!