From Dissociation to Hypervigilance.

[Polly Anna]

Hello everyone, my name is Polly and thank you for reading my post :)


I'm at a point in my journey of many therapy appointments where I have a new monster to challenge, the absence of trust through hypervigilence and trying to find ways to get it back


To give insight to my history:

Birth (via father) - Kept highly intoxicated with alcoholic spirits in place of milk

Birth (via father) - Tossed across room, landing on coffee table

Birth (via father) - Neglected, very dirty and injured

5 to 13 (via school life) - Lacking social skills - severely bullied

8 - 13 (via stepfather) - Unsafe home environment , taken hostage, abused, witnessing mother being abused, inappropriate advances onto myself.

14-16 - Poor social skills, learning skills, management skills. Self destructive, opiate abuse, alcohol abuse, self loathing and hostile to all people indiscriminately.

17 - Kidnapped - kept in human sex trafficking for 7.5 months until police rescue.


Psychotherapist diagnosed conditions & symptoms:

From 17 - 28 years old ~ dissociation disorder:

Intermittent amnesia (losses from one day to weeks of memory at a time)

Entire absence of emotional attachment and dependency for company/companionship of all natures

Difficulty retaining information for professional and educational purposes.


From 28-30 (Now)

7th June 2017 - consciously felt emotion for the first time since 17 years old.

Relearning skills to manage emotion ongoing.



It's been a long road and I'm elated to admit that I have managed to overcome the worst of my psychological obstacles. However, the residue of what it has left behind is a damaged foundation which would normally support all manner of skills one would take for granted :(

I'm blessed to have some (albeit limited) affective based trust but lack all presence of cognitive based trust. Something one instinctively has, to survive as a pack animal. Something as simple as getting into one's car, you get into your car and drive because there is a trust and level of confidence that you will not come to harm or die on your journey due to actions of another sharing the road with you.

When students of varying ages walk into a class room, they will sit down with a trust and level of confidence that the teacher is competant, that he/she will provide you with the correct knowledge and that they will guide you through this education experience.

When you enter a new job, you enter with an inbuilt trust and acceptance that your superiors will do as their role dictates, and guide those below them sufficiently, there is an immediately identification of 'they are my superior'.

These are just some things I do not have, I cannot retain information via educational situations whereby another person is involved. I cannot drive due to my hypervigilance of others on the road and that my educational path is being guided by a person that's inside the car with me. I work alone because I cannot trust a person professionally, to be instructed in any way in a job role to do any task from anyone besides myself feels like an immediate loss of control and that their intentions are not for the good.

My emotional attachments are progressing tremendously but my lack of trust in everyday societal situations in order to function IN a society, is entirely absent.

This is my main obstacle as of right now.

I just wanted to know of anyone else's experiences with hypervigilance and the absence of trust that comes with it, what obstacles are in your way of moving up in society? and what methods are you currently trying in an attempt to find any positive change?

 

[blackemerald1]

Hello @Polly Anna -

I cannot comment on a lot of your post. You sound like you have had one hell of a life. So well done you for being so well sorted.

you get into your car and drive because there is a trust and level of confidence that you will not come to harm or die on your journey due to actions of another sharing the road with you.

^^ No I don't trust anyone else on the road. I don't think you have this correct. In fact most experienced driver's who have a 'defensive' driving habit are like me and also do not trust anyone else on the road either.

they will sit down with a trust and level of confidence that the teacher is competant, that he/she will provide you with the correct knowledge and that they will guide you through this education experience.

^^ No.. hmm that is what I hope for. It's often not what I have received. I wouldn't say I put my trust in teachers for much these days either. They have to know their stuff and if they don't I am more than pissed off. Also with my children, when they were at school - I was fairly sceptical of most teachers until they showed their competency.

there is an immediately identification of 'they are my superior'.

^^No here either. My bosses had to prove their ability to lead. I didn't trust them until I saw their competency again. Also...I didn't expect subordinates to trust me until I had shown true leadership values.

I understand what you are saying in respect to your distrust of society. I have a distrust for most things out there in the world these days. I do work on being braver to push out the edges of my self imposed boundaries every now and then.

I don't ever think I am going to be in a position where I trust without seeing who I am trusting first. That seems to be pushing the barrow a bit too far. I don't know of people without ptsd who trust that much either.

Idk if this helps you work out anything. I would look at what your boundaries of trust are. Risk is real and needs to be factored into all trust situations.

 

[grit]

Polly Anna

Thank you for sharing your story. I really love how you can write down so succinctly like that. It was easy to follow and yet powerful impact on me.

I will comment one or two that I can relate to:
about the driving. I do not drive. I failed cause I used to dissociate and was honestly driving and literally not in the car!!! so I failed and was glad whewwwwwwwwwwwww I was surprised I did not kill the test person. at the time I used to think it is just me. I am too stupid to drive but now I learned it was my trauma and more my dissociation.

I promise to do the test next year when I feel I am good. How did I decide that?

Well I bike and I live in a big city where I have to share the road with cars. All my life (since I started to bike in my early 30s), I was again an anxious biker. my gosh I do not know how I survived. But since in therapy (intensive process), I am a great biker. No anxiety, my legs are light, my stomach is loose, my breathing is normal. I can do little tricks...and then it downed on me that I am not hyper vigilant as I used to be about other drivers. I am trusting my ability to be safe and ride my bike and follow the rules and I AM NOT THINKING OF OTHERS. I mean I do in somewhat but not overly. it is just me feeling safe.

how did it happened? I freed up some psyche energy in my therapy. I am a tiny healthier than last year.
The other thing about your post about the boss being superior....this was a sore area of me and my husband. My husband had this and I had show me why I should treat you authority? even with therapists.

It seems we all break certain way. I am against authority and you are more under their spell. so I do not know how you break this but I notice this part in your writing.

I honestly think the way you wrote you are on a good journey and very close to whatever your pit stop is for now.

if you can put your feelings and progress in such a way, it is a matter of time, I feel, that you will find the missing link.

ps. with my husband's deferential to authority, it is chipping away because he has become conscious of it.

 

[EveHarrington]

Are you on medication?

I know that once I started on meds that regulated my nervous system, I became much calmer and a LOT LESS distrustful. I still have flares of paranoia/hypervigilance, but it's so much better these days. I know that I couldn't have only used coping skills to fix this symptom asmy system is so hyper-sensitive to everything.

 

[Polly Anna]

Thank you all so much for your responses, it's comforting in a way to cross paths with people who too are looking for ways to plug back into that current. I spend a lot of my time being solitary, I go out camping on my own in the middle of nowhere, spend my evenings to myself and I have never felt loneliness for as long as I can remember. I do not recall any yearning for the company of any nature, so the solitary lifestyle has suited me perfectly. But when you want to work your way up in terms of qualifications, I feel I may have to resort to home courses and provide tuition for myself through online resources. I did try evening classes but unfortunately, because I was being taught by someone else and not learning by myself, I have this very specific block in my brain that prevents me from even comprehending the words that are coming out of their mouth. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has experienced this. The same situation with driving, after a year (yes a LOT of money was spent on it), I already knew how to drive the actual car by a few months in, the physical/mechanical side of things I was fine at, it was again... taking instruction. An instructor giving me instructions just wasn't working, I would get it right when I isolated myself and didn't listen to them, but when I HAD to, I failed, which was what was happening in the actual tests. Being in a small car with someone I didn't know telling me what to do, all focus was gone. So this is my main obstacle now in my life, how can I possibly move up and over this? I have a bazillion different ways and perhaps one will work for me but I'm still getting there!

@EveHarrington I went through various medications growing up but none were of use once my dissociation disorder kicked in at 17 as I was nonresponsive to everything anyway. Instead of any emotion, there was nothing, so my psychotherapist was working more to get signs of life from me instead of trying to numb it down with medication. When we finally had a breakthrough and I began to feel something, I think it was more a case of refusing medication because I was terrified I'd lose that connection with emotion again. My therapist respected and expected that reaction so she's been using all kinds of different treatments and techniques with me, most of which has been very successful with how I manage daily things I'd have normally suffered with. I can now go shopping in a packed grocery store and not feel like I'm going to faint, things like that.
My main issue now is being able to make myself vulnerable and in the hands of others, the professionals I so need to be able to trust to a level where they can successfully guide me to where I want to be. If I've known that person for a very long time, it becomes a lot easier, like my driving instructor during that year, by the end it was almost naturally occurring trust, but then I was thrown into a car with a complete stranger to test me and instruct me on what to do, that seems to be the main problem.
I don't think I could ever touch medication again, I think that's also part of the vulnerability fear, having to depend on something that isn't me and me alone. But I'm so determined to find one of the many ways to try and re-learn a path through it.

 

[Lucycat]

I cannot drive due to my hypervigilance of others on the road

That is interesting. I can drive because I do not trust other people's driving - therefore find it very uncomfortable being a passenger! But this does fluctuate - if I am anxious anyway, then being driven in a car is a dreadful experience. If I am relaxed then I can get by, although I grab the seat and hold on tight.

I was diagnosed with CPTSD 8 years ago, due to childhood experiences. I had a lot of therapy and am so much better and happier than I was, but I do find the hypervigilance persists.

 

[Polly Anna]

@Lucycat Thanks for your response! Yeah I feel like driving would be my #1 obstacle in life, getting through the test would be hardest because getting IN the car just doesn't happen. Because I have no level of trust of people on the road or the stranger I'm getting in the car with, my brain is telling me it is reckless to go through with it, given how many accidents happen a year, how commonly I walk past them when they do happen. I will rarely get in a car at all, even as a passenger. My job is a 45 minute walk away so I commute that way, and it's through forest most of the way, even walking by the side of the road just.. no.
My brain basically tells me, 'mankind learns from errors, we grow through mistakes, therefore we are creatures of error, and these errors can happen at any moment. Adding 4,000 odd pounds of metal into the mix is a sure way of tempting fate' and to try and beat that mindset and be brave enough to get into a car, learn to share the road comfortably with other drivers and learn to be comfortable being in the car during that test with an utter stranger instructing me on what to do.