Why is hypervigilance bad?

[Freida]

I feel like this shouldn't be so hard. I'm really not trying to be difficult or a problem.

If it wasn't hard it wouldn't be part of the fun-filled world that is PTSD :hug:

 

[Supervixn]

It's mostly bad. But the good about it, for me, is that it sometimes makes me a really good judge of character and able to pick up on underlying things quicker than others. I know before others do.

But. Usually it mind f's me and I'm exaggerating normal human responses, blowing them into monster proportions. I'm exhausted and my fears invade my dreams and attack my ability to have any real peace. Everything is personal. Everything is about self protection. I'm in a constant war I can never win; hypervigilance is a trick of the mind strategy to maintain survival. God bless us. God help us find peace. We are people in constant, invisible war.

 

[Freida]

holy crap @Supervixn that is an awesome way to put it!!!

 

[SaharaSon]

Forced hypervigilance where I live.... Things have finally calmed down here where I live, out in the boonies in Florida, but for many years it was not so. My neighborhood was, and still is, very heavily armed. Full of combat vets, mainly Korea and Vietnam. Cool. Not a problem, I'm armed too. Korean War combat vet to the west passed, really good guy. Korean War sniper vet to the south side, wack job. Used to fire into the trees around me when I checked my mail and headed back up the lane to the house. Neighbors on the east used to come onto my land to hunt squirrels, rabbits and deer. Fired very close to me when I was in the back part of my property. To the immediate north a totally dingbat fireman's family used their property closest to mine as a firing range continously. Almost exclusively high calibre weapons.I think I have hearing damage from that s**t. I confronted all of these clowns while they were armed and I was not. I was lucky I didn't get my ass shot off. I called the sheriff on the nuts to the north of me, because they are dumber than a box of rocks and would not quit. I was getting really, really pissed off and I wasn't real sure how it was going to go if I went over there again. There were a few years where there was a real concern about getting shot daily. I was hypervigilant about what was going on with my neighbors so I wouldn't get wounded or worse. It made me yearn for the peace and quite of revolution and war in North Africa. :D

 

[Deleted member 43454]

God help us find peace. We are people in constant, invisible war.

Well put indeed. Most days I feel my existence now is merely a punishment in my own personal hell lol.

 

[Mach123]

It's exhausting physically. I don't even like to think about how it felt when I was having full blown episodes. The mental thing runs it's course at the same time and it's just like, there is never a break from it. Little things people said used to hit me like a ton of bricks. It was total insanity all the time. I felt threatened and not able to protect myself. Maybe that's good, but that's why it was bad for me. I hope I never feel like that again.

 

[shimmerz]

i been getting slower and dumber...more tired.

Hypervigilence did this to me. Being a computer nerd I see it like this. A computer can only handle so many parallel tasks. Put a virus in it that is eating up CPU time and it will bog down completely.

Hypervigilence = Virus.

Oh, and if you don't believe you're safe? That's a whole different ballgame. Are you safe?

 

[SaharaSon]

Forced hypervigilance where I live.... Things have finally calmed down here where I live, out in the...

Hypervigilance! Case in point. I was awakened by a dog barking at 2:30 in the middle of the night, last night. Then I heard somebody empty a clip, slowly. Then there was absolute silence. I just hope he didn't shoot the pooch. Another peacefully night in gator county....:D

 

[user27357]

I saw someone do something stupid in traffic so I slowed down and let them get ahead of me. I probably sat at a light that I might have made otherwise. 5 miles down the road, there they were, exchanging info with someone that either didn't have a chance to react to the bad driver or was a worse driver that didn't get a chance because driver no 1 was too busy being a bad driver to avoid the accident with driver 2. No one hurt that I saw, just a sideswipe. All I saved was the aggravation, the lost time and maybe the court dates and insurance rates.

Thanks, hypervigilance!

The story is only pleasant because I have learned how to handle the reaction to the bad drivers. It is far better to have a bad driver cause me to slow down, maybe even stop and check my emails, than it was to get irate and take advantage of any opportunity to tell the idiots what an idiot they were then stew over it for days, maybe weeks.

I am hypervigilant, bad drivers are out there, and I can manage what happens after I see one in a way that takes out the bad side effects and doesn't make me the loser in every single confrontation.

 

[shatter eyes]

Hypervigilence did this to me. Being a computer nerd I see it like this. A computer can only handle...

Yes yes. And it messes up our registry so when we do boot up seemingly fine and start processing or load a program... DLL is not found or our admin rights get messed so we cant even try to troubleshoot what went wrong.

Could only operate in safe mode which is limited in function.

Computers can recover... can we? This dummy feeling and hyper vig smash break scan everything lowers my self esteem greatly.

Few months ago i was very pro active taking vitamins and healthy stuff...now even getting a cup to get water and drink water is tiring

 

[shatter eyes]

holy crap @Supervixn that is an awesome way to put it!!!

AMEN!!

Its like we have a sixth sense of flakes, fakes, and creeps.

 

[SaharaSon]

I saw someone do something stupid in traffic so I slowed down and let them get ahead of me. I probably s...

Enough, i salute your calmness on the highway. I am taking notes. I can get super hypervigilant on the roadways. Like today I had, not one, but two flaming *ss h*les ride up no more than three feet off my back bumper while I was going sixtyfive in the slow lane. If I just let off the gas a little, they would have slammed into me. The were both sitting there on my ass for a long time. WTF. Talk about hypervigilance. I can't wait till I get the fuel pumps fixed in my country cadillac, F150 that sits up high with big heavy bumpers. We will see if they try that hokey mess again.:D