To think you can never get rid of hypervigilance

[MargoLivebetter]

I've been pondering this a great deal. I finished a 4 year relationship at the end of last summer and I've been reflecting on it and trying to learn from it.

I had an abusive childhood and went on to have abusive relationships and then an abusive marriage (which I have long since exited). I've been diagnosed with both PTSD and CPTSD. I had some excellent therapy, that was transformational. BUT I do wonder whether there are some behaviours that are so hard-wired into our psyche that we never truly get rid of them.

I am hypervigilant. When I was considering whether or not my most recent relationship was abusive, I found myself thinking was he abusive or was I too hypervigilant?

I am unable to not read people, scan their faces, spot micro-reactions and constantly analyse them. I do it in all scenarios, work, social, home, family, friends, even in the gym etc. It is onerous, tiring, frustrating and I don't enjoy any aspect of it, but I also do not know how not to do it. It is like breathing in and out for me. It is so instinctual that I don't even realise I am doing it, but I am constantly. When I do catch myself, I have no idea how not to do it. It feels like I'm asking myself not to see things that are in front of me. I'm in my mid-50s and my therapist said that given my background, I have probably been doing this in rudimentary form since before I have memories. So, this isn't a new thing, or something I started doing as an adult, it is over 50 years of enduring behaviour.

So, are there any others out there with hypervigilance who have managed to switch it off? Or any psychotherapists who know if it is even possible to do that?

It’s really exhausting isn’t it….

In the absence of all other strategies or as well as!!!! Acceptance - naming out loud (or in your head) that you feel hyper vigilant and is making me feel xyz and then re-affirming your safe. That the vigilance isn’t needed today thank you 🤷‍♀️😩

It’s possible.

I had one on one sistemic coaching with the lead Coach in my ADHD group.

I have no idea how it worked. The coaching concept itself sounded very woo-woo so I was expecting placebo (or more likely nocebo, cos that one I’m extra good at) at best.

Nearly 2 years on and all the issues I’d been lugging from childhood, including hyper vigilence, have stayed gone.

I have to keep up on the taking care of myself aspects, and I’ve stayed in the group to make sure I do. But it is possible for at least some of the people, some of the time, with the right coach/therapist who chooses the right approach with a particular client.

I feel like it's just part of who I am. Even though I know it's not 'normal', it was my intensive training from infancy, so now it's just instinct. I actually don't mind it. I like the fact that I can essentially read people's minds and know everything that everyone is thinking and feeling. It does make certain relationships very difficult, though, and I'd definitely and happily give up the anxiety and sense of being unsafe and overthinking and insomnia and overwhelm and exhaustion that come with it!

Every sympathy OP. I think things you leaned to do as a small child end up completely hard wired into your system. Doesn't have to be hyper vigilance - for me it's "change to make yourself acceptable". I don't even know what it is I need to change - I just know I won't do as I am.

Some therapist telling me I need to love myself can't change that.

@BlooomUnleashedif you can remember any more about it or what it was, please come back and share some more. I don’t care how wooo it is, I’d give it a go!

Yes possible. Sorry for brief reply, but following quite literally hundreds of hours of work and therapy over decades, I've finally started to get there.

I have this too. It’s exhausting noticing everything all the time. It means you can’t switch off until you are alone. Mine was also a result of a bad childhood. Being on tenterhooks all the time as a child just carries on into adulthood.

I do it too, for similar reasons to you op. I can’t not do it and I’m embarrassed to admit that, until fairly recently, I thought everyone did it. I am honestly still a bit confused by how people go through life without doing this? How do they know what’s really going on??
But, I don’t react to it like you do? I don’t change my responses, I just use it as information. It’s another “sense” like smell or hearing. In that context, it’s actually very useful. I can smell a bullshitter or a liar a mile away and I’m a really good judge of character (generally, I have been known to get it wrong!). I can tell when someone is struggling and needs help, when someone is unhappy, when someone is trying to be manipulative. I would add that home is my “safe space”. I don’t do it there because I’ve learned I don’t need to.
The only time major things have gone wrong in my life is when I’ve tried to ignore this “super power” so I’ve learned not to do that! Can you try to treat it like an additional sense? So pay attention to it, but react intentionally? For example, sometimes when I’m doing it, something will “ring” my bell. I’ll acknowledge but decide to think about it later. I can usually always work out what was happening but then I respond to it intentionally rather than reactively? Sorry, I don’t think I’m explaining this very well!

@Waterwatereverywhere2026i get exactly what you are explaining. It sounds as though you are using your super-power in a more healthy way.

It’s not an extra sense for me, it’s an exhausting strain that means my body thinks I’m in continual danger, so I’m always clenched to defend myself, absorb a blow, fight off an imaginary attacker etc. I’m still ten years old and a man is helping himself to me, not even because he’s attracted to children, just because I’m there and defenceless, and I live this in continuous replay, because my body thinks it’s been happening ever since and doesn’t have an ‘off’ mode. That’s over 40 years of being clenched against an imaginary blow, screaming if someone walks up behind me, checking every face from my husband’s to the postman’s to the goofy, harmless teenager behind the counter in the shop to my mother’s for the tiniest flicker of expression so that I can pre-empt it.

Yes, @Cinquefoils that's my kind of hypervigilance too. I am truly sorry for your experiences. I know there are no words that are adequate, so I won't try, but I didn't want to leave what happened unacknowledged.

I've had lots of therapy and I know that I am safe now but that monitoring system inside of me that has been scanning people for threats since before I can remember just runs on autopilot. I think that because the most harm came from those who should have been looking after me, I find it is worst in my close relationships. It is definitely there all the time, but it has more of the "superpower" quality at work etc. In close relationships it is a hideous burden.

One of the saddest things for me is that I never did that with my children, they were my safe and happy place and I always felt truly myself with them. But now they are proper adults, I've started scanning them too. That makes me so desperately sad.