Coping with hypervigilance outside of family - Experiences?

[Depression = 72% of members]

I've finally found a therapist I can connect with and seems to be leading me in the direction of making improvements and not just letting me vent.  What a welcome relief that is but of course after living this way for so many years, I want things to happen NOW!  She's working on slowing me down and helping me with anxiety.  (I have a BPD mom and sis who have made my life one chaotic train wreck after another.  I told T that I don't know if I have BPD or just the results but I don't think I can separate between the two any longer).

I used to associate anxiety with complete weakness.  My mother had panic attacks and my father made fun of her because of it.  I hid my anxiety for so long because of thinking it was a weakness that was to be conquered and controlled.  T tells me that it is a symptom of PTSD and she's quite confident that I have some pretty intense PTSD.  And as a result I am hyper vigilant.

I've suspected this about myself for some time now... .  based on readings and such.  I used to take great pride in being able to "read" people and knowing what they were "really" saying regardless of the words coming out of their mouth.  I considered it my special gift and one of the few values that I possessed.  I also realized how exhausted it made me and how it kept me apart from everyone.  I just accepted that it was a price that you paid.

Today T started me down the path of learning how to "turn down" the noise of hyper vigilance and start looking at things as most folks do.    I feel as though my head is a jumbled mess of trying to separate the real actions from the "imagined" ones brought on by the hyper vigilance.  I also started work on creating a set of interaction rules for the family and another set for the rest of the world.  It seems so unfair that I have to work so hard at this when I've already been working so hard to stay ahead of the blind-side.

I was just wondering if others have experiences with the hyper vigilance and how it plays into their "outside world".  It would just help tonight to know that others have gone through this.   Thanks!

[Phoenix09]

I've finally found a therapist I can connect with and seems to be leading me in the direction of making improvements and not just letting me vent.  What a welcome relief that is but of course after living this way for so many years, I want things to happen NOW!  She's working on slowing me down and helping me with anxiety.  (I have a BPD mom and sis who have made my life one chaotic train wreck after another.  I told T that I don't know if I have BPD or just the results but I don't think I can separate between the two any longer).

I used to associate anxiety with complete weakness.  My mother had panic attacks and my father made fun of her because of it.  I hid my anxiety for so long because of thinking it was a weakness that was to be conquered and controlled.  T tells me that it is a symptom of PTSD and she's quite confident that I have some pretty intense PTSD.  And as a result I am hyper vigilant.

I've suspected this about myself for some time now... .  based on readings and such.  I used to take great pride in being able to "read" people and knowing what they were "really" saying regardless of the words coming out of their mouth.  I considered it my special gift and one of the few values that I possessed.  I also realized how exhausted it made me and how it kept me apart from everyone.  I just accepted that it was a price that you paid.

Today T started me down the path of learning how to "turn down" the noise of hyper vigilance and start looking at things as most folks do.    I feel as though my head is a jumbled mess of trying to separate the real actions from the "imagined" ones brought on by the hyper vigilance.  I also started work on creating a set of interaction rules for the family and another set for the rest of the world.  It seems so unfair that I have to work so hard at this when I've already been working so hard to stay ahead of the blind-side.

I was just wondering if others have experiences with the hyper vigilance and how it plays into their "outside world".  It would just help tonight to know that others have gone through this.   Thanks!

[justnothing]

Yeah, I used to be that way with people all the time… I think another term for it is "mind reading". It feels like a "gift" because it's a way of soothing ones' anxiety about other people.

The danger of "mind reading" is when your assumption about what the other person "really" means isn't based so much on logic but on your own subconscious fears about that person (which may present themselves to you as "logic" and it can be difficult to tell the difference). That kind of thing is kind of like a way of soothing one's own anxiety that never the less ends up inflaming it in the long run…

What helped me kick this habit was that I learned to take my own assumptions about people "with a grain of salt" and to give other people the benefit of the doubt. You don't have to take a head dive into taking everyone at face value… but it can help to learn to live with "maybes" rather than solid convictions (i.e. "maybe he really means what he says and maybe he doesn't".

[GeekyGirl]

The danger of "mind reading" is when your assumption about what the other person "really" means isn't based so much on logic but on your own subconscious fears about that person (which may present themselves to you as "logic" and it can be difficult to tell the difference). That kind of thing is kind of like a way of soothing one's own anxiety that never the less ends up inflaming it in the long run…

This is a really good point. Sometimes by reading too much into what others say, we can miss their true intent and that can lead to unnecessary conflict.

I don't know that I've been hyper vigilant, but I've made assumptions about people and their intentions that turned out to be completely wrong in the past. Sometimes I've been on the other end--I've missed cues from others that in retrospect, I should have picked up. I'm working on finding a happy medium, where I take people at their word for the most part, but also listen to my gut instinct when something doesn't seem quite right.

[WrongWoman]

My hypervigilence leads me to push away people who display similar character traits or behaviors to BPD.  If I even suspect that someone is behaving irrationally or in a volatile/unstable way, I withdraw completely from them.  I'm sure I have withdrawn from some very lovely people who were having an otherwise bad day or time in their lives and so I never got to know them.  To be truthful, I'm not all that bothered by this as I have a life full of good friends and family.  But I do regret that on occasion, I've left people wondering what happened to me and why I'm no longer available to spend time around them.  I realize this may feel hurtful to those people at times, and I regret that.

One of the artifacts is that I cannot tolerate people who display volatility or behaviors/reactions that seem disproportionate to the given situation for any period of time.  My therapist says that I have endeavored to enforce my life as a "drama-free" zone.  And I don't disagree:  I need to be able to trust the people around me that they aren't going to "go off the rails" any minute and wreak havoc.