Hypervigilance and me!

Hypervigilance and me!
R

reality2k4

Registrant
I wish I could lose it, but I guess it will be a long time until I can.

What is it?

It is a state of alert, that I find myself in when walking down the street or any place where people may gather.

It is part of fight or flight feelings from childhood, but I cannot shake them off.

What causes them?

Living in a society that has no respect for humanity is one thing, and the City where I live is a violent place where murder and beatings are pretty common, even to the vulnerable.

The worst part of my City is where strangely I feel safest.

When I visit Toxteth in Liverpool,I feel so safe, because the black guys just say hi, how you doin',and I think, hey, this is the place I love to be.

I worked for years with the West Indian community there, helping them with promoting their art and culture and found massive friends, but it can be dangerous for any white man to be there.

I think that most black guys like me because I like them, and dont show any prejudice, it is like, hey, I am ste.

Maybe they can guess that I have my own struggle, just like they have theirs, I dunno, but they seem to take to me, and they are the koolest of friends because they have so different an outlook on life.

It is a place where you can leave your keys in your car, and not have it stolen, because they seem to know everybodys car, and unfortunately, if you steal a black guys car, you will never do it again.

I dont know what I am trying to say in this thread, but I guess it is this. The police do not venture so much there, but there is more law and order than any place else in the city.

Getting back to HV, I guess that I am always waiting for something bad to happen, and can have panic attacks without warning.

This freaks me out, and I have to divert myself from the cause.

Example;

I can walk down the street and a man is behind me, he is just an ordinary guy, but he triggers me, and my feet literally turn to jelly, so I divert by either crossing the road or tying laces so he passes me.

These are triggers from boyhood, but they still bug me today, and I have no control of them, but thankfully, most of the time I am OK.

I really wish I could just exist in society free of these thoughts, as they cause immense difficulties in my life,

ste
 
u touched upon some thing very interesting, I see some new neighbour on the balcony I feel what does he think of me? Or I would recoil, never go back, or try to be friends with him, O I try to be friendly to every person I meet, be it on the road, bus, train or a shop. What I am really trying to do is to make sure that they are safe people, trying to cover up my fear with my friendly, while secretly judging them.

SO the trick to stop myself in the track when ever I catch myself acting out in this old pattern, I assure myself that I am safe, and that I handle myself and protect myself. That small child in me still feels unsure about me being able to save him, if situation arises. So he gets hyper vigilant.

And it is not me, but a part of me that I have to accept and embrace.

SO now when I go for a walk in the morning, I dont have to say hi to everyone I pass by.
 
Ste,

This is a good topic and I bet most guys here have some feelings for it. It seems to me that HV has something to do with our feelings of guilt: "If only I had been watching out for myself better, this would not have happened." Or (as Morning Star suggests) feelings from childhood that the world is unsafe: "If I am NOT vigilant it could all happen again."

With me this seems to come and go. If I am having a good day or if I have a lot of things to occupy myself, then the HV seems to fade a bit. But when I feel vulnerable or confused I am back to the barricades. Waiting for my new T in Oxford before Christmas, for example, I had to wait a long time alone in a strange room with absolutely NO sound of human activity around me. The old crazymaker got going, and by the time the T showed up I was even wondering what if I am attacked by the Christmas tree! I knew it was a ridiculous thought and I wasn't anxious about that in particular, but that idea did fly into my head.

I find HV a real drain on emotional resources that I need for other things, so can I ask here, what do you guys do to cope with it? I try to relax more and find things to do that I like and give me a sense of joy and fulfillment, but I wonder what the rest of you do.

Much love,
Larry
 
It's something that I used to suffer with but it seems to have gone now.

Very often when talking to someone, even my wife and friends, I would suddenly get the feeling that they were going to hit me in the face, and I would actually recoil from them. I would then feign a bit of 'cramp' to cover up.

But it was a real problem that I had for a very long time, and I hadn't really noticed that it had gone until I saw this post and thought about it.

Why has it gone? who knows, but I bet it has something to do with feeling safer within myself.

Dave
 
years ago i realized because of my abuse i feel more comfortable facing the entrance or having no one behind me. i would allow some one to pass me. i even got trained and licensed to carry a gun. which requires a certain confidence in your own mental health. i am 57 . those fears have mellowed. i never made them go away. i only compensated and didn't berate myself for having them.
 
I guess they keep us safe, but even when we dont need it.

Dave, you said about the need to swipe someone in your space, yes, I suffered from that one.

The way I saw what you talked about, is this.
If I was talking to someone, I would love to just blurb out, hey, this is the real hurt me who wants to tell you why he seems so shallow.

He so much wanted to tell of his hurt, and tell everyone just how deep his hurt goes, but does not.

They are deep seated boundary issues, and maybe I keep them in this World of violence, I just wish we could fix it, to be our World, the one that only we can really see,

ste
 
HV is probably one of the most fatiguing aspects of recovery. I still have problems with HV every day. You get that "what are you looking at?" mentality. I always sized some men up to see as to whether or not I thought I could beat them in a fight if I had to. Sometimes I wanted someone to pick a fight with me so that I could show myself that I could protect myself. Ultimately, it is just fear. Some of the people who were supposed to love you and protect you failed. If you can't trust them, why would you trust some stranger on the street?
Not everyone is out to get us. It is important to think logically when HV comes to be. Stop and ask.... Do I really think that guy is going to attack me when I turn around. Where's the evidence? Most the time you will come to find that HV is irrational. It's good to be cautious at times but living our lives in a hidden box robs us of the many other beautiful things this world has to offer.
 
EJ,

" I could beat them in a fight if I had to. Sometimes I wanted someone to pick a fight with me so that I could show myself that I could protect myself. Ultimately, it is just fear. Some of the people who were supposed to love you and protect you failed. If you can't trust them, why would you trust some stranger on the street?
Not everyone is out to get us".

You could not have put explained it better than that, a need to show men how to not exploit you.

Men cannot understand us, so they think we are stoopid weirdos.

It is totallly illogical to trust anyone when you are abused, but it is a protection mechanism,

ste
 
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