Quotes About Hypervigilance

The first several years of my life were used to upload incredible amounts of fear, and I just became afraid of everything. I was afraid of my parents, afraid of my classmates, afraid of the streets of Washington, D.C. I would flinch at every gesture.

Difficulties with concentration are correlated with sleep impairment, especially insomnia, arising from hypervigilance. The insomniac person is always on alert, which increases his or her stress-hormone levels and heart rate, and turns on the sympathetic nervous system. One of the roles of histamine, released in response to stress, is to ensure that you're wide-awake. These processes make relaxation and sleep difficult.

Violations of personal space cause us to become hypervigilant; our pulse races and we may become flushed (Knapp & Hall, 2002, 146–147).

Denial is not always a bad thing. Without it, you couldn't function. For instance, if you were hyperaware and hypervigilant regarding all the dangers in the world - from driving your car to crossing the street to eating food that might have contaminants in it to taking medications that have many side effects, etc. - you would become frozen.

After a traumatic experience, the human system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment.

115 BPM Fine motor skills deteriorate 145+ BPM Complex motor skills deteriorate 175+ BPM "A warrior can expect to experience auditory exclusion or loss of peripheral vision and depth perception. This initiates a catastrophic failure of cognitive processing capabilities, leading to fatal increases in reaction time or hypervigilance (freezing in place or irrational acts)." p.7-8

The hypervigilance of a boy living with domestic violence scanning his home for any sign of threat is very adaptive; in a classroom, this can prevent the child from paying attention to the teacher and result in the child being labeled with attention deficit disorder (ADHD), which is maladaptive.

The hypervigilance from their sensitized stress response is labeled ADHD; their predictable efforts to self-regulate—by rocking, chewing gum, doodling, daydreaming, listening to music, tapping their pencil, etc.—are prohibited. They will be labeled, medicated, excluded, punished, perhaps expelled, and then, all too often, arrested.

But even before I was in the military, I was extremely jumpy when asleep.

Usually this is a result of having had to be hypervigilant as a child—especially if your family situation was chaotic or frightening—and consequently developing a habit of trying to see problems before they even show up.

When we grieve, we naturally allow ourselves to feel the anger, hurt, disorientation, and sadness that are a part of processing pain. As we grieve, we let go of some of our hypervigilance. When we understand that feeling these feelings are part of the healing process, and that by feeling them we can allow them to dissipate, we begin to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Even as an adult, as I tried to sleep, my mind was conditioned to stay in a constant state of arousal, prepared for attack.

I could worry that I'm going to bleed to death, you know, from cutting my finger on a sandwich packet, you know, if I sort of open a sandwich.

Your normal state is hypervigilance. That's your baseline. What is not familiar to you is any kind of respite. If you catch yourself relaxing even for one moment, you always try to find some way to fuck it up.

It's common for people with traumatic histories to expect disaster just around the corner. Instead of leaning into the goodness that comes their way, they become hypervigilant, always waiting for something to go wrong.

Hypervigilant and fear of losing control. You live in a state of readiness for attack. You feel jumpy and are easily startled. You have attacks of sudden fear or panic. You fear losing control.

For those who have lived their lives in a constant state of hypervigilance, as our DNA dictates is necessary to survive and prevail at the tip of the spear, identifying a new mission in a postmilitary life can be a daunting task; the team is family, the team is purpose, the team is home.

Individuals in this predicament may find it next to impossible to relax their wakeful hypervigilance in relation to their surroundings even when no longer confronted by any immediate challenge or danger; a prolonged or repeated exposure to trauma can put individuals on the defensive for the simple reason that it causes them to anticipate, and brace themselves against, more trauma.

Borderline personality disorder is a form of madness made of mood disorders and neurological malfunctions. People with borderline personality heat up fast and have trouble cooling back down. Emotions run high. Impulse and inhibition run together like hot and cold water from a tap. Once the borderline body reaches this place of hypervigilance and despair, every day presents new evidence of apocalypse and new opportunities for hysteria and resignation.