Hypervigilance is Exhausting

[Kizzie]

Read a good article today - Trauma Isn't Lazy. Here's an excerpt:

The traumatized brain is anything but lazy. In fact, it is over-worked, over-stimulated, over-active, and over-stressed. Trauma survivors have an enlarged amygdala, which triggers the fight-or-flight response. In a survivor, this response goes haywire. It cannot perceive between something that happened in the past with what's in the present. The brain remembers trauma in the form of flashbacks that constantly re-create the experience.

A traumatized brain is always on alert. Hypervigilance is constantly running in the background, assessing the situation and trying to report back to the rational brain what it finds. In order to keep up with everyday situations, it often must work hotter and harder than a brain without trauma.

[bluepalm]

Thank you for drawing that good article to our attention Kizzie. I heartily agree with the statements: " The traumatized brain is anything but lazy. In fact, it is over-worked, over-stimulated, over-active, and over-stressed." Yes, hypervigilance is exhausting.

And I would take it one step further: hypervigilance captures and steals our lives. The energy and focus involved in living on 'high alert' are all-consuming. In my experience, hypervigilance casts a terrible shadow over life, so that life narrows to a silent, bleak, survival trek over rocky terrain where the slightest mis-step may spell disaster.

Under these circumstances, there is no energy left to enjoy the movement or the view, allow yourself to drift, imagine or create. Instead life is reduced to a silent, grim endurance trek.  The threat posed by abusers swells to fill the sky and the tension of waiting for danger to express itself becomes the primary focus of life and is accompanied by an endless, relentless bleakness that consumes precious time that can never be recovered.



 

[Kizzie]

Agree BluePalm and I also think it's one reason survivors turn to drugs/alcohol, not just to numb ourselves  but to turn down the volume on hypervigilance and be able to relax and drift as you put it. 

My H and I are moving closer to a large city in Oct and I am going to invest my insurance coverage in therapy that does have elements of body/somatic work so I can hopefully learn to turn the volume on my amygdala down, way down if that's possible.

[bluepalm]

Agree BluePalm and I also think it's one reason survivors turn to drugs/alcohol, not just to numb ourselves  but to turn down the volume on hypervigilance and be able to relax and drift as you put it.

Yes, I can understand your observation Kizzie - it makes sense to me. But it also makes me sad, because I've always been too afraid of people, too aware of my vulnerability, too untrusting of others not to take advantage of me, to ever allow myself to numb myself, relax and drift through using drugs/alcohol.  I've felt scarily vulnerable even being asleep in the presence of other people. When I think of being an infant or small child, helplessly sleeping in the presence of my parents, my chest erupts in flutters of fear, even now as I write this.  As a child, I would have to ritually check under the bed, open the wardrobe and check inside and carefully survey my bedroom before allowing myself to get into bed and close my eyes, fearing always that danger was lurking somewhere in that room. Although I lived in a quiet suburb of a quiet city in a country at peace, I had no sense of safety in the world. It was utterly exhausting.

[Blueberry]

Thanks for this Kizzie! I haven't even read the article, just your synopsis. It's so validating for me after years of exhaustion and not being able to get as much done as people of my own age, also thinking I was lazy or being told so by FOO in my teens.

I don't take drugs and hardly drink alcohol at all, but one of my reasons for eating is to deal with exhaustion, as if the calories or vitamins or whatever would somehow keep me going, whereas actually allowing myself to lie down and sleep would be a more constructive activity.

[Bach]

It's so weird having myself explained to me after so many years of being completely baffled as to why my life is the way it is when absolutely nothing adds up the way it should on the surface.

[Kizzie]

   Bach, I feel the same way 

[Blueberry]

Having finally read the article, I feel that way too.

[Gromit]

So powerful.

[Bach]

I appreciate this site and all of you so much.  In the time I have been here it has been so challenging and frightening to learn about CPTSD and its implications, but it has also been tremendously useful and has given me new hope after many years of stagnation.  All of you here who empathise and share so generously have been so helpful.  I have not been able to participate here the way I would like to because I just don't have much energy left over from the fight to remain well and make progress instead of running back into self-destruction and retraumatisation the way I have so often done in the past, but I am amazed at how long and how well I have so far kept it up.  That would not have been possible for me without the resources and support offered by this community.  I hope in the future that when I am more physically well and have more stamina I will be able to give some of that to others. 

I apologise if this post isn't appropriate, but  I just reread the article and the thread and felt so moved with such gratitude that I wanted to share that and give everyone here  for being in the fight and a big  of solidarity along with my thanks.

[Three Roses]

I have not been able to participate here the way I would like to....

Your recovery comes first. 

[Kizzie]

All of you here who empathise and share so generously have been so helpful.  I have not been able to participate here the way I would like to because I just don't have much energy left over from the fight to remain well and make progress instead of running back into self-destruction and retraumatisation the way I have so often done in the past, but I am amazed at how long and how well I have so far kept it up.  That would not have been possible for me without the resources and support offered by this community.  I hope in the future that when I am more physically well and have more stamina I will be able to give some of that to others. 

Tks for the shout out Bach    We all know how it feels to have limited energy so not to worry, just post what you can when you can, we're not going anywhere.

[grace4]

Wow! This is so true, I always believed that I was a lazy person bc that's what my abusers projected onto me. Then all that was reaffirmed in my adult life bc I've always had less energy than most and I believed I couldn't handle anything. This article was really helpful to read especially today bc my anxiety was really bad. I took a break and felt guilty all day but feel better after reading this post! Thank you!

[Kizzie]

Says it all that we need to learn breaks are a healthy thing and we are not lazy - grrrr.

  Grace

[woodsgnome]

Okay, so I'm going to risk inserting a wee bit of mirth  here -- for me, sometimes just a tiny bit of humour relieves the tension some.

This discussion per the constant fatigue around fighting with cptsd symptoms reminds me of a conversation with one of those phone 'helpers' internet service providers have for people experiencing bad or no online connections.

Anyway, once I was repeatedly told  by one of these 'helpers' that there wasn't a thing I (or they apparently) could do -- that I was in a state of "Permanent Exhaust". Every time she said it, I thought how it's also spot on in describing how hypervigilance and cptsd in general feels -- Permanent Exhaust.