Mindfulness-based treatments may offer an alternative to trauma-focused approaches like Cognitive Therapy and Positive Emotional Response (PE). These treatments are designed to help individuals reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and improve overall physiology. They can also deepen their clarity of mind and purpose.
Torture survivors often experience deep psychological scars, which can last a lifetime. The U.N. Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture supports the mental health of these individuals. A proposed longitudinal pilot experiment examined the effects of an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program on traumatized individuals.
Mental health consequences for victims of torture can last a lifetime, and refugees and asylum seekers face additional challenges. Mindfulness practices can help address dissociative alterations in identity by facilitating identification with one’s inner self. Trauma is responsive to mindfulness, working towards increased awareness and acceptance rather than decreasing awareness and shutting down.
Mental health is associated with changes in brain regions, and mindfulness can help clients focus on their physical health rather than being trapped by thoughts in their mind. Clients report positive changes in their mental and physical health and a reduction in feeling isolated and alone.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy can help people recover from complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and other problems caused by torture. It is essential to choose a safe and supportive environment for practicing mindfulness, as it can help clients stop dwelling on the past and become more present in the present moment.
📹 Jon Kabat-Zinn Q & A: Working with Torture Survivors
This session is from a series of livestreams with Jon Kabat-Zinn as a part of “Mitigation Retreat” in 2020 brought to you by Jon and …
How can we help torture victims?
Torture victims face severe long-term consequences, including chronic pain, disabilities, PTSD, and depression. Access to redress is crucial, including medical care, counseling, monetary compensation, rehabilitation, and reintegration into society. Amnesty International has been instrumental in helping torture survivors, such as Ángel Colón, who was released in 2014 after being wrongly imprisoned in Mexico.
Over 20, 000 Amnesty supporters demanded his release, and Colón urged others to remain vigilant against torture and discrimination. A new horizon is dawning for those who stand against such practices.
What is the program for survivors of torture and severe trauma?
PSTT offers a range of free services to over 150 individuals annually, encompassing medical care, mental health care, legal aid, and social services. To qualify for assistance, individuals must meet three criteria set forth in the Torture Victims Relief Act of 1998: that the act in question was committed in accordance with the law, that the client was intentionally harmed, and that the client made a call to 571. 748. Two thousand eight hundred.
What are the psychological treatments for torture victims?
At Freedom from Torture, a range of psychological therapies is provided, including eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), narrative exposure therapy (NET), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy, systemic therapy, integrative psychotherapy, and group therapies. These treatments are trauma-specific in nature.
How can we help stop torture?
To prevent torture and ill-treatment, it is crucial to ensure that detention places are transparent and subject to regular external scrutiny. This includes providing prisoners with access to lawyers, proper registration of arrests, prohibition of torture-related evidence, adequate staffing and training, adequate salaries, and a due process throughout detention. Criminalizing torture and preventing impunity are also essential.
Enabling prisoners to have contact with the outside world, such as family visits and meetings with lawyers, is a human right and plays a crucial role in preventing torture and ill-treatment from occurring and going undetected. Monitoring mechanisms have been established to make regular visits to detention sites and contribute to the prevention of abuse.
What is torturing mentally?
Psychological torture, also known as mental torture, is a form of torture that primarily relies on psychological effects and is often used alongside physical violence. There is a continuum between psychological and physical torture, with fear and pain resulting in long-term psychological effects. The United Nations Convention against Torture is an international human rights treaty that aims to prevent torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment worldwide.
The Convention requires states to take effective measures to prevent torture in any state under their jurisdiction and forbids states from transporting people to countries where there is a reason to believe torture could occur.
How does mindfulness help recovery?
Mindfulness is a powerful tool in addiction recovery, promoting emotional resilience and self-awareness. It helps individuals manage their emotions, especially in mental health conditions like anxiety disorders. This emotional grounding leads to better decision-making and a more positive outlook. Physically, mindfulness can be beneficial in drug addiction rehab, alleviating symptoms and promoting overall well-being. Techniques like mindfulness-based stress reduction address mental health and enhance physical health, making them invaluable in recovery.
Physical activities like yoga and mindfulness can further enhance physical well-being, offering a holistic approach to long-term rehab. This synergy between mind and body creates a robust defense against relapse.
How do I stop being mentally tortured?
The text provides five steps to eliminate negative self-talk, focusing on noticing negative thoughts, paying attention to how they make you feel, practicing nonjudgmental release, breathing consciously, and focusing on the positive. The negative self-talk can decimate your self-esteem and is often a result of toxic beliefs learned in childhood. To free yourself from these destructive, fear-based messages, it is essential to create greater self-awareness. By noticing the toxic voices that circulate inside your head, you can begin to notice greater inner freedom and serenity.
The inner voice plays a significant role in shaping our perception of the world, and if it is highly critical or self-doubting, it can lead to a lifelong cycle of fear and anxiety. By recognizing and addressing these negative voices, you can create a more positive and positive outlook on life.
Do torture victims stop feeling pain?
Survivors of torture are at high risk for inadequate pain assessment and management due to the frequent musculoskeletal system pain. The pathophysiology of post-torture pain is unknown, but it may have profound effects on neurophysiology and pain processing. A narrative review of assessment and treatment studies found that the clinical presentation in survivors of torture shares characteristics with other chronic primary pain syndromes, including chronic widespread pain. However, pain is often misunderstood and dismissed as a manifestation of psychological distress, making it at risk of not being recognized, assessed, or managed as a problem in its own right.
What does torture do to a person mentally?
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition that is typified by the occurrence of vivid flashbacks and nightmares that are associated with traumatic events. It is frequently observed in individuals who have endured torture. Agoraphobia, defined as an irrational fear of leaving familiar environments, can be effectively managed by taking the condition seriously and encouraging open communication about feelings.
How do people recover from being tortured?
Manual treatments, such as massage or joint mobilizations, can help restore safety in touch for individuals who have experienced torture. Torture is a specific type of trauma defined by the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment (UNCAT), which came into force in 1987. Torture is any act by which severe pain or suffering is intentionally inflicted on a person for purposes such as obtaining information or confession, punishing them for an act they have committed or are suspected of having committed, intimidating or coercing them, or for any reason based on discrimination.
It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to lawful sanctions. As the population of displaced persons continues to grow, so does the reach of its social, physical, and psychological consequences. Rehabilitation professionals are increasingly likely to work with individuals who have experienced torture, and it is imperative that they be aware of and address special considerations for patient care to meet the comprehensive rehabilitation needs of this population.
How does mindfulness reduce suffering?
Mindfulness is a technique that facilitates the transformation of suffering by modifying the manner in which the mind processes information.
📹 Hypervigilance and How to Overcome It
Hypervigilance is a term psychologists use to refer to those among us who are locked into a state of almost continuous wariness, …
I have PTSD and one of the symptoms is hypervigilance. The best way I could explain it to people is like when you see a spider in your room and then it disappears and you have no idea where it is, so you have that extremely uneasy feeling and are super jumpy and unable to relax/feel safe. Hypervigilance is like that, but all the time over everything.
I have super high hypervigilance, more than my therapist has really seen in a lot of people. It came from having to grow up in a home where I had to think of everyone else before myself. We were a stressed out family due to one child having mental illness early on, and I became the ‘good child’ to ease the strain. I became hypervigilant in detecting people’s emotions and doing whatever possible to prevent hurt and ensure happiness…to the point that I now feel guilt over resting or needing help because of my physical disabilities. I’m working with a therapist to learn how to actually relax, and it’s slowly getting there. It’ll take a while to undo a lifetime’s worth of trauma.
Hypervigilance gets the best of me. I live alone in my unit, and whenever I hear a strange noise like a scratch or thump, I feel like someone’s gonna murder me. another case is when I hear people laughing or talking loudly, I feel like it’s about me being up to no good. Also, I have a compulsive habit of checking the outside of my house from the windows, esp. at night to check if there’s a terrorist or something. funny, right? but it’s true.
I was emotionally abused as a child, by one of my parents. The other parent was extremely kind and loving and made me feel safe. I have PTSD and I still get flashbacks. For me hypervigilence is waking up in a panic from a deep sleep because I heard a loud noise outside, and I can’t stop shaking. I’m 35 years old and I don’t feel safe ever. I feel like something is always going to come along and pull the rug out from under me and tear my life apart. But I’m beginning to have the confidence that whatever comes along I can handle. Goodluck and sleep well.
It is so incredible. School of Life always manages to put my deepest feelings into words. I didn’t know hypervigilancy even existed, but it sounds so much how I feel. Especially the first part. Waking up terrified, spending the whole day in toned down dread and it being so exhausting you wish for all of it to just be… Over. Thank you, School of Life. Finally I at least have a name. And giving the monster a face helps in the first steps of getting better…
I guess at some point I just broke. And from that point on I said, fuck it! Come what may it can’t be worse than living in perpetual fear. So I just decided, as an experiment, to just give up the fear. Live the way I want to live and deal with whatever comes as best I can. So far so good. As I said, realizing that nothing is worse than constant, gnawing, soul-sucking anxiety is very freeing!
i would love a article about a fear of “growing up.” your target audience is most likely made up of adults, but this would help any teenagers like me. i have intense fears about living a life which i sustain for myself, and giving away my already minimal autonomy in an endless persuit of working until i die.
Being hypervigelant at this time on the planet add society isolating and me being alone constantly. That is a normal stance to take I’m not paranoid I’m cautious. Point: anyone feeling this way don’t shame yourself instead managing the potential for danger and attempting to basically fend for yourself with disciplining oneself to at least sleep! Is a worthy goal
I have lived with hypervigilance for the past five years of my life and I can say that it is both a blessing and a curse, a curse in the sense that my exaggerated awareness helps me be more attentive in my professional domain as I tend to grasp upon every detail of my work, but in the destructive sense, I am in constant evaluation of my behavior and speech, the thing which restrains me from being totally natural. I think that hypervigilance as ptsd is one of the worst traumatic repercussions possible because when nothing feels worse than having your own self and nature repressed!
After years of PTSD, I ended up on a position where I felt a sense of dread/doom all the time. Going as far as to kill my appreciating for life, making it feel like life is all about surviving with no reward. Luckily, medication made it a lot more bearable and therapy helped. Now, the problem isn’t fixed but It’s notably improved and I feel genuine hope to get better again.
I’ve been in this state for almost a year and especially the being awake one at 4 am. It was horrible, i didn’t know what to do, at one point I was even afraid to go to bed because I would have a dream about my ex at 4 am and not being able to get back to sleep again. Thankfully the worst is over now and I’m sleeping much better now. And feeling much better about my life. I want to share my story because when i was in this state i desperately wanted a way to handle it and know if other people were having such problems as well. So if your reading this, know that it can be overcome, that you can live with it even if it is only partly. Keep on going in life even if you don’t want to. Go to the gym and lift wheigts, using a sleeping mask during sleeping helped me a lot as well. And if you cant bare it anymore, you can use sleeping pils once in a while to have a good nights rest. And talk with people you can trust! Hang in there!
That is totally happening to me when I am perusal movies: I keep on waiting for something bad to happen so I can’t even enjoy the film itself. It is sooooo annoying! And since I try to watch movies that are not the predictable Hollywood style, it is even harder to relax and enjoy, I am too anxious for something bad to happen. Anyone else like that out there? 🙂
I think this is what I get when I’m around a women I don’t want to lose. I tried to think back to its roots and I think it’s from being broken up with for the first time. Whenever I’m around that trigger it causes me to be hyper vigilant and super aware to where my brain Fogs up and I can’t really think straight because I’m thinking so much about doing the right thing and what my partners thinking and probably not trying to lose them so I can’t just relax around them. Idk which came first but as soon as I felt anxiety strip me of my abilities it made me be fearful of showing that weakness. Which has brought me down mentally but I feel it’s a combination that sucks in a relationship it’s difficult for me to just chill because I’m always in that state. I can’t be myself because I’m not relaxed and it’s like they aren’t seeing the “real” me so I think about what the “real” me would do and it’s like a loss of identity when I get in this state idk just pray for me idk what I have but it sucks and I’m trying to get out of it because I want to connect the best way I can with my son without being like this. We got this being vulnerable is strong
One time i was asked if in alright, because i was,holding my arm realky tense in a stress position, i disnt even notice, but every now i am clenched tense or frowning its worrying. Has anyone found their anxiety of benefit in a situation and what was tge context? Anyone else also often referred to as calm when actually you’ve just perfected,nasking your emotions? no doubt this makes it worse if you internalise it and also makes me unabke to show genuine emotions very readily. Although a version of it seeping out in gestures tension and irritability. Being kind to yourself is very hard!
Great article. The only small part I didn’t like was the idea that we should accept that our anxieties “might knock us out for a month”. For a great many people they have no choice but to endure, especially for employment reasons. Many employers wouldn’t give an employee the opportunity to be knocked out for a month. And if you lose your job in the UK now, the resultant anxiety from how the Department of Work and Pensions treats you will likely put into perspective any of the worries you had before you became unemployed. In fact being under the regime of the DWP means that hypervigilance would be justified, because the DWP will victimise you.
I was 12yrs old and I just transferred to a new school for 8th grade. I was constantly harrassed and humiliated in public because I didn’t act like them. They thought I was too proper, a teacher’s pet. Come 9th grade, I still held on to feelings of anger towards those that tormented me, I became anti-social, distrusting and rude towards my tormentors and other new people because I thought they were enemies. I wouldn’t realize until I was older that a lot of classmates I was rude towards, we’re never trying to hurt me. Its been 8yrs since high school, I often feel ashamed that I ruined many potential friendships and I feel ashamed that I held on to 8th grade grudges for so long. When public humilation is burnt into your mind and flares up at various random moments, it can be hard to let it go.
Interesting. All of those reasons for hypervigilance that you mentioned have happened to me in one way or another. The last one, being institutionalized, was the last straw that actually ended up doing away with my ability to even feel fear for almost twenty years. While some of it finally came back, the anxieties that once plagued me constantly now no longer have any influence on me. I can even get up in front of a crowd of strangers and give a speech off the top of my head, if necessary. If I had any classic anxiety dreams (such as being chased) I came up with solutions during the dream itself and never had it again. I would love to know exactly how I managed to pull plugs on an emotion as primal as fear. As they say, “If you could bottle that, you’d be rich”. The important thing is, though, to remember what it’s prudent to respect even if you can’t feel fear.
I fall in love with a guy that leaded me on for year. I found out all his friend were making fun of me. So my selfesteem is so down. I feel so disappointed in myself. all i think about is all the thing that is wrong with me. Like my skin color, my weight. My height. I wish you can make a article that can help me. I will love you forever mr. Bottom. Thank you.
I’m so happy I learned about the School of Life. I can’t tell you all how much your articles and articles have helped me. At times your works have given me insight into states of mind I find so mysterious and confounding. Other times they’ve provided just the slightest bit of solace on a panicky day. You all do great work. I just wish you had a school in the northeastern US. Bless you
I’m 34 and I just realized that I have add. Thought loops, anxiety, focus issues, but also something I can’t describe well. I’d be interested in hearing if anyone feels the same- it’s almost like a very intense claustrophobia feeling but in regards to the place I am. I’ve been moving around my entire adult life. I’ll fell fine for a few weeks then I’ll get the claustrophobia anxiety feeling and only feel alright when I’m in transition again. I can’t describe it too well but it’s honestly a worse feeling than any depression or sadness I’ve ever had. Because the feeling is so frantic and pressing like it’s an emergency that I have to leave. My worst fear is being a wanderer for life but I struggle so badly with this. Any insights would be greatly appreciated
My partner pointed out to me that (I know I’m hypervigilant) that maybe I have some type of PTSD. I literally jump out of my skin at the most stupid things… A butterfly taking off in front of me or something falling onto the floor behind me.. I jump out of my skin at the very most ridiculous sounds. I was assaulted from behind in 2014 and unfortunately it has never left me and in fact recently it has increased anxiety yet I’m not an anxious person.
Hypervigilance (and depression, panic disorders, etc) aren’t caused by simply “at some point in the past being very scared by something.” It’s a combination of factors. First, there is a significant heritability to such mood disorders. It runs in families. Secondly, there are personality traits in our genes that might make a person more susceptible. These are not our fault, of course. Thirdly, there are chemicals that precipitate mood disorders: Hormones, adrenaline, etc. For example, women sometimes get their first mood disregulation episode during or after pregnancy, when there is a huge fluctuation of chemicals in the body. Teenagers that suffer from a mood disorder often report it first happened in their teen years, when puberty causes a huge influx of hormones that cause general stress in the brain. Fourth, and I believe least important (the opposite of what this article purports), is a life “event” such as childhood abuse. Most people have most of the above in some combination or other; so why aren’t we all anxious and depressed? Because it has to be a perfect storm. Genes, traits, hormone or chemical fluctuations, runs in the family, and early life trauma. And even then, that doesn’t always equal mood disorder. But an unlucky subset of homo sapiens will get this short straw and be saddled with a recurrent mood disorder, probably for their entire lives. Thankfully, there is counseling, education, and medication.
I am in state of fear and it doesn’t make sense. But it does. I spent 13 years simmering in fear and anxiety due to being with a covert Narc. I’ve been doing a lot better since being out of that marriage a year now…but when I PMS, it spikes…drastically. I start perceiving danger in places it does not exist, on TOP of feeling needy and like a burden to others for having such feelings. 😢😭😞 I’m sick to my stomach with fear and with this feeling of yuk. I want to be strong and confident….but I don’t feel either today.
I hot very hypervigilant (i guess thata how you say it) after doing LSD. All of my senses have become so intense from my sight to my tastes. Im overstimulated every moment of my life and its making me so anxious. Things i never sensed before are now there all the time. Makes my thoughtd wander away and makes explaining somethinh like this very hard. Its like ADD.. If i stare in the dark i see something like TV stattic in the darkness. When i close my eyes i see colors. If its cold its really cold, if its warm its really warm. If someone is sad i can almost feel their sadness, if theyre happy i start thinking why theyre so happy and how can i use that to be happy. My tastes are so much more defined to me now, salty is really salty and bitter is really bitter. I feel effects of coffee which i never before did. I cant smoke weed anymore and that was my daily activity for 5 years. Its really hard to function but really easy to understand and learn new things.. my brain activity has never been this strong and all of my senses oftenly make my brain overclock. I feel smarter and more genius but at the same time so drained and so anxious. Makes me want to isolate myself and focus myself on some sort of science and work on it. I dont know anymore i want it to stop so bad
Hypervigilance was a symptom of my clinical depression/anixety/bipolar t2 but I’ve largely stabilize due to lifestyle changes and medication. However, hypervigilance has still stayed with me through it all. I understand that it is a symptom of an overactive mind, however, I personally believe it is beneficial to me because I’m able to be aware of minute changes in people’s expressions or mannerisms or pick up on a words phrasing that give away what they really feel. Does anyone else feel this way? I’m curious if there’s any real basis to my hypervigilant interpretations or if it is all just machinations of an over-exicted mind trying to lay meaning into everything.
I knew this term because teachers are always “on” Now as a homeless person, I even have to be “on” at night. If I have to use the bathroom, I have to drive somewhere, sometimes multiple times a night. It’s so cool to see the roads completely empty tho. The worst part of day is the evenings when everyone’s headlights are blaring in my eyes. In the past, this has given me severe migraines and still threatens to do so. I even have to tell myself not to be scared when I see a giant truck with lots of headlights. In primal times, that many lights might have warned people of true danger. Now it just warns you of assholes. 🙄 So I tell myself that it’s not a monster and I’m not truly in great danger, and talking myself down really helps. In the past I’ve had to talk myself off a ledge, so that’s why I know this works. It was a good article, but I don’t think it really helped me in any way, besides reminding me that I don’t really have to be awake at 4:30 a.m. and if I am, I can try to back to bed. It might not work, but I can try. 🤷♀️
I love this, and all your articles. I have a query/thought though. I balk somewhat at the use of the word disease to describe the defensive behaviours that we have learned to protect ourselves from hostile environments. Whilst these defensive behaviours don’t serve us, in the most part they are/were logical responses to situations in our pasts that we were unequipped to handle. I think my issue with the word disease is that it suggests something that is separate from ourselves, something that we ‘caught’, and is therefore something that we aren’t responsible for: ‘It’s not me, it’s my disease’. Whilst I know that is comfortable, it doesn’t seem to help in the long run, as taking responsibility for these behaviours, and changing them over time is the route to feeling better. I think this boils down to one thing. Instead of asking ourselves ‘what is wrong with me?’ we can ask ‘what has happened to me, that I feel like this?’ That seems to be much more compassionate, to self and others. Am I missing something here thought? Would love others/ School of Life’s thoughts.
My girlfriend knows if I’m sleeping to not come into the room because no matter how quiet you are, I will sense your presence and immediately wake up. She knows it’s my hyper vigilance that does this, she doesn’t know the reason is because my Dad used to come home drunk late at night and beat me while I was sleeping. If you really want to fuck someone up for life, abuse them when they are at their most vulnerable, they’ll never be able to relax for the rest of their life.
I developed PTSD recently and this is exactly what I was going through and didn’t realize it. I guess my concern here is the hyper vigilance seems reasonable especially when you don’t have anyone to really count on because when trusting, eg if abuse happened, it doesn’t seem sensible not to be very careful. It’s very arbitrary how one can be hurt unprovoked. Maybe hypervigilance serves a purpose of protection. Just don’t know how to find safe spaces where it wouldn’t be needed. Was tortured when innocent by authorities in a western country while legally there after very violent physical abuse by a first boyfriend that taught learned helplessness that allowed this to happen later, and I don’t understand how to or if to let go of hypervigilance now. But I do see how unreasonable it seems to normal people. Hard balance
There is a very easy cure. You just have to realise that you have already experienced the worst thing that can happen to you: being born/existence in itself. All anxieties pale in comparison. As for hypervigilance. It’s a serious symptom which can be linked to PTSD, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, perhaps even paranoid disorders. It’s a relatively broad definition of sensitivity to outside stimuli and how the brain processes them neurologically and behaviorally. And I don’t think you can overcome hypervigilance — that is if we’re talking about the clinical symptom and not a portmanteau umbrella term — with the advice in this article. Seek help and maybe it’ll show that your hypervigilance is a symptom of PTSD. And when you go through therapy for PTSD, hypervigilance will subside and perhaps disappear altogether.
Its hard for women in South Africa to be less than hypervigilant. Women get raped and killed everyday. By their husbands, boyfriends brothers and strangers. What makes it even worse is that a woman knows more than one person who has been abused. We aren’t even safe in our home, when we step out, school, church. We wake up and we’re already walking on eggshells. How then do we solve that hyper vigilance when we fear for our lives everyday?
If I’m at a party, for example, and I’m trying to make contact with somebody and actually get a hint of contact, my mind keeps track of everything that person does, looks at, every facial expression or movement. Every thought that person probably has or how she/he responds to the world. Ignoring this is not an option. From now on this person is trapped in my mind, and they get confused from being really comfortable around you to you seeming unreasonably hostile. I self-sabotaging every relationship I get to have. Professionally and romantically, I can not connect with people. People find me a joy to be around most of the time, so why do I get to be so insanely alone when it matters.
Notes. Hypervigilants are outright panicked and alarmed pretty much all the time, and spend the day in low level dread and exist in the near certainty that sth terrible will befall us. This happened bcz at some point in the past, long before we could cope, we were very frightened indeed. So badly we never really recovered our faith in the solidity of anything. Sth so challenging unfolded that it jammed our minds in a state of alarm. Even when our conditions changed and when there is nothing in particular to be afraid of. Perhaps someone was very angry, perhaps we were humiliated, perhaps made to feel unwanted, maybe a sibling tortured us. In response, our level of panic hormones spiked and never came down. Now hypervigilance regulates that part of the mind that regulates basic functions such as sleep, digestion and touch. A telling symptom is, it will be almost certainly be difficult to rest, to manage our bowels, or to be wholly at ease being touched by a fellow human, however much we may long to be. We can start to notice how much of life has been held together by fear. We have a concept that links why it is difficult to go to parties, to trust a lover, to relax on holidays or to sleep much past 4 am. Everytime we find a kindly other to whom we can safely entrust news of our state, and who can smile tenderly in response, our panic goes down. However sometimes we may simply have to stand back and observe the hypervigilance do its thing: smash our plans unleash This isnt a disease like any other.
Good article. One of the antidotes to hypervigilance is realize you’re not a weak child or youth anymore. You’re an adult! (Say “I’m not a little kid anymore! I’m an adult!”). And become a capable and competent adult. If you experienced danger or extreme anger, abandonment early in life, that is unfair and not your fault. You should look at it as having to learn a lesson earlier in life than most and see it almost like secret knowledge that you have that most people do not. Suffering is noble. You have seen the darker sides of life. Understand what happened to you and why as completely as you possibly can and then form a plan for how you would deal with it now. Do that, and you’ll be much better off. I can promise you that.
Veteran, hypervigilant till 3am most nights. I keep knives and swords in the bedroom and at the ready under the bed, but keep guns out for another relative’s comfort (easy to acquire from a friend if actually needed.) I am in a community where their is either no need or waves of Nazis depending on the week.) Cops thankfully are non issue. I let the Hypervigilance run, and sometimes others don’t notice, but I dream of a world where I’d “don’t care” like the Stoics. I was born in a violent city that echoes Beirut on drugs, and defending my self from gangs last year. What’s sleep like?
Every day I feel like catastrophe is just out of sight waiting to strike, like a plane might crash through my living room ceiling at any moment. Whatever I’m doing, I’ve always got this voice in the back of my head saying, “LOOK OUT!!!! LOOK OUT LOOK OUT LOOK OUT!!!!!!!!!!” I’ve gotten used to it, I even like some things about it – two days ago I might have been hit by a truck, it tore off half a traffic light right where I had been standing to cross the road, but I saw it coming and got out of the way – but my sleep is terrible. I wish I could feel safe in my own home, or sleep like a normal person.
The practical approach would be : Breathe, choices, resources. Breathe deeply, or do meditation. Relax first. Drink a cup of water if u must. Next, Remember worrying is a choice and you have a choice not to worry too. Remember U are the only person that’s in charge of yourself, including thoughts, feelings and body. Then, access the resources that you have to eliminate that demon. I usually will have a list of things that makes me happy and i will do those things to deal with hypervigilance quickly. Do this everytime u’re having the problem, and time by time the mind will get trained to deal with worries quickly.
I need help. I don’t know how to stop myself from thinking. I need to sleep now but my body just couldn’t find rest. It feels like my body is going against me. Like it wants to torture me. Just thinking how small and insignificant I really am, I start to wonder if I should still look for a solution. If living like this is going to be worth pursuing my plans and vision. If solving all of the bullshit that keeps coming my way is still worth the hassle. I want to think that ending it all is too pathetic but life also feels like it’s not worth a damn. None of us chose to be born so why continue carrying this burden for the sake of carrying it? Maybe it is the cowards way out. Maybe I am going for the easy solution. But what difference will courage make in the face of an insurmountable and indifferent struggle? Does it even matter whenever I overcome a challenge? Something else just fills its place. Is this what life is about? Overcoming challenges? Does any of it matter? 1 million years is but a glimpse to the universe. So what will become of us in 2 million? How about 5 million? How about 7 billion? Can you picture humanity still existing? With that much time on the universe’s hands, our extinction is inevitable. So why should any of what anyone else does, matter? Perhaps humanity’s ascension is a collective effort. So why should I continue? I am clearly one of the damaged. Unable to function properly to contribute to society. Even if I didn’t exist at all someone else would be doing my work.
Never a definite answer with the mind. Only consolation, temporary peace similar to an afternoon nap. Would it be so bad? To have something to take responsibility, take blame and be liable for the emotions, feelings, thoughts of death and defeat. Yes, truly it is comforting to worry less about a self prophesied apocalypse.
Three nights I watched my beloved Moo Moo, my little six year old dog suffer seizure after seizure, screening and crying. Multiple trips to the doctor. We didn’t sleep for most of the three days. On the third night, he was looking like the meds were working. What we thought were the seizures subsiding, it was his life slipping away. He died in my wife’s arms. It was horrific. We still have his three brothers. One that looks just like Moo Moo. I can’t remove myself from the triggers. Every unusual move any of them make can cause concern. They never learned exactly why he passed I never returned to my bed. I sleep with pants in and shoes. Ready to run to the vet if something happens. Eight months later I can finally sit in my chair to sleep with my pants and shoes off. But still can’t sleep in the bed. My beloved wife sleeps in a bed next to my chair. She’s not doing much better. Hypervigilance describes me perfectly. It’s horrid and not the correct way to live. We know we are not being the best we can be like this but can’t seem to break it either. They are all seven years old. I miss old me. I can’t play article games anymore or draw. I can work and clean but not without them in line of sight. They’re just dogs right? Right?! They are amazing and we love them so much.
Watch the film ‘The Bababook’. It’s like a classic haunted house, but the monster is a metaphor for depression. There are lessons to be learnt in accepting the monster, or coming to the point where maybe it isn’t a monster, maybe its just trying to communicate something to you, and it gets louder the more you try to ignore it.
Fight, flight, freeze. The physiological response to a threat. Hyper-vigilance, the physiological response to anticipating a threat before, during or after an event preparing you to fly, fight or freeze. Trouble is there is no threat so you can’t get past it and wind it down. I never understood trauma until I lived it.
Heyyyy my mom is excusing her terrible paranoia (recoring people listening through walls, and accusing people of having other people in the house hidden) because a doctor said she hashypervigilance, ptsd, and personality disorder but in reality she is just an ex drug addicted. How do i get her to take responsibility for her own actions and make her take the steps she needs to better herself??
I am always hyper vigilant for my safety. I have PTSD and it seems like I can’t seem to manage to manifest any thing but violence. Yesterday I was perusal the sunset on a busy street When some dude approached me. Normally I tell them to fuck off but I have been trying to be more open minded with men lately, which has literally only led to me being robbed twice. This man tried to walk me down the street and then casually get me to get in his friends van and when I refused the only thing that would make him leave with me pretending I had a gun. This is an even the first time this is happened to me on the same street throughout the years. I don’t know what to do
It’s 3:41 am here and I haven’t slept for 8 hours tonight and For the past 2 days I haven’t slept, in the day I’m fine I don’t worry, but by the time I’m trying to sleep it kicks in, I can’t sleep, I’m worrying, I’m scared that if something happens and I’m awake I’ll be powerless to stop it like a break in. I have found that if I’m in the area that I’m worried about and I have a good sense of what’s around me, I calm down quite a bit, but I cannot leave that area without having worry kick in,
There is nothing wrong with being on your highest guard against something that has proven to be very bad for yourself. I have a avoided a repeat of what happened to me in 2000 by simply avoiding the situation that caused the horrible experience to begin. I will never allow even the smallest possibly of what happened in 2000 happening again.
Siempre le digo a la gente que “soy muy nerviosa” cuando estoy conociendo a alguien. La gente entiende con eso. No tengo que decir que soy hipervigilante. Y en español se entiende. Tenemos la división ser/estar. Entonces, se entiende que es una característica mía ser nerviosa pero no estoy nerviosa ahora o siempre. Solo soy así.
Mental hypervigilance can lead to physical health problems as well. Constant tension in muscles, migraines, breathing difficulties, etc. It’s a domino effect that in some ways is also a self-fulfilling problem, because if we’re physically tense, that keeps us tense mentally, which keeps us tense physically, on and on and on…
I have adhd a d c-ptsd. Ive gotten to the point where im able to come down sometimes, but when it spikes it feels awful. I didnt know how to explain this feeling other than “it feels like constant bees buzzing in my skin. Everything feels wrong, despite everything being okay.” When i feel this way, i cant eat, i cant sleep, i cant find joy in things. Im antsy. I cant focus on anything. It’s so hard.
I only fully researched it after the D.I.D. person=shes/their english like the article too. The ptsd article. Split movie=not real. Gothom nights tv show/moon knight=sort of/half right=ninjas/spys,they need to survive,the 2 anti heros arent ninjas=can say fake/tv/movie ninjas/just not real life ninjas=nin ja=endure person=aka D.I.D. but specific alters are ninjas=litterly. Mr. robot=realistic=convaluded,i didnt spoil fully,some1 does,you can guess!, if know for D.I.D.=guess/=spoilers.
I don’t know who I am outside of who I had to become. I spent my entire childhood in survival mode… so now as an adult who’s trying to break generational cycles, I don’t know who I am. I’ve been using survival tactics since I was 8 years old…. And it became my entire personality. I don’t know who I am, outside of who I had to become.
My all friends started ignoring me and i didn’t new what was happening at that time but after some time I got to know that that was my friends (not friends but which i considered as friend) are not friends but nothing more then minion now I don’t want to go around them and due to them my behaviour has changed to others also. They were acting so horrible that I have done so wrong thing but I don’t know what I have done I don’t know what to do .
Tbh some of the comments here are people just having one part of PTSD, and feeling like they are total victims of the actual diagnosis. Now it’s like (“Everyone has PTSD” as if it’s some badge of honor) for those who were never professionally diagnosed, hospitalized, offered medication/and or are taking medication to ease this, can you all just stop? The acronym for this has been haphazardly thrown so much, it invalidates people who’ve been through traumatic events, soldiers, and victims of high stressful environments.
É uma pena que não fazem a tradução para o português. A opção de tradução automática não é confiável e com assuntos dessa profundidade e o uso de expressões que podem, dependendo do contexto, ter significado diferente fica bem complicado acompanhar o raciocínio. Acho o conteúdo dos vídeos de utilidade pública, mas infelizmente, o The School of Life Brasil não tem interesse em fazer essas traduções e portanto, que esse conteúdo seja acessível para um maior número de pessoas.
Does anyone have hypervigilance about work? I’ve had awful bosses in the past. Whenever I get new jobs (I’ve quit because I can’t handle the stress anymore) I ask my new employer questions so I can get a heads up about what triggers THEM. I have a difficult time with criticism knowing how forgetful I am, in addition to health/financial problems I have that interfere often with my work.
100% this. This is me to a capital “T” stemming from my childhood experiences & the subsequent trauma that followed. I have essentially been in a “fight or flight” response for decades – literally. The overwhelming emotion is exhaustion/despair/hopelessness in a way & on levels I cannot even describe.
Can trading naked options and unlimited loss give hyper vigilance? I have has some very big career ending losses. Have recovered some from it. I trade no more naked options. There’s no risk no matter how much market falls but my brain is always hyper vigilant. Even on weekends and holidays and nights when market is not even on. I dunno how to shut it down and tell it everything is safe. There’s nothing to worry.
Mine kicked in at the age of 20 right after I gave birth to my 1st child. I became so afraid of everything but not for myself… for the baby. She’s 16 now and has never slept over with friends, gone to the mall, gone to school games, dated or anything a 16 yr old should be doing. I won’t even let her get a job or learn to drive and she keeps begging. I wish this would go away
I see socializing among random strangers as a masquerade with recreatable costume identities, i feared that the mind manipulators would pose as hypervigilant, and the moment I cared not to, and be me, they’d retract that position with their real one beneath their clone version of me. Yeah they did, so I’m justified. Its never easy especially when a social circle meeting point, was someone else’s, before you got there. The lengths they go to to still inhabit that space, the fake pretenses, illusion of preferring, almost always boils down to somehow finding their car of a person to have you do things after a safety wall is lowered. Its sad, but you go through it enough times, realize there are many faces to people when with others, and you more or less can tell why everyone does what they do. Because you just might be the only eligible soul in the space.
This article is very beautiful, it helped a bit, i cant put my thoughts exactly together right now and i m second guessing whats going on on every thought, when i started typing this comment i would’ve said “it helped a lot” i feel afraid of everything and i feel empty of agency and that i cant make any choise or that i m not normal, maybe im just describing despair i dont know, i really hard want to Untangle this web but i dont get anywhere, its rough but i ll be patient till i can be coherent to myself again
I haven’t found someone who is worthy enough to hear all that I have to say in me. I think that they will only be appalled by what I am about to say therefore my only way of dealing with anxiety or hypervigilance is to suppress it inside of me so as to limit what other people see in me so as for them not to see me in a state vulnerable enough to get hurt
@The School of Life A vital article! Thank you! I do have to (compulsively) point out a pet peeve of mine that seems slightly hinted at in the beginning of this article: We are not the descendants of the timid cavemen trembling in their holes and anxiously twitching at every snap of a twig. We are the descendants of the monkeys who played the game of pulling the lion’s tail, and then later the sneaky ones who learned to steal his kill away from him, and then later, the ones who hunted him. We are the descendants of those who were tricksters, playful, curious, inventive, and adventurous, not scared and anxious victims in a colorless world. We are Homo Ludens as much as Homo Sapiens, maybe more.
Can’t remember the researcher or research group, but there was some good work on the advantages of emotional states to modulate robot behaviours, and also learning the appropriate emotional parameters (within the repeated set of training scenarios). Things roughly like – if things are changing rapidly -> ‘fear’ -> reduce tendency to explore unknown areas / approach unrecognised objects. Was a few years ago – predates the current neural network/AI surge.
Just look around and say yourself there is no danger ans calm down, make concense that all of your thouhgs or most of them aren’t real take control of what you can take control of yourself. Don’t let your chimics and toughs beat you, you are beutiful and powerful enough to control your self. So if you now and make conces that there is no danger give the power to that thougs and not the bad thougs.
I subscribe to a few psychology/sociology websites, but this is my favorite. They use a real human voice, they explain these issues in a calm matter-of-fact way, and they give honestly helpful ideas about how to deal with these things whether you’re the with the condition, or a friend or loved one who wants to help. Thanks 🙂
Disappointing to see so many average, normal people claiming PTSD and one upping each other in their level of discomfort in the comments. You haven’t got PTSD or hypervigilance, you’ve simply failed to take control of your life so you’ve outsourced that responsibility to a doctor that will happily “diagnose” you so that you can avoid responsiblity and they can profit from it. Stop building your personality around your common human emotions that aren’t syndromes or illnesses.