Hello Everyone,
Welcome to my October 2023 blog post.
It was back in 2001 when my own Fear Monster ® appeared before me at a family members birthday party, well let’s just say, that was the time I had paid attention to the feeling itself, and I had quickly become quite fearful of what I thought it could do to me and what impact it could have on my life.
Looking back, I remember the period of time following on from that day at the party being quite dark for me, I was soon feeling the grip of acute anxiety and even as I write this blog post today and now, I am not in the state of emotion I was in at the time, I am aware that it is difficult for me to really resonate with the intensity of the feelings, or to re-experience them in the present moment. I say that while feeling sure that I would not ever choose to feel like I did at that time again willingly.
So, what does hypervigilance from acute/strong anxiety feel like?
From the moment I became effectively scared of my ability to regulate myself, everything changed.
As the strength of the feeling gathered momentum, my effects to focus on it, and my effort to control the effect that I feared it may have on both myself and my life, also increased tenfold. As the cycle strengthened, and I became very fearful of seemingly everything. This added to my fear. I seemed to jump out of my skin if someone closed a door, and I became intolerant of anything that may trigger in me an emotional raise no matter how small. This could be the content of a television programme, someone else getting angry or upset near me or a radio story. I would turn off the radio if there was any news content on there that raised my own emotions. I was very, very sensitive to everything. In truth, I just felt awful all of the time. I can remember that the feelings at that time were so intense that it was soon difficult to concentrate on anything else. All I seemed able to do was to smoke (in those days I smoked) and walk, literally anything else felt too fearful.
I was so agitated; I could not sit still. Anything that was usually relaxing was a complete no. I had associated for example; baths with calm and relaxation and I can remember instinctively running a bath, desperate to calm myself down one evening and as soon as I laid down, I just shouted “woah” as I jumped straight back up and got out. At that point, I knew that I could no longer find a break or a sense of calm from this “thing” anywhere. I didn’t know it at that time but I was hypervigilant.
I was firmly in and anxious, and therefore hypervigilant state
Hypervigilance is essentially, an internal state of elevated alertness. It is not going to hurt you; it is a normal response that sits hand in hand with how anxious you are feeling. It is your bodies response, which essentially means that it is protective and your body is preparing to save you!
Hypervigilance means that you begin to be hypersensitive to your surroundings (It’s a bit like an external focus that matches the level and intensity of internal focus that you have when your anxious). Your internal focus monitors the feeling, your external focus monitors the environment so that the feeling stays low and you remain safe. The danger is not real, but the feelings you are having are real and can be very uncomfortable. We can become hypervigilant in response to our fears about what may happen to us if we feel anxious.
Hypervigilance made a very scary experience even more scary and bewildering during those early days, as I just did not know what was happening to me. If I am honest, I quickly believed that I was either going to die (This may sound dramatic but it’s true), or I was never going to be ok again, and I dreaded to think what I was going to lose in the battle with this “thing” in the meantime.
I felt scared about everything, as my feelings went up and down, I found my anxiety/hypervigilance latched onto everything. If I was heightened when someone mentioned making a coffee, I felt scared and began to believe that I was scared of coffee. I am sure you can imagine though, that feeling I was scared of coffee then caused me to feel I really must be going crazy to be scared of coffee and so I got even more fearful that my anxious feelings were harmful to me and my thoughts went round and round in a big terrifying loop. The more it happened, the more heightened I got. In truth, I wasn’t scared of coffee at all, I was just heightened at the time that someone had mentioned the word coffee.
Another time, I was queuing with a family member in the bank, as my focus was internal, I found that rather than listen to the surface noise of the bank such as chatting to the family member and hearing the odd other person I may be paying attention to, instead I could hear noises I my non-anxious self would not have heard such as the rustling of money in the tills, the doors opening or I could tune in to every conversation around me. This felt scary as it was not something I had experienced before, and because I did not know it was hypervigilance at that time, it added to my fear and my beliefs that I was really not ok. This gave the anxious feelings and my Fear Monster ®, much more power over me.
Hypervigilance is a normal response to fear
This is why, I think it is important to address this and inform you all of what this is, so that you do not need to wonder what this is, you will know. If you know you can carry the seed in the back of your mind and it can help you ride out this stage until you are able to calm more and it passes. I learnt back then that it can really help to understand and work with it, rather than fight it or try to control it.
What hypervigilance is not
You are not scared of the word coffee, or anything else that is mentioned or you get a felt sense of when you are heightened.
A Final Word
Hypervigilance is not comfortable, but just knowing what is happening, can help you to keep that seed at the back of your mind and to work with it while it is happening.
What I can say to you, is that it can and will go away. It just takes a little while to switch off once you get so hyped up that it begins.
Remind yourself of what this is, you do not have to accept or like it. Try to ride it “I know what is happening, I can sit this out when it heightens, it is just a phase”. If you are able try to find a method of distraction that keeps you present and try not to act on the feeling, such as repeatedly checking etc. Don’t be hard on yourself if you experience difficulty at times, this is all a learning process it is not black and white, it is about working with it where you can until it passes.
Until my next post
Take Care
Michelle x