My cPTSD causes me to experience a continuous and recurrent symptom known as emotional hypervigilance, and when I feel emotionally hypervigilant, it really can make me feel overly alert.

My feelings seem to be on overdrive. I also seem to absorb the emotions and feelings of others around me. I know when something is off or doesn’t feel right, and I notice the slightest change in others attitudes towards me. There are physical symptoms that go along with it, too. My arm and calf become tight, and I get tingling sensations. Which is the anxiety. Often, there is a large gulf between listening to my intuition and tumbling into a trauma response unconsciously. Hypervigilance is an important tool and helps keep me safe. Some say it’s like a sixth sense; for me, when I get like this, it can be overwhelming.

Being alert, but not alarmed.

I now know that when I feel this way, it has to do with my childhood trauma. When I was a child, I was always on alert because I had to be, and with therapy, I am learning ways to deal with this symptom. What has shifted for me is my relationship with and response to it. I don’t gaslight myself out of my body’s warning systems anymore, or at least not as much as I used to, and because of that, I have enough recovery and distance to make choices about what I do with the information instead of just immediately going into an emotional flashback.

I am on alert, but not alarmed.

With the groundwork laid in therapy, I can let things play out and not react. I still feel the anxiousness and heightened state where, internally, everything still feels messy, but I am able to control it better. Therapy has taught me that I need to stop trying to figure out why another person is responding the way they are or has changed in their energy towards me.

Communication is key

My trauma response is to always think that I am the cause, but that’s not actually true. So, when it can get horribly uncomfortable and overwhelming to sit with the anxiety of knowing there’s a shift and my first reaction is to not understand why or what to do, I remind myself that communication is key. And it’s why I am a big fan of openly communicating needs and wants so that I don’t find myself falling into the spiral of feeling emotionally hypervigilant. We don’t know what goes on in another person’s mind, so openly talking can be extremely beneficial, not only for myself but for the other person too.

With the knowledge and tools I now have in my possession, I am working on breaking the cycle. It’s a slow process and can be exhausting, but the fact I have come this far and I can manage the experience tells me the work I am putting in is doing the job intended.