There is something that I do, and have done for as long as I can remember, and that is, I don’t sit with my back to the room. Ever.
It’s not about being dramatic or antisocial. It’s because somewhere deep in my bones, my nervous system never really got the memo that the emergency ended. So whether I’m out, in a restaurant, or just waiting for my takeout, I’m scanning exits like I’m Jason Bourne, but with less parkour and more quiet dread.
This is hypervigilance. And if you’ve got CPTSD, you probably know it well, even if you didn’t have a name for it.
What Is Hypervigilance, Really?
There’s something ancient and exhausting about always being on. My brain runs a 24/7 threat-assessment algorithm, and the algorithm does not care that I’m just trying to enjoy Chinese food.
It’s not just where I sit. It’s how I walk down the street with headphones in but no music playing. How I clock the mood of a room the second I walk in, like an emotional meteorologist predicting potential storms. It’s the way I memorize exits, faces, tone shifts, door sounds, and weird gut feelings I can’t explain.
It’s how I knew in childhood that “quiet” didn’t mean “peaceful.” It meant, Get ready.
Why Does This Happen?
Hypervigilance is a hallmark of CPTSD. It’s your nervous system stuck in fifth gear, long after the danger’s gone. Your body doesn’t trust safety; it trusts patterns. And when your early patterns involved chaos, tension, or harm, your body doesn’t unclench just because your therapist says it can.
And look, this was adaptive. It was smart. Hypervigilance kept me safe when I was small and powerless. But now? It’s a roommate I didn’t invite. It eats my bandwidth, hijacks joy, and leaves me drained after a “normal” day.
Living with Hypervigilance
Some days, I can meet it with compassion. “Hey, you did good. But we’re okay now.”
Other days, I’m just tired of being wired. I want to order a sandwich without checking the exits. It would be nice to relax without monitoring the table next to me for rising voices or weird vibes. I want to exist without always preparing to flee.
And yet, even after all this time, I still face the door.
Not because I’m broken.
Because I learned to survive.
A Message to You
So if you do this too, you’re not overreacting. You’re not paranoid. You’re someone whose body worked overtime to keep you alive.
That’s not something to be ashamed of. That’s something to honor, even as we gently teach ourselves a new way.
Not because I’m paranoid. Or because I’m difficult. But because once upon a time, my survival depended on it.
And while I’m healing, and I am healing, I’ve learned not to shame the parts of me that still stand guard. I thank them. I make room for them. And when I can, I remind them they don’t have to work so hard anymore.
If you face the door too, you’re not alone. There’s nothing wrong with you. Your body remembered how to survive when no one else was looking. That’s not dysfunction. That’s brilliance, born in chaos.
We’re just learning to feel safe in a world that hasn’t always been.
One seat at a time.