Yep, may even be caused by certain forms of c-PTSD. I was required to develop hypervigilance as a method of survival, so everything bad/unfortunate/uncomfortable sounds the alarm, while anything good/normal/producing joy is *mostly glossed over (*extremes are still registered), as the main goal is staying alive and the latter won’t kill me.
I don’t think people who haven’t experienced it really can understand.
It’s like something crazy happens.
People without complex PTSD freak out.
My ass is like, “oh, I was preparing for this” and then I deal with the issue.
I’m always right on the edge of losing my goddamn mind, so that when some crazy shit actually happens, I’m like, oh, okay. Ah, yes, this is what I was preparing for. Ah, feels so good to finally let the vigilance down and just actually experience life for a second.
I bet so many of us have ADHD because the instant laser-point hyperfocus and blocking of all other stimuli helped our ancestors survive quite a few times.
And anxiety is obviously similar. Though in that case I think it’s more that we have evolved this skill for vigilance so that we can launch into fight or flight mode at a moment’s notice, but there are not the same constant dangers to monitor. So we essentially have an instinct to expect something bad to be coming at any moment, but it is uncalibrated and without meaningful environmental inputs it basically starts amplifying noise.
ADHD and anxiety disorders will do that.
Yep, may even be caused by certain forms of c-PTSD. I was required to develop hypervigilance as a method of survival, so everything bad/unfortunate/uncomfortable sounds the alarm, while anything good/normal/producing joy is *mostly glossed over (*extremes are still registered), as the main goal is staying alive and the latter won’t kill me.
I don’t think people who haven’t experienced it really can understand.
It’s like something crazy happens.
People without complex PTSD freak out.
My ass is like, “oh, I was preparing for this” and then I deal with the issue.
I’m always right on the edge of losing my goddamn mind, so that when some crazy shit actually happens, I’m like, oh, okay. Ah, yes, this is what I was preparing for. Ah, feels so good to finally let the vigilance down and just actually experience life for a second.
I bet so many of us have ADHD because the instant laser-point hyperfocus and blocking of all other stimuli helped our ancestors survive quite a few times.
And anxiety is obviously similar. Though in that case I think it’s more that we have evolved this skill for vigilance so that we can launch into fight or flight mode at a moment’s notice, but there are not the same constant dangers to monitor. So we essentially have an instinct to expect something bad to be coming at any moment, but it is uncalibrated and without meaningful environmental inputs it basically starts amplifying noise.