One of the biggest things I have come to learn about the severity of the trauma I have endured is how my body is in a near constant state of hypervigilance as a result. If you don’t know what this is, allow me to try to explain in my own words.

Hypervigilance is said to be a state of heightened alert or awareness of potential danger. Even if the risk of danger is low or non-existent.

It’s like being afraid that something extremely catastrophic could happen at any given moment and keeping all of your senses at or above 100% alert 24 hours a day.

I have difficulty trying to relax because I am almost always on guard. Enjoying a meal or coffee with a friend is so hard because I have to be able to see every entrance and every exit and see every person as they walk in to the establishment to identify whether or not they are my abuser walking in to make a scene. Even though that hasn’t happened in years! It’s still there.

Sleep escapes me often. I sometimes wake up in a panic perhaps due to a nightmare, or worse, a flashback and struggle to fall back to sleep. And if I do, I struggle to keep my mind from wandering back to what woke me up in the first place.

I still have deep emotional triggers and things that wouldn’t upset a “normal” person cause me to freeze up or shut down…or run away.

And trying to explain it makes me sound even more crazy.

I don’t want to be this way and I am working on getting better, but there are steps forward followed by steps backward and everything in between.

The other piece of this is how I analyze every single thing I do and the behavior of others as well. I am terrified of being hurt again. I am terrified to hurt someone else. I am terrified that I am going to push people away. I am terrified that I am not enough for anyone and that I will just spend the rest of my life alone!

There is a lot of anxiety wrapped up in my behavior. My boss might see that I am a workhorse, but really, it’s my anxiety pushing me to be “extra” so I don’t look like a failure.

I have a hard time saying no which makes me look like a go getter, but really, it’s my anxiety saying “if you say no, they will be disappointed” and thus starts a cycle of negative self-talk, followed by a deep depressive state and ending with crying for hours until I eventually fall asleep. It can take as little as a few hours to complete this cycle, but often times, it takes a week or longer.

My trauma runs deep. It’s not something I can fix overnight. I have been in counseling for almost 2 full years. And most days, I feel pretty great about where I am in this healing journey, but I beat myself up when I take a step or two back.

My counselor reminds me that healing isn’t linear and that I will have ups and downs. I hate the downs. Sometimes I feel like it would be better to put the mask of “everything’s ok” back on and pretend that I am fine.