Editor’s Note: Lovefraud received this story from the member who writes as “Duped.” She describes her hyper vigilance — and how it worked against her.
In hindsight, I remember questioning the little green things on the dinosaur nuggets he prepared for dinner. I was surprised he’d made the effort, in response to much nagging about not pitching in. It was late and I’d just returned from teaching an evening class. An overload to pay the bills since he quit his job. We had been arguing a lot, or rather me complaining; him not working, cleaning, taking care of the kids or pets and not making so much of an effort as to prepare a meal or help me. I had been working my full-time job teaching, overloaded for extra pay, consulting work for a publisher to generate more income, plus trying to finish my graduate degree in time to make tenure. All this and two children, one his and only a year old. And he never lifted a finger.
Until those dinosaur nuggets with the odd parsley flakes.
Less than two weeks later, he filed a false Protection From Abuse (PFA) order and attempted to have me and my eldest son thrown out of our house (the one I had built from the ground up before I met him) take me for full custody of our one year old son who’d never spent a night without me, and soak me for child support, alimony and half the marital assets (we had been married 11 months) to which he had contributed nothing!
Fortunately, he was unsuccessful. Mostly because of who I am and the life I’ve created for me and my children. In part due to some due diligence. In part, despite my hyper vigilance.
It is hyper vigilance I’d like to address. It’s a nasty side effect of PTSD. I was able to get his PFA turned around and file one against him. I was believable, he was not. I was credible, he was not. I HAD cared for my children, he HAD not. I had NOT been abusive, he HAD. This was relatively easy to demonstrate, although it didn’t feel so at the time. So, while I had him right where I needed him, I still felt panic and fear. I still believed he would be believed. Why not? I had believed him and I’m no sucker!
So, I made an urgent appointment with my doctor to have a drug test. He WAS using drugs. I was NOT. He had accused me of being a drug dealer, when in fact it was his mother who was his supplier, and I felt this burning NEED to prove myself. I got that drug test and believe it or not, they lost the sample. Right then I should have taken a breath and allowed the Universe to work its divine intervention. But NO, I couldn’t do that. I was in the throes of battle. I NEEDED every little piece that would set things right. I HAD to have that drug result to PROVE HIM WRONG. I was DRIVEN and consumed.
I had a second test run right before court and asked the doctor to fax the results to the attorney. I didn’t need to hear the results first. I knew what I had and had not done. It would be negative. And my attorney believed that too, which is why she handed over the results to his attorney without reading them herself. And that’s how I lost the battle.
The results were positive for THC, the intoxicating chemical found in Marijuana. Not possible, until I remembered those parsley flakes in the damn dinosaur chicken nuggets he had served up with a pleased little grin.
And that was when I had to face being my own worst enemy. Hyper vigilance, while once my comrade in a childhood filled with craziness, had become the enemy. No one asked for the drug test and it certainly wasn’t court ordered. I had gone full blown into trying to work every little piece and angle to save me and my children, that I’d opened a cans of worms HE HAD ANTICIPATED! He played my vigilance to his advantage and had won the battle.
I won the war. Because I am who I am and he is who he is and I didn’t have to make that case. He made it himself, once I tuned down from hyper vigilance to due diligence. I shifted from histrionic to matriarch. My change in posture elicited a change in his. He wasn’t pulling my strings any more. He wasn’t in control any more. I was in control of myself, which gave me far more of a positive influence over the situation. And his facade was shaken, revealing his true colors.
My point is, if you have been the victim of a sociopath, it is most likely you will be and maybe still are suffering from PTSD. With that comes the nasty black cloud of hyper vigilance. It’s exhausting, unproductive and ultimately leaves one angry and disappointed with themselves and actions. If you’re in the throws of situating your life in the wake of a sick or evil person, stop and take a deep breath. Ask yourself if what you’re doing is for the right reasons, makes sense and will take you in a direction that will raise you up, not bring you down.
Are you reacting because the situation REQUIRES it? Or are you reacting because you’re DRIVEN to? I ask myself these questions with regularity and find I’m a happier, more relaxed and better focused person, mother and professional.
Namaste
Duped
Learn more: Self-care for Complex PTSD
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Nov. 24, 2009.
Hyper vigilance is exhausting, unproductive and may make your situation worse.
Lovefraud’s 3 Rules of Dating
Dear Duped,
You are an excellent writer, and your points are also right on as well as expressed very well.
Thanks for this excellent contribution to the LF articles and archives!
Wow—I did not know that on pot….that is interesting. You can eat/digest that w/o knowing you got any of it….I mean no effects? And it would still show up weeks later? Looks like there would be some type of effect or reaction.
That is something else……
that someone would feed you that stuff too…is scary. Being the ‘paranoid’ person I am….I would never have eating those ‘nuggets’. I move on those red flags in my mind now. I no longer override them.
Is that what wakes me up at 4 in the morning ? I feel more anxious than usual
Dear spirit,
Anxiety is a part of PTSD, the feeling that you are “not safe” even when you sleep is there. there is always a part of your brain that stays ‘awake” even when you are asleep.
That is why when you have a (say for example) a young baby, at first when you are anxious about that baby you may actually wake if if the babyl’s breathing rate changes during the night, but after a while, when you are no longer so anxious about your baby, unless they are screaming in a “I’m in pain mommie” scream, you may sleep right through a crying episode.
The same with our dog, if it is just barking at the cat, you may sleep through it but if it is barking the “Mom, there is an intruder” bark, you will wake up. Your mind stays on alert to some extent all the time even asleep.
When you are “hyper alert” though and anxious, your sleep may never reach the deep restful sleep that you need. Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing, and we all to some extent suffer from that when we are under stress. Sleep deprivation is used as a torture for prisoners of war, etc. When you are not mentally rested from sleep, your brain doesn’t think well either, and it makes it difficult to focus and to prioritize things.
Trouble going to sleep and trouble staying sleep is typical stress or PTSD or anxiety reaction. that is one reason it is so important for us to take care of ourselves when we are under extreme stress….we need all the help we can get. sleep, good food, rest, calm, peace, etc are very important to the immune system in keeping us physically, emotionally and mentally healthy.
That is one reason NC is SO important to us, it keeps the drama and the stress down because they are not able to re-injure us so easily. TAKE CARE OFYOURSELF, rest, eat right, cut down on alcohol and caffine and anything else that interfeers with sleep, rest or good health. ((((hugs))))
Thank you, always Oxy…. yeah I have amazingly not even had a glass of wine… maybe on turkey day gobble gobble.. its the caffeine and nicotine… Hugs
I want to sleep now but then will wake up at 4 am …. I am happy I start a new job next week…thanks again
Dear Spirit,
After all this, I started to smoke again and got up to doing huge amounts of caffine–which in excess causes not only insomnia but depression–so I am finally quitting the cigarettes and cutting down to two cups of caffine coffee per day. IN the AM only—none after noon.
Trying to eat right (and less) sleep regularly and well, cut out any over use of anything, and up the use of things that are good for me, like exercise, etc. But the main thing is MODERATION in everything with a focus on MY OWN WELL BEING. Good luck with your new job! A new job is a stress in itself, so be EXTRA GOOD to yourself! BTW–calories consumed on Thanksgiving and Christmas are neutral, they do not make us gain weight! I SWEAR THAT IS TRUE!!! Oh, I have some great ocean front property in Arizona for sale? Interested? LOL ((((hugs))))
I am having this problem with waking up multiple times through the night. It is almost over now and he is nearly gone so the pain has been very up and down. Sometimes I manage to be detached from it, sometimes I am very angry, sometimes I feel the familiar despair. I managed to give up the nicotine a month ago (amazingly at the most stressful part of life) but am now regularly waking four or five times a night and am absolutely exhausted every day – feel like I might fall asleep standing up sometimes. I have no problems getting to sleep – it is staying asleep that is the problem. I know it is stress linked and just hope it settles down when things are settled. I am on hyper alert and it certainly doesn’t make you effective or efficient at dealing with practical things – I am too upset. Thank goodness the lawyer is thinking straight because I am not.
Congrats Spirit on the new job – that will be a huge boost to you – well done 🙂 I know it is so hard to present ourselves well after an experience like this.
Excellent writing Duped – good to see your mind feels more intact now you are out of the craziness. I am looking forward to that for me!
I am not a nicotine or caffeine user but I still wake up and/or have difficulty sleeping all night. Funny thing is: I sleep worse now that I have left him for almost two years. If I get stressed in the least….I get anxious and cannot sleep well. It’s so weird why I get all this now….instead of when we were together. I wake up hearing his voice, dream about him in situations that are stressful, etc. Yesterday a friend of mine walked up behind me and it sounded just like my x’s footsteps. I am over all the crying over him….past all that. I don’t even care that he is married again. I can laugh at all this…I don’t think openly about him….yet I am tormented at night with anxiety and dreams. Make it this far and cannot get it all out of my subconscious mind…..*sigh
I have never posted here before although I have been reading this blog for a few months now. I most definitely have PTSD after everything I have gone through. Can someone say how long it takes for this to subside. I’m a wreck.
DearTB,
It takes time and work to get through it all. I think the first part of it is becoming AWARE of where we are showing stress responses. those are “symptoms” of the stress responses still going on in your body.
Stress is not an all or none response, there are degrees of it and RESIDUAL EFFECTS in our organs, our brain, our muscles, etc. I realized accidentally once that I thought I was doing okay, and accidently ran into my egg donor in the store and I got a BIG IMMEDIATE SHOT OF STRESS HORMONES and it literally made me SICK to my stomach for about 18 hours. What it did do for me though that was positive, was that I realized I had lived like that 24/7 for so long, and that the stress had wound down SLOWLY so slowly in fact, I hadn’t even noticed it was pretty well gone. After that, I made a big effort and still am, to DECREASE my stress in any way possible.
First is to LIMIT CHANGES of any kind so that they don’t all take place at once. Spread them out if at all possible.
One of the big bad things about disengaging from the Ps is that so many different changes take place all at once, maybe you have to move house, change jobs, change this, change that, and so on.
EVEN ALITTLE “upset” can set your stress recovery back weeks. So stay away from anyone or anything that it is possible to avoid that upsets you emotionally.
Exercise is a stress burner—get out and walk and exercise regularly to burn up those stress hormones.
Back to the basics of be good to yourself. Get a massage, and don’t think it is a luxuary. If you can’t afford it, trade massages with a friend. Don’t watch exciting/violent movies that get your heart rate up. Don’t listen to music that upsets you or makes you feel down. If staying home alone upsets you, go for a walk and listen to soothing music. Call a friend who is understanding, or anything that calms you down, soothes you or makes you feel at peace.
Meditate or pray. Relax, learn relaxation therapy, bio feed back, anything that will center you, focus you and make you feel at peace. the last thing you need is more chit about anything. Then, give yourself TIME and don’t try to rush this process.