The Gifts of Childhood Trauma: Hypervigilance

When I started to excavate my childhood wounds, I first saw my early survival mechanisms as necessary but unfortunate trauma responses

Hypervigilance, 
Perfectionism, 
Dissociation, 
People-pleasing, 
among others –

Now, as a spiritually-awakened adult who continually invites her own expansion, I see so clearly how, now –

Fueled by radical self-awareness and conscious intention –

That these trauma responses have become superpowers.

I recently finished listening to What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Oprah Winfrey and Doctor Bruce Perry, and I recognized this shift within me as my own version of “Post-Traumatic Wisdom”, a concept introduced in the book. Dr Perry explains that Post-Traumatic Wisdom is “referring to the experience where you've been able to get through adversity, and you're now at a safe place in your life and can look back and reflect," he says. "And take what you've learned and use that to see the world differently. You use your pain and transform it to power and help other people."

The journey to this wisdom for me was in evolving from unconscious reactivity and survival to mindful awareness, presence, and conscious choice.

For this first article of the series I’m going to focus on one of my earliest and most powerful survival responses:

HYPERVIGILANCE

Hypervigilance is a state of increased alertness and extreme sensitivity to one’s surroundings. It is not a condition in itself, but a way of behaving that may be caused by trauma. It can feel like you're anticipating any possible hidden dangers - because you are - whether from other people or the environment. 

For me personally, it plays out as a hyper-awareness of people’s facial expressions, especially when that expression changes in some way. 

I had an early caretaker who would be diagnosed today with Borderline Personality Disorder, which meant their mood was the emotional barometer in the space we shared.

When I was in this state of hypervigilance, I didn't know how to decipher the emotional shift in them - but I was acutely aware that something had shifted, and my nervous system’s threat response would send me the subconscious warning: 

There is danger here. Tread lightly.

It was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting to be constantly on emotional high-alert, but this hypervigilance instantly warned me to be more careful with my words, behaviors, and general attitude, so I didn’t exacerbate whatever chaos was poised to play out.

If I hadn’t developed this survival response, this internal warning system, I would have been more consistently blindsided by this caretaker’s erratic, shifting moods (their own set of trauma responses) - and would have experienced even more adverse stress, abuse, and tension from what was an already unpredictable, oppressive, and threatening home environment.

What’s more, In that household, I was treated as if their feelings were my fault (and to them, they were) - or at the very least, they would make their emotions my problem to fix. 

So I was trained to be an overachieving co-dependent (yay me!) and to assume that any mood change in my presence was either my fault or my responsibility to soothe.

[This part crosses over into People-Pleasing, which I’ll address in another article.]

This hypervigilance was an amazing coping skill developed out of necessity in order to survive in that household. But as an adult, this high-alert reaction was creating an environment of fear and self-criticism while also robbing me of my emotional sovereignty in the moment.

This trauma response was at the helm in a lot of my decisions.

As I began to dig into how to have more conscious control over my reaction to the world, I realized that, because of the way I had been trained, I was quick to make up stories about what was happening in people’s heads (and hearts) when their mood shifted –

I said or did something wrong.
I brought too much attention to myself.
I embarrassed them.
I failed to pick up on some unspoken request.

As a functioning adult, this is where the real damage came from because —

When there is a lack of information, we tend to fill the space with our fears and insecurities.

I wanted to find a way to break myself out of this unhealthy cycle, and it seemed to me that the pain point was in that lack of information, which led to making up stories.

So, when I was with someone (who I trusted) and sensed a mood shift, instead of letting my brain create more stories or assuming I had done something wrong, I simply asked them what they were thinking and feeling.

What I discovered was their mood change was never about me.

Never.

It took time and repetition for the truth to truly sink in: 

I was no longer a child. 
I was no longer living in an abusive environment. 
My nervous system didn't need to be on high alert anymore.

THE GIFTS OF MY HYPERVIGILANCE

I don’t think it’s hard to see how this survival response can be a superpower

Coupled with my empathic sensitivity, I think the most significant gift of my hypervigilance is that I am emotionally attuned to people around me. 

Emotional attunement is more than looking at someone or hearing their words. It means using all of the senses to understand what they're feeling, so much that you feel it too. Being able to sense, interpret and (when appropriate) respond.

This has been a great boon to me in my adult life, especially when I worked in more “traditional” business environments. I can “read a room” easily, and know when I’m connecting with an audience, when I’m “losing them”, and how to pivot with a joke, a question, or with a forwarding of the topic.

In my former life as a sign language interpreter, it meant I was particularly good at reading my deaf client’s facial nuance - which in sign language conveys extra meaning - so it gave me more integrity and accuracy in conveying my client’s sentiments as I voiced what they were signing.

When I was a story developer and writer, it meant I had a natural gift for pacing and the emotional structure of a scene, and for how to take characters through an emotional arc that was (more) organic and felt (more) believable. In comic books in particular, which is a storytelling format of juxtaposing words and images - it meant my pairings of words and pictures tended to be more emotionally impactful, whether I paired the words as a complement to the image - reinforcing an emotion - and even moreso when I paired the words as a contrast to the image - juxtaposing an emotion (because I was taught to read between the lines of what was being said). 

Knowing when and how to do this is most definitely a super-skill.

In my personal life, it means I can sense when those around me are stewing on something challenging or if they’ve fallen into a funk. This gives me more opportunities to show my support and love to the people close to me.

As a healer, it means I am particularly attuned to the emotional experience of the client. I am attuned to the tiniest microexpressions, which is vital to somatic healing work (and powerful when I couple that data with my intuition).

Do you identify with hypervigilance or emotional attunement? 

How are you using this gift?

Where once I saw these trauma responses and their origins as bad, I now embrace them (and myself) as badass.

Watch for more articles as I share my experience of other Gifts of Childhood Trauma.

In wholeness,

Sharon

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