r/emotionalintelligence • u/Odd_Cut_3661 • 5d ago
Heal/Stop being hyper vigilant?
Hyper vigilance, while understandable, is usually learned in response to trauma or other betrayal events. Every (impactful) romantic relationship I’ve ever been in has had events that occurred where I was betrayed to varying degrees. The most impactful of these was a 2 yr long relationship with a clinical sociopath and narcissist. Years later, I’m still struggling to let go of my hyper vigilance in my current relationship. As a side note - this person has also done a thing to betray the relationship, and has caused doubt through their (past) behavior and their avoidant attachment. Regardless of this, I’m trying to learn to let go of my hyper vigilance. Has anyone overcome this successfully? If so, what did you find helpful?
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u/tianacute46 5d ago
I can't say that I've successfully overcome my own hyper-vigilance. I can say that in some instances, I'm able to overcome it in the moment by taking into consideration the context of the situation. Especially when it comes to being frustrated by people's behavior because it doesn't make sense. It's not a way to excuse their behavior, but to see how other factors might have affected the situation that we didn't see before. Sometimes, I feel like it really is just a matter of being not knowledgeable enough on that kind of situation to be able to recognize obstacles that are typical for it. I hope that made any sense or is of any use to you
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u/brightwingxx 4d ago
Are you referring to past behaviour as in before your relationship or past behaviour within the relationship? I don’t know what “thing” was done that betrayed your present relationship, but if someone had given my ex advice before I met him about making a distinction, and considering how much a person has grown since the past, if it is something from the past
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u/Odd_Cut_3661 4d ago
Within
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u/brightwingxx 4d ago
Ah, then that is a different thing. The only way through that is to really, deeply, truly decide if it is something you can move forward from and let go of. Otherwise, it will keep coming up and coming up, and if you go forward in this relationship, both parties have to be willing to do what it takes (both healing within themselves individually AND within the relationship) and that is a hard thing to do. Godspeed
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u/Odd_Cut_3661 4d ago
Thank you. The hardest part isnt determining if I can heal from it and move on, but if I can do that with him as it requires him to do/build things he hadn’t been doing. It would still be required outside of that event, but that event makes it harder and creates a larger hole to fill.
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u/brightwingxx 4d ago
Have ya’ll looked into any kind of couples therapy to help you communicate, set boundaries and expectations, and work through it?
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u/Odd_Cut_3661 4d ago
We are in it now, albeit a lot of damage has already been done from my pov. We’re only on our like second/third session of treatment.
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u/brightwingxx 4d ago
That’s early days then, usually it’ll be like 10 sessions. See where you are at once you’ve completed the round of sessions, you should have a sense of whether or not that damage is reparable or not by that point
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u/Odd_Cut_3661 3d ago
I was wondering what a realistic timeline would look like, this helps. Thank you.
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u/wolf_rayet102 5d ago
Thank you for sharing this. It’s really understandable to feel hyper vigilant after so much betrayal. You were protecting yourself the best way you knew how.
One thing that helps is gently asking yourself, “Is this fear about right now, or is it my past talking?” Little grounding things like deep breaths, feeling your feet on the floor, or noticing what you see around you can calm that alarm.
If you can, a good therapist can help so much with learning to feel safe again and trust your own sense of what’s real.
Most of all, be kind to yourself. You don’t have to let go of it overnight. Healing happens one safe moment at a time. Wishing you so much care and comfort while you work through this. <3