Moving from hyper-vigilance to ordinary vigilance is one critical expression of the ability to trust. In fact, it is the path for making one’s multiplicity workable in everyday life. I believe it is actually more important and a better marker of the healing process than whether there are more or less alters, whether there is some, none, or so-called complete integration.
There is a very good reason that those with DID show hyper-vigilance. DID arises from the destruction of a child’s experience of safety. For those who have not experienced ongoing terrifying early childhood abuse, the ordinary ups and downs of life usually involve being taken by surprise sometimes. Except in cases of accidents, it is usually without terrible continuing consequences. As a child who is not in an abusive situation, you are usually comforted by an adult who is a reasonably trusted reference point. In effect, you are taught to learn from your mistakes. With guidance of that adult, you learn to pay attention to the risks you encounter in everyday living and how to navigate them ever more safely.
Contrast this with a child caught in terrifying and inescapable intentional abuse. The consequences of missing the start of a cycle of abuse are horrific. There is not and likely was never an adult in the situation that was a safe trusted reference point to comfort you. Usually, it is the exact opposite. The adult reference point in that situation is specifically the completely unsafe abuser. There is no one to teach you to learn from your mistakes except that abuser, and the teaching they give is that abuse will happen without notice, without an avenue of escape, and will continue to occur when you are least able to protect yourself from the risk. Of course hyper-vigilance by that child is a necessary consequence.
People understand the hyper-vigilance of a soldier on patrol in enemy territory. Why? Because everyone knows it is a life or death matter to miss even the slightest hint of danger.
What most people don’t understand is that those with DID grew up in enemy territory. Their world was such that missing that slightest hint of danger, or not complying with the demands telegraphed by those hints from the abuser, meant that the abuse cycle could roar into action in a heartbeat.
As I have written many times before, the solution is not to attack the hyper-vigilance as bad. Rather, it is to begin by acknowledging the importance of that hyper-vigilance to the child’s survival. Then, the path of healing moves toward dialing down the hyper-vigilance to more ordinary levels of vigilance. This limits the risk and depth of re-traumitzation while maintaining a needed protection that everyone, with or without DID, must have. Step by small step, important progress can be made
As a result of hyper-vigilance, one might never feel safe crossing a road because a car could come out of nowhere at 100 mph and hit you. Even if you look both ways again and again, you might miss it because it could come so quickly while your head is momentarily turned. This is hyper-vigilance seeking to protect you by paralysis. If you don’t move off the curb, you will not get hit by a car careening out of nowhere at 100 mph.
At the same time, you must be vigilant to look both ways before you cross a road because there are indeed cars that might be coming.
But how vigilant should one be. Again, the therapeutic intention should be to dial down the hyper-vigilance based on the current present circumstances, not the abusive past. Hyper-vigilance should be maintained if you are in a wartime situation, because that is warranted by the present dangers. Back to crossing the street near your home, less intense vigilance is needed when crossing a street at a crosswalk and walking when the signs say it is ok. Look both ways, and go across.
But, if right turns are permitted on red lights, then a bit more vigilance is required. One always has to look to the left and right when crossing at a crosswalk, but you have to also look a bit to the left and behind to make sure no one is making a right turn into you because they are in a hurry and not paying attention to you in the crosswalk.
Once again, the idea is to empower individuals with DID to re-engage the spectrum of their capacities for vigilance, not freeze or diminish them.
As one gains confidence in appropriate vigilance, then trust in oneself and the environment increases accordingly. While triggers will still exist and perhaps engender flashbacks, the ability to correct the level of vigilance to the present circumstances will help diminish the power of those flashbacks.
The result, the goal, is to bring together vigilance and trust as to oneself as well as the environment. It is possible. It is a healing in and of itself that can allow you, step by step, to re-learn how to safely engage the world.
Best wishes
