Understanding Hypervigilance And Anxiety In Relationships

Hypervigilance refers to the heightened state of awareness, being overly alert of your surroundings, and scanning for threats and danger. 

Being vigilant is necessary to keep us safe - but hypervigilant means you are always on overdrive, fear, hyper-arousal, and anxiety (fight/flight). This is usually a response to trauma. 

Generally this can look like being easily startled, being on high alert when you're outside, being jumpy, and overall on edge. Today, I’m going to speak more about hypervigilance and anxiety in relationships, which looks a little different. 

I will share what it looks like in relationships specifically and then later on the why. 

Signs and what it looks like:

• Monitoring other peoples mood, tone, behavior, and/or reactions

• Being very sensitive to tone shifts and mood shifts, usually personalizing that the reason is because of something you did

• Overanalyzing conversations and interactions

• Scanning peoples facial expressions for information to let you know how they feel about you or what they are thinking

• Hyper-attuned to peoples body language

• Over-apologizing

• Always wondering when the other shoe will drop, expecting the worst case will happen

• Fearing and worrying that someone is going to reject you or leave you

• Anxiety, fear, overwhelm, panic

• Difficulty trusting other people or that things will be okay

• High need for control and trouble relaxing

• Asking for constant reassurance from others that they aren't mad at you or upset in general

• Asking for reassurance that people are okay

• Racing thoughts and increased heart rate

• Over-explaining yourself

This anxiety in relationships can come from relational trauma, attachment issues, and some other ways you may have been raised growing up. Here are some causes:

• Parents or caregivers that were emotionally unstable, reactive, frequently dysregulated, or hypercritical

• Caregivers who gave the silent treatment or were passive aggressive

• Caregivers or family members who struggled with mental health & substance use and were unpredictable

• Caregiving that appeared one way in public, one way at home 

• Having to walk on eggshells for other reasons at home 

• Deep fears of abandonment from experiencing relational trauma (death of a loved one, divorce, someone leaving you)

• Witnessing or being in an emotionally abusive or toxic relationship

• Betrayal trauma - having a partner cheat, leave, or do something betraying to the relationships

• Anxious attachment to caregiver when you grew up

How does this work?

If you had a caregiver who would make you walk on eggshells, be mad at you without explaining why, have an unpredictable caregiver who would switch up on you out of nowhere, have a caregiver who was highly reactive and hypercritical (or any of the above)...

You had to learn how to be responsible for their emotional state of being and how to read them to detect the threat and keep yourself safe. You had to watch for their shifts in behavior to even know what was happening. And outside of just having to be on alert to see what was coming, you probably had to shift YOUR behavior to keep them happy or to keep you safe.

This is how hypervigilance works - at the time of all of this, you developed this overactive anxiety to get by and to minimize the issue. Or after experiencing a trauma, you developed this way of being. Now in the present moment it’s hard to turn this off, this response is still engrained in you trying to keep you safe, despite the lack of threat and danger. Now any relationship can trigger this and it may just be your state of being.

Now what?

If you relate, you are not alone and its okay you can work through it! It just takes intentional work. It takes learning how to relax, calm your nervous system, and eventually trust that things will be okay and that people who are healthy will tell you when they are mad and that they mean what they say.

If you would like to work together on this or any relational trauma:
Email alyssakushnerlcsw@gmail.com or schedule a free 15 min phone call. Follow my instagram page for more learning, tools, and inspiration.