November🌙

20 y.o. / they/them / plural / autistic. I make resources and blogs about DID/OSDD as well as autism. I am currently studying at college and am an aspiring social worker and writer.

[e-november]

Introduction.

Hello, I am e-november, you can call me Domi or Tommy. I am a 20 year-old college student who aspires to become a social worker and writer. I decided to start this blog in order to contribute to my community. Here are some facts about me that could interest you:

I am non-binary and bisexual. I currently am taking HRT.

I am autistic and plural. My current special interest is psychology. I also suffer from ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease affecting the colon.

I journal everyday. Writing is one of my main ways to reflect, problem-solve and research solutions and theories. You will probably never catch me without something I can write in, may it be notebooks or electronic tools.

I am very interested in art, music and read a lot. I have a particular affection for the art nouveau genre and I mostly listen to electronic music and rap. As for reading, I am quite polyvalent in my tastes.

I love nature and everything that is calm and soothing to my nervous system. I am planning in the future to hike in the Himalayas or in the Rockies in Canada.

I am still quite new to this platform, so the blogs will increase in quality while I learn to navigate tumblr in general. Meanwhile, I can’t wait to discuss with you all. Take care!

[e-november]

There is something I hate with DID, and it’s having this vague but intense fear of some situations with no explanation in sight because of the amnesia. My brain feels like a puzzle I must put back to have the complete image of my past and heal.

[e-november]

Hypervigilance is a common symptom of many mental health disorders and social conditions. It is a physiological response of constant alertness to the threats around you and from yourself. I've had a hard time coping with this symptom in general, as it would warp all my relationships, all my perceptions of myself, others and the world. On top of all of this, I felt it was providing me safety from the actual threats I've experienced and feared experiencing; I couldn't be further from the truth. Here are a few ways you can experience hypervigilance:

You might have phobic reflexes. Every unexpected or unpredictable sensory information is perceived as a threat (a sigh, loud walking, cars or people behind you, quick movements from others, etc.). You may jump, or be extremely started and irritable. Other times, you may have extreme emotional reactions or intense dissociation. Phobic reflexes are generally responses to sensory triggers.

Your body may rarely feel relaxed. A lot of stiffness, pain and discomfort can come from keeping your body at a high stress level. At long-term, you may end up developing chronic illnesses as your body is overwhelmed with the constant arousal of fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses.

You struggle doing any task that requires your full attention or a lack of alertness to your surroundings (paperwork, sleeping, reading, etc.). Your ability to function cognitively may be affected by hypervigilance as a whole, which means you'll experience cognitive rigidity, processing disinhibition and other executive dysfunctions. (Note: these are generally partially reversible when recovering from PTSD, GAD, OCD or other disorders with hypervigilant patterns or when you are no longer in a social context which requires this level of conscience of your surroundings).

You may overanalyze what people say or what you think in order to avoid any threat. The latter is particularly common in people with OCD or with trauma around philosophical concepts. You may perceive yourself as one step away from losing control, and may expect others to lose control as well. Generally, the feeling of loss of control resides in hypervigilance itself than actually acting against your values.

You may use escapism a lot, and develop addictions, behavioral or not. This reduces the sense of being constantly threatened temporarily, but increases the hypervigilance on the long-term and worsens the issue. These are a few of the signs you experience hypervigilance as a core coping mechanism ruling your reactions to your current social context as well as the disorders you might deal with. Trauma is the common denominator of this mechanism, although PTSD and C-PTSD isn't implied by default. Since hypervigilance is your body being in constant alertness, in order to reduce it, you must reduce the physiological stress then work on the mental components of hypervigilance at the same time. I will update this blog later with a few ways you could reduce hypervigilance.

[e-november]

Here’s the update to the post. I’d recommend trying a few and mix and matching to find the right combination. Here’s the few ways you can get to calm your own body and mind:

Breathing: okay, that’s a basic one but hear me out. shallow breath and hyperventilation are some of the most bothersome effects of hypervigilance. You may never feel like you’re getting enough air in your lungs, even without asthma. Your heart may beat slightly faster too in general. Taking time to breathe deeply can drastically help reducing the physiological stress on the body. It won’t calm the mind in most cases, so you have more work to do with it. The key is to breathe out longer than you breathe in, so you actually get oxygen and not leave the carbon dioxide in your lungs. This will help you get more air, slow your heartbeat as well as relax your muscles.

Connecting with your senses: this one may remind you of the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, which was very much not useful with me. In cases of hypervigilance, you are already alert of your surroundings, so grounding yourself in your senses without something else usually won’t suffice. Here’s an alternative to that: See with all of your senses if there’s an actual, current threat. Take time to ask yourself and to answer the questions. If there is none, take time to build a sense of safety with your surroundings by surrounding and focusing on things in your surroundings which brings you calmness. This may help mentally, but you still have to work on the physical level in order to reduce hypervigilance.

Physical activity: physical activity is thought to regulate the stress levels in the body as well as the levels of many hormones, including melatonin, a hormone which promotes sleepiness. Regular physical activity reduces the stiffness, increases strength and cardiovascular health, as well as just make your quality of life better overall. Something I’d like to make clear is that you do not need to engage in sports to be active physically. I’d recommend things you can try at home or do easily: take a walk, use a bike, do physically active house chores, dance, etc. The long-term effects of physical activity is a general improvement on both mental and physical health. Engaging in physical activity can help reduce the current levels of stress. Doing a bit of physical activity each 30 minutes to 1 hour (may it be taking the stairs to somewhere, stretching or just walking to get yourself some water) can reduce general bodily stress.

Journaling: this one, I actually swear by. Journaling over the months has brought me so much good, self-awareness and self-acceptance that I cannot imagine a life without writing now. Journaling helps you process your emotions and accept them, as well as reflect about them and problem-solve. You can also note interesting things in your journal, such as songs you like, art, drawing, poems, whatever comes to mind. This is one that is more of a long-term commitment, but taking a step back and observing your thought patterns on paper can be a very enriching practice. I’d recommend also noting reflections about how to solve some of your daily struggles. I may or may not share an experience I’ve had with journaling which has made my whole life different.

Building an understanding support circle: isolation and lack of emotional safety with the others that surround you is one of the main factors which eternalizes hypervigilance. Of course, this does not apply to people in unsafe daily life situations. However, if you are in a situation where you are safe with your close ones, talking about the sense of threat you feel and knowing they’ll be able to have soothing reactions can help tremendously. This can help rebuild trust with your social surroundings.

These are some ways you can reduce hypervigilance on your own. Usually, therapy and/or medication is needed to well tackle this symptom but it may not be accessible to everyone. Some associated symptoms often need to be worked onto at the same time in order to build a sense of safety with oneself. Also, many people are stuck in unsafe situations which they cannot necessarily escape easily. In those cases, hypervigilance is an adjustment tactic and is not something to pathologize. The lack of safety is at fault in the end.

Please take good care of yourselves and h y d r a t e.

[e-november]

Hypervigilance is a common symptom of many mental health disorders and social conditions. It is a physiological response of constant alertness to the threats around you and from yourself. I've had a hard time coping with this symptom in general, as it would warp all my relationships, all my perceptions of myself, others and the world. On top of all of this, I felt it was providing me safety from the actual threats I've experienced and feared experiencing; I couldn't be further from the truth. Here are a few ways you can experience hypervigilance:

You might have phobic reflexes. Every unexpected or unpredictable sensory information is perceived as a threat (a sigh, loud walking, cars or people behind you, quick movements from others, etc.). You may jump, or be extremely started and irritable. Other times, you may have extreme emotional reactions or intense dissociation. Phobic reflexes are generally responses to sensory triggers.

Your body may rarely feel relaxed. A lot of stiffness, pain and discomfort can come from keeping your body at a high stress level. At long-term, you may end up developing chronic illnesses as your body is overwhelmed with the constant arousal of fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses.

You struggle doing any task that requires your full attention or a lack of alertness to your surroundings (paperwork, sleeping, reading, etc.). Your ability to function cognitively may be affected by hypervigilance as a whole, which means you'll experience cognitive rigidity, processing disinhibition and other executive dysfunctions. (Note: these are generally partially reversible when recovering from PTSD, GAD, OCD or other disorders with hypervigilant patterns or when you are no longer in a social context which requires this level of conscience of your surroundings).

You may overanalyze what people say or what you think in order to avoid any threat. The latter is particularly common in people with OCD or with trauma around philosophical concepts. You may perceive yourself as one step away from losing control, and may expect others to lose control as well. Generally, the feeling of loss of control resides in hypervigilance itself than actually acting against your values.

You may use escapism a lot, and develop addictions, behavioral or not. This reduces the sense of being constantly threatened temporarily, but increases the hypervigilance on the long-term and worsens the issue. These are a few of the signs you experience hypervigilance as a core coping mechanism ruling your reactions to your current social context as well as the disorders you might deal with. Trauma is the common denominator of this mechanism, although PTSD and C-PTSD isn't implied by default. Since hypervigilance is your body being in constant alertness, in order to reduce it, you must reduce the physiological stress then work on the mental components of hypervigilance at the same time. I will update this blog later with a few ways you could reduce hypervigilance.