If you are experiencing posttraumatic stress and are watchful, alert, awake, and picking up sights and sounds all around, you might find yourself more in touch with feelings that we currently cannot explain. We have been trained to use our logical minds and to disregard such things as premonitions. That's good, and it's generally how we learn to function in our society. Still, you can have premonitions or feelings that lead you in directions that might not be entirely logical. The overall environment is huge, and it is intensely disrespectful to minimize or to manipulate with cliches, that which we do not currently understand.

      We have words like spirit, belief, knowing, sensing, precognition, vibes, a list that can go on and on. These words or words like them exist in languages worldwide, often with meanings that aren't necessarily correlative in different cultures.

      Often we are not quite certain how to classify the information that we filter through the lenses of such terminology. Some of it is simply bizarre, some might feel accurate but we'll never know for sure, or perhaps some of it is quite accurate but we don't yet understand how we acquired the knowledge in the first place. At times we have inadvertently noticed complex and understated communication. And there are complicated properties and laws in the physical world.

      Hypervigilance seems to ensure that you pick up some of this information even though you might be unaware of doing so at the time. When one's environment offers information, this can be sensed. This is normal for everyone but might be more intense for the hypervigilant individual.

      An individual experiencing symptoms can feel isolated. A feeling of isolation is a barrier to belonging. Unfortunately, it's up to the person who is feeling distanced to determine, define and dismantle the illusion of a barrier. It is an illusion. The feeling of isolation, though, is not.

      Part of the healing process, then, is to integrate oneself with one's environment. There are times when accomplishing this might seem insurmountable, and there are times when it might seem to be the most natural thing in the world. The backing-away-from may happen more frequently than the mingling-with, although during the recovery process boundaries can and do change. Experiencing posttraumatic stress seems to highlight separation rather than unity.

      Consequently, now and then, making a deliberate effort to be social can be beneficial. This might take several attempts as well as perseverance. One's life might quite naturally take a direction toward keeping to quieter surroundings. The part that functions in society might not be quite the same as it was before the trauma. There might be more caution.

      Participation in groups that have personal meaning can help.