The Sentry Who Never Sat Down: Living with Hypervigilance

You know where the exits are before you know anyone’s name. You read a face for danger long before you let yourself read it for kindness. You sit with your back to the wall; you startle at the door; you hear the sound beneath the sound — and even in a safe room, even among people who love you, some part of you stays turned outward, scanning, certain that to stop watching for even a moment is to invite in the thing you cannot survive. People tell you, so easily, to relax. They have no idea that relaxing was the one thing you were never once allowed to do.

Inside you there is a part who has been standing this watch for years. He took up his post when you were very small, because someone had to, and no one else in all the world would. He has guarded every door and every night. He has kept one eye open for so long that his exhaustion has become invisible — even, most of the time, to you. He is not your enemy.

He is one of the reasons you are alive to read these words.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. — Psalm 121:4

There is a Keeper who never tires, who can hold the long watch through the darkest part of the night. And so, gently, an inch at a time, the weary sentry can be told the truest and most merciful thing anyone has ever said to him: You may sit down now. You may set the weight down. You are not the only one keeping the door anymore.

Rest Here.