Still having trouble understanding this

[Lyn89]

I don't want to doubt what my old therapist told me, but it's really hard not to when what you experience doesn't seem like what they told you you had. My therapist told me I had hypervigilance which I do on some level, but I'm really not sure I can chalk it all up to just that. For instance, one of my first anxiety symptoms was walking along and suddenly feeling like my legs weren't there--like o was just floating and wasn't in control of my legs. I told her this and she said I was just being hypervigilant and thinking about something which is usually natural and automatic. I do this a lot with other things like breathing or seeing. If I think about it, it starts to feel strange. I get the same thing with my right hand sometimes. Like I will do something with my right hand and I'll suddenly notice I didn't think about it or didn't concentrate on every part of that movement so it starts to feel weird and I get freaked out that I'm not in control. Sometimes my vision also sharpens, especially when I've had a stressful time but I think this might be adrenaline. I know I've asked something similar before but as far as I know, hypervigilance is scanning your environment for threats. I feel like I'm constantly scanning myself and my body and over thinking things which makes them feel weird or strange. Like when you look at a word for too long and it starts to look weird or not make sense. That's what it feels like. I guess what reassures me slightly is that I only get these weird feelings or sensations in my body when I'm thinking or worrying about it. I never notice them out of the blue and they never just appear on their own. Anyone agree with my therapist or is this something else?

[StrayWookie]

Hypervigilance in a health/anxiety sense is used for the constant scanning of your physiological sensations. Did that breath feel right? Is my heart normal? What was that twinge? I felt a rattle in my left lung etc etc etc. Though it can be used for external triggers, it is mostly the internalisation that anxiety sufferers experience. I do it constantly myself. Not with the same feelings that you experience, as mine is all heart/breath related.

[Oosh]

Self monitoring.
Hyper vigilance.
They're both anxiously focusing on something.
Anxiously focusing on your environment.
Anxiously focusing on yourself.

I'm hyper vigilant and I can self monitor but I tend to self monitor socially whereas you and the health anxiety sufferers seem to self monitor physically.
Maybe that indicates where our different fears/weaknesses/issues lie.

Being shy I've always had issues with social worth. So I question, analyse, monitor it.

Health anxiety sufferers fears seem to be obviously regarding their health.

I can't think of any productive reason why you'd want/need to focus on your legs walking. It's automatic, if you don't do it your legs will still walk, just like breathing and blinking and all the other things controlled by your nervous system.
But I suppose if you have a tendency to anxiously focus like that you can focus on anything. Like you say, a common "normal" one is focusing on a word too much. It just shows you that if you think of something too much it stops becoming natural.

I've said it many times on here, it's important to keep your focus on external things. Work, health goals, improving yourself, boyfriends/girlfriends, diet, future goals, humour, hobbies, interests etc

You need to keep your consciousness there and start to notice when you turn your focus in on yourself and see how futile and unproductive it is and put your focus back on external things.

It's a bad habit. You can start to do it, observe youre doing it and then just become a bit obsessed with it. You don't realise but you've shifted your focus onto this subject ALL of the time and feel like it's how you are.

When you're in a state it's hard to picture being in another state so you are just sort of stuck in that state.
It's not until you get back into that other externally focused, enjoying state of mind that you realise you had gotten yourself trapped in that particular state.

It's like depressed people saying they can't imagine or even remember feeling good when they're depressed.

You're in this state of mind and don't really realise what you're doing until you're able to step outside and observe that anxious, self monitoring state you've been in. Only then can you go "weird, I've been doing THIS".

It's easy to become trapped in states.

It's even harder when you only have your own thoughts for company.

Control your focus.
Notice when you're focusing on futile, unproductive internal things.
Focus on external things that make you feel other more enjoyable things.
It's a habit you'll break.

[Lyn89]

Thank you both for the amazing replies-- it's good to get a different perspective and reassurance that I'm not alone with these silly things