I have heard veterans say that they can pick out other veterans of armed conflict because of their thousand yard stare . It is a deep stare or gaze that is not focused on any particular thing. But its born from the trauma and severe mental stress of combat. Having an anxiety disorder is nowhere near like experiencing combat, its not even the same sport, but anxiety can cause you to stare blankly without any thought or purpose.
It happens to me a lot at work or even when people are talking to me. I get this glazed look in my eyes (I’ve been told) and I don’t seem to hear anyone. It is an empty feeling of staring off into nothingness. When this happens I mentally check out and there is seemingly no brain activity until I catch myself doing it and return to earth. It doesn’t happen that frequently but when it does I get a series of them in short amount of time.
Every now and then it makes me somewhat upset because it distracts me from whatever I’m doing. After all when its happening there is nothing happening. I can’t reconnect with the world for several seconds at a time. I never really thought of my anxiety gaze as a symptom but I’m certain that it’s related to my high levels of stress.
I believe that its because of the mild to moderate trauma of constant worry and anxiety on our nervous system. Its a tired mind trying to slog its way through all the anxiety clad and convoluted thought patterns. It is difficult to say with certainty but that is my theory on this particular issue. Or perhaps this is specific to only a few and there are not many out there with the same occurrence of blank staring. Do you stare off into nothing on a regular basis? What do you think is behind your anxiety gaze?
The gaze is related to anxiety. When you get anxious, you pump out adrenaline, you breath faster, your muscles tense, you sweat to cool yourself down and certain senses are heightened some minor bodily functions may stop working to conserve energy. In my case my hearing becomes extremely sensitive and my eyes seem to loose a bit of focus and stare into oblivion. I have the same problem, I asked my psychiatrist about it and she told me what it was.
I think I may have only experienced this once. I say “I think” because it only happened once and it may or may not be what you are talking about.
It was my first ever anxiety attack. I was 12, in P.E. playing dodgeball and I suddenly woke up standing next to a wall while everybody was still playing dodgeball. I woke up not remembering what happened at all. In fact, the last image I remember before waking up was a thought of a cat in a big grey or black space chasing an orange ball and I remember interpreting that thought as the beginning of life. Anyway, I woke up and was scared out of my life. I couldn’t (and still can’t) remember what happened before that, IDK how long I was in that state for, and am still amazed at how I was not eliminated from the dodgeball game (lol). I was also surprised nobody noticed. I guess that was my first, and hopefully only, “anxiety gaze.” It was 7 years ago.
I think of this phenomenon as meditation, a way of stepping back from the anxiety and gaining some relief.
that happens to me ALOT. usually in class i would just cut off and wouldnt blink i just stared and i wouldnt be THERE. and when i realised i was doing it id try to snap back to being focused but usually its hard and before then the teacher yells at me
OMG, I am so releaved to hear the what I have been experiencing for YEARS is my anxiety and panic disorder and not something worse. My anxiety started at the age 4 due to a traumatic event and has taken over my whole life. Kept me from being a good student and being able to attend college. My mind would go blank so many times in class that it was hard for me to follow along. Finally I got diagnosed with GAD, Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the age of 25. I am now 44 and under so much pressure and stress that my syptoms are back. My forgetfulness is making my husband angry with me. He just is not understanding or compassionate to my illness. This makes it worse because the harder I try to remember the more I forget day to day conversations with him or things around the house. Thanks everyone for sharing your stories, it made me realize I am okay and that I need to just let it go.
Kimber
When I read the main author’s description, the first thing I thought was Elm, as in, the Bach Flower Remedy.
Dietmar Kramer writes extensively about it in his book, “New Bach Flower Therapies” (best book on Bach Flower Remedies I’ve ever read, by the way).
Another commenter was talking about PTSD/Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which I agree also seems to reflect some of the main author’s description. Mr. Kramer wrote about the remedy called Pine in relation to PTSD in the same book, if I’m not mistaken.
The material on those two flowers may make for some very useful reading if you think one or both of those may apply to you. And if you think a shock experience (like a concussion) may be connected to your condition, I absolutely implore you to get hold of the book and read up on Star of Bethlehem. You’ll be glad you did.
– Terry
This is very interesting. Like Kimber i too suffered from stress at school …and home too due to dads own various stress disorders. I was absent in mind so often during lessons , partly due to boredom i think but also anxiety due to not understanding esp. maths . My mind went blank when i had tests and i could feel the fear rising whenever i felt threatened by learning something . My whole life has been dominated by stress/anxiety,,i am 54 . Now my ability to remember conversations or things ive read or seen on tv or learn new stuff academically is stunted.
Yes. I’ve had severe anxiety for over a year now – depression to boot. I find myself just sitting like a blob – frozen and not being able to do something – because my body has been in this situtation for so long. I also can’t sleep either.
I do stare off into space – and can go very far back into my thoughts – in relation to worry, obsessing and such. I just get caught up in that – how i feel, what am i feeling, i feel off today, the worries go on – and I just get mentally exhausted from it.
My experience is somewhat different from the rest of your explanations. I have found myself just fazing out of the situation, even if it is just watching TV, and staring beyond what is in front of me, like something might be going on inside of the mountain I’m gazing through, plus it becomes polymorphous. That is the most rational description I can provide. I have found this to be extremely problematic because I live in an area which does not have public transportation and the closest stores or doctors are 25 miles away.
I have started to experience something very similar to what you all are saying here. My vision gets stuck on anything for a few seconds, like i feel the urge to look into nothingness for a few seconds. It is an uncontrolled gaze or a stare into space of nothingness. Sometimes it makes my vision go cross eyed or maybe i make my vision cross eyed in order to feel relief from it. Maybe anyone can answer me is it anxiety/ stress/ depression or something else. Really worried
I have experienced this behavior for quite some time. I will just stare into space, at whatever is in front of me. Sometimes I might be in an odd place, such as sitting on the closet floor sorting thru old clothes, and I simply stop what I’m doing and gaze at nothing. It can last moments or minutes. I can’t even say that I’m thinking about anything, it’s like a state of just existing. My husband has discovered me like this, and it’s hard to make him understand what’s going on. Personally, I believe that it’s my brain’s response to a perceived overload. Most times the task I’ve been doing isn’t difficult, but it’s large and daunting. It’s almost like my brain needs a break to recharge and refocus. It happens at work when I’m faced with many various tasks which all need to be done at once. My typical efficiency comes to a screeching halt.
I had my first ‘anxiety attack’ when I was 16 years old, and I feel that was when this all started. I’m almost 50 now and it has not improved. I have never discussed this with a therapist, but it helps to know other people go thru the same thing. I am hoping it will improve once I retire and can hopefully have more control over the demands on my time.
I have experienced this for a few months now, since my first anxiety attack its just put me in major distress thinking theres something wrong with me, the occasional tense feeling in the left side of my head doesnt help either. Keep feeling the need to get an MRI done.. Anyone else experience weird headaches in the same area?
Tapgal- I’ve felt the same exact way for quite a while. It was brought on by stress which caused moderate depression and anxiety. I’m 38 now and have been dealing with it for at least 10 years. I believe it is also a way for my brain to step back from commotion and stresses of life. I made a huge effort to de-stress my life by switching jobs, dropping out of my MBA program, and selling off rental properties and a side business but the problem still exists. My doctor recommended medication but I turned it down at the time. I don’t want to keep feeling this way so I’ll probably give the anxiety meds a try. Hopefully anybody else out there dealing with the same issues will seek help because so far reading books and living a less stressful life hasn’t reduced any of my symptoms.
plz… can you interview and psychologist about this issue… ive seen mental patients stare like this.. and ive done it when i was a teenager.. should i worry about this?? is it bad?
that patient had memory issues and severe schizophrenia…
sorry for my bad english
Im not a veteran I’m a sixth grader and I do it
This didn’t start happening until my baby father and his sister tryed to kill me and the got temp cusduty of the child and my child was removed from me but I know I do it when someone is talking my head off or when I’m on the train or around a lot of ppl before it was scary but now I feel I’m coming back more to reality
If staring into space is seen as a problem, it will certainly cause anxiety. Staring into space for hours, days and weeks is not considered problematic for writers, artists, poets, musicians, philosophers, thinkers and other creative types; they are utilizing their minds for creative purposes. Children too, as they haven’t yet been taught to look everywhere but inside for gratification. But if others see it as interfering with raising kids, or a career, or with THEIR version of what’s acceptable – then according to them, you have a problem. But what do YOU think? What if it isn’t a problem at all? What if it’s an attempt to connect to that place all children have direct access to and most adults have forgotten exists – the intelligent, uniquely creative YOU buried underneath the person you became in order to fit into society’s very limited definition of ‘normal.’
Whenever I put my symptoms into google I end up on a veteran’s mental health site somehow. I was never in combat, but I am a refugee, or was, about 20 years ago. I think I would’ve been fine if other things didn’t re traumatize me later. I’m so thankful to the veterans who explain themselves so well online because you’ve helped me a lot to understand that I’m not alone. It is too easy for people to make comparisons like “my pain is worse than your pain.” But I suspect that since there are more people who have PTSD but haven’t been in combat, it must be hard for veterans to talk about these things, without the “rest of us” butting in.
I think people who have been in war zones have a different view on life. It’s like religion. When you’re young, you go to church because mom makes you, you learn the rules and the hymns by rote and you cringe when they tell you the gory bits. After you have some life experiences (read: painful disappointments), you either discard it all, or you take comfort int he idea that an all powerful being may be able to intercede in your life — because you realize how random life is and how helpless you are in dangerous situations.
I’ve noticed that for me, the deer in headlights look happens when I’ve had a trigger of an internal alarm system. Something telling me to watch out for something. Maybe I sensed that the banker was lying to me, so I won’t get the investment today but tell him I’ll call back. It wasn’t a conscious sense, just a feeling of sand moving under my feet, like when the tide comes in at the beach. I can’t say why but I know if my eyes glaze, I am not trusting this person.
Sometimes I can identify what I am thinking. Usually a negative litany of self protective warnings, or I’m on some level recounting to myself what event happened in the past and what I learned from it. But it’s a tape that won’t shut off. There is no stop button. No “enough already.” And I imagine for combat veterans, no “but I’m a civilian now.”
I used to try and avoid contact with negative people and abusive people but now I see it as a percentage.. some people have 0.01% evil in them, others more. The ones with negativity and rage issues are like me, just not well controlled. They are the ones who see reality for the cesspit it is. The raging ones are the ones who have honor and morality in them and are frustrated by how hard it is to do that today.
But the more I withdrew, the more time I had to obsess over it, to google things like “keto for cancer” and get angry for a whole day because my family member didn’t have a chance to try that before dying. Angry at the way information is controlled, and the people who die because of it. Angry when I see online people who could’ve got war reparations for my grandfather, but he is already dead, and I replay the story of how he fled Stalin’s pogrom. If I stumble on such a foundation online, I’m done thinking straight for the day. That kind of thing can take away even more of my life.
I’m just on the point of deciding I’ll never be “normal.” So I may as well approximate it as well as I can. The stare thing happens when I try to be socially acceptable when in reality my mind is replaying in the background the horrors of the past, and warning me how to avoid them in the future. I might say to myself, “this one person isn’t he cause of X, nor do they want to hear about it” and tune out. But if they triggered self protection at all, then I delay completing contracts etc for a day to think them over again when I calm down. Several times I had an instinct something was fishy and I didn’t know why, and this instinct saved me.
I hope that helps you a bit. I’m actually looking for a name for this complex of anxiety and ptsd (intermittent catatonia?) that I’ve been experiencing. So please share if anything has helped you with it. I’d like to know. Thanks.
There are certain times that I “stare out into space” as it appears to others. For me, there are 2 types of “staring out into space.” The first is just flat out daydreaming. The second is misconceived as that but really it is being humble and respectful and just listening to what someone else has to say. I have been brought into the bosses’ office and reprimanded for things, and sometimes when they were going off on me I would just stare at the desk in front of me, on purpose. And they would say, are you listening to me? Are you in some far off land? And I would say no, I am listening very intently and I take this very seriously, so I am focusing my ears on your words.
I have the same issue. Relieved to know it’s nothing uncommon and much unhealthy. However I’d like to decrease it’s occurrence as it’s too often with me! Any clues?
This has always happened me every since I was a child. I have had a lot of trauma in my life and I wonder if this has something to do with it. I just start staring and sometimes be stuck that way for a good 10 ,15 minutes..
I have the same problem. Thank you, everyone, for your support in this difficult time. I read all the comments and that really describes me. Now I know i’m not alone, I understand more clearly what is happening to me.
* And playing sports may help you feel better, try it.
All the best.
P/s : Sorry for my bad English
Glad I located this site and saw the experiences of my fellow sufferers. I’m 66 and under constant stress & my anxiety gaze can go on for long periods unless I snap out of it, which fortunately I’m still able to do. What worries me is as I age further will I always be able to come out of it and if I cannot what happens ?
Also my mom had a similar affliction & my heart used to go out to her plight, especially I could do nothing about it. So is this condition genetic at some level ?
Knowing there are other unfortunates like me does not alleviate my condition & does not give any comfort.
I find my self in conversations , everything goes blank , and realize that i have been staring at a person for an extended time , I do not know how long, this only happens in conversations , it does not matter it is a male or female. this problem is not all the time , but in the past 10 years it has happen about 6 times that I can remember. does anybody know where someone can find answers .
Thank you to all who posted their stories. Bottom line if you are not hurting yourself or others Stop trying so hard to figure it out.
It only causes more anxiety and even guilt. Recognize and accept you.