How To Heal Hypervigilance From Parents’ Creepy S＊x Behaviors

Some people are utterly unsure what is acceptable to say or do in front of their children when parents behave without boundaries — parading around naked, flying into rages, getting overly emotional, bragging about sexual encounters. That kind of environment repeatedly frightens kids, raises the risk of complex PTSD, and can steal their basic sense of safety in the world. Today’s letter comes from a woman I’ll call Bella. She writes: Dear Anna — I have CPTSD from my father, who was a loud, abusive, hateful monster. As the oldest and the only girl among three children, I became his favorite punching bag. He’d grown up with only sisters and was fed up with little girls. My presence also pushed my mother into the traditional mother role instead of remaining his girlfriend. Her resentment toward me showed differently — I was her chosen target in another way. She was the enabling “pick-me” who had grown up with brothers and didn’t know how to relate to a little girl except by gossiping and humiliating me in vicious ways. Alright — I’ll mark a few things to come back to on a second read, but here’s what she shares about her life.
Bella remembers her father’s crude, sexist locker-room jokes and his hidden stash of porn magazines, which my brothers and the neighborhood boys would get hold of. My mother’s behavior repulsed me too: she took refuge in extreme fitness and bodybuilding to escape a screaming, abusive husband and three tormented children, shrinking from a size 14 to a 2. She went through an exhibitionist phase of skintight workout clothes and even took side gigs as a nude figure model for college art classes. She once showed a drawing my father had made of her to me at 12 and to my 10-year-old brother — that was disgusting, says Bella. My parents split when I was 14; I begged her to leave after several episodes of his physical and verbal abuse. I thought I’d finally be free, breathe, and reinvent myself after years of survival mode, but as a nasty surprise she kept sending me back to him every other weekend under the custody arrangement she’d agreed to — an arrangement I certainly never wanted. I would have been relieved to put him behind me and move on, but he had visitation rights and she wanted a single life.
This was thirty years ago. I’m about to turn 45, and the wounds that persist are: one, hypervigilance — a constant sense that danger could appear any moment, a tightening that keeps you from ever truly letting your guard down. Every day I brace for conflict even when none exists; I see everyone as a potential threat until they prove otherwise. Two, jealousy — I feel threatened by even the smallest perceived intrusion from another woman, sometimes triggered by an explicit scene in a movie or TV show. Three, reclusiveness — I’m too lonely for my own good, and I know it. If my boyfriend didn’t take me to the state parks around here, I’d never have discovered they existed. Even though this letter is relatively short compared to many I receive, the depths of my nightmares could fill a book; they already fill many diaries from my younger years. This is the source and the remaining scars. Please tell me what I can do to move past this. Thank you so much.
Bella — this sounds horrific, and I’m glad you reached out. There’s a term my friend the therapist/YouTuber uses for parents who are sexually inappropriate around their kids: “sexually off.” Leaving porn around, walking about naked, showing explicit drawings — those things violate a child’s natural sense of boundary. Children carry certain lines they don’t want crossed, things they’re too young to see; when parents break those lines it creates a confusing, damaging wound. Sexual misconduct in the family tends to scatter your emotional and spiritual life as well as harm the nervous system in ways other abuses might not. The image of your dad’s crude jokes and hidden porn is sadly familiar to many; it’s horrifying to imagine being a child in that home. That sense of tightness and alertness you describe — hypervigilance — is an understandable, protective response when the danger was a constant presence. Your mother’s exhibitionism added another layer of disgust and confusion. You hoped for peace when he was away, and you expected your mother to protect you, but she prioritized her desire for a different life and sent you back to him despite the abuse. That left you with these ongoing patterns.
You’ve named the three main wounds clearly: hypervigilance, jealousy, and isolation. Those are common after trauma. When you ask what to do, here’s a practical way to think about it: you’re 45 now, and the vividness of your writing makes it feel like it’s still happening — which means the past is still shaping your present, and it’s time to heal. People fresh out of the family home sometimes have less distance to work with, but decades away from that environment should allow you to build your own life and take care of your mental health. Therapy is an obvious resource that can help with all three of the symptoms you described. Beyond that, one of the most useful shifts I’ve seen in people who recover is when they stop living in the story of what happened and start focusing on what’s happening for them right now. In groups for families affected by dysfunction, addiction, and sexual boundary violations, the folks who made the most progress stopped centering the past and began acting on present symptoms: what reactions show up today, where they are avoiding responsibility or taking on too much, and what they worry about that they cannot control.
Your parents’ behavior centered their own needs — that narcissistic focus can leave a child feeling abandoned and used — and that was very damaging. But you’re here now, and the work is about the present: learning to manage the physiological and emotional responses that still get triggered. A practical method is to shift attention from recounting the story to managing today’s symptoms. Ask: how can I change my reaction in this moment? How can I notice and name what I’m feeling and what boundary I need to set? What small steps build safety now? When you begin to stabilize the present, many of the older problems begin to loosen their hold. Some deeper wounds will still need targeted work, but gaining regulation, steadiness, and awareness lets you see your part in relationship patterns — not to blame yourself, but to notice behaviors that keep you stuck, like chronic avoidance.
Avoidance is a common but tragic coping strategy: isolating to feel safer in the short term, then never coming back out to live fully. Healing aims for sturdiness: loving without constant jealousy, perceiving deception without being constantly fearful, speaking up, and holding clear boundaries. To reach those outcomes, start with symptom work. Pull your attention off the parents when you can — you don’t have to keep tending old wounds forever. It’s your time to heal and to become the person you can be now. That doesn’t mean suppressing feelings. Feelings need processing, not stuffing. Trauma in childhood often makes it harder to convert a charged, adrenaline-fueled recollection into a calmer memory. Instead of a harmless memory, the image or thought still triggers a full-body alarm. That wears on the nervous system and clouds your ability to respond to the present.
Processing means allowing charged experiences to settle into memory so they no longer provoke panic. Several practical aids speed that work: physical exercise; getting outside every day; moving with a friend when possible — all help the body discharge activation. Good sleep and regular expressive practices are crucial too. Many people default to unloading everything on a partner, which can overwhelm relationships and create unrealistic expectations that someone else can “fix” the pain. A sustainable habit is to use a structured daily practice: a specific writing exercise followed by a short, simple meditation to calm the mind. That combination lets you name anxious and angry thoughts, put them on paper, create separation from them, and then rest. It’s not about abandoning feelings but about handling them more productively so your nervous system can settle. Think of it as emptying a cluttered room into the yard to sort, donate, and throw away — only then can you decide what to bring back in.
I teach a precise version of this daily practice in a free online course and in detail in my book Re-Regulated: Set Your Life Free from Childhood PTSD and the Trauma-Driven Behaviors That Keep You Stuck. Chapter three lays out how to name, express, and release anxious and angry thoughts, and how to follow that writing with a restful practice to make the work sustainable. The daily practice is a lifestyle — it’s been the cornerstone of my own healing for thirty years. In addition to the course, there are regular group calls (they’re on Zoom every couple of weeks) where people can get support; when you take the course you’ll be invited to those sessions. There’s also a membership option I offer that bundles courses on connection, relationships, trauma recovery, and dysregulation; members attend webinars and group coaching, and there’s a private community where the group culture supports present-focused work and boundary learning. People in that community quickly learn to bring the focus back to the present: what’s happening now and what concrete steps help. That’s how the old wounds start to loosen — by practicing new responses, gaining neutrality around triggers, and slowly building inner strength.
So start by shifting attention to what you can influence today. Use movement, sleep, and an expressive ritual like the daily writing-plus-meditation to process the charged memories. Work with a therapist if that feels right. Practice setting and voicing boundaries in small ways. Engage with supportive groups or programs that emphasize present symptoms and daily tools. Over time, the nervous-system reactivity calms, jealousy dims, social withdrawal lifts, and you begin to reclaim safety and connection. If you try the daily practice course, you can also join the Zoom calls and the community supports — and you’ll find guidance for making steady progress. I hope you take that time for yourself; you deserve to heal and to live with more ease. I’ll see you very soon.