Overloaded: too many templates
Brain stored too many threat templates from early experience. Almost anything can match. Constantly scanning. False positives everywhere.
CPTSD · BPD · anxiety · hypervigilance
Misfiring: generating false signals
Pattern recognition fires WITHOUT a real trigger. The brain generates threats that aren't there. No external input required. The signal source itself is broken, not just overloaded.
Schizophrenia · psychosis · paranoid disorders
Blunted: misses real signals
Threat templates don't activate when they should. Social cues that register as dangerous for most people don't land. Misreads the room in the opposite direction.
ASPD · autism (social cues specifically)
Specific: narrow but intense templates
Not everything triggers it. But when the specific learned pattern shows up: rejection, exposure, abandonment: the system responds as if life is on the line.
NPD · BPD · attachment disorders