Building a Sense of Safety

Before starting the main bulk of my trauma therapy, I had to undertake a Safety and Stabilisation programme.

The idea is that before you focus on the root of your problems and process traumatic memories, you develop skills to manage your post traumatic symptoms and any other difficulties you may be facing in the present to enable you to be a strong and stable enough place to embark on the main processing phase.

I previously attempted trauma therapy without doing any safety and stabilisation work and it was a complete disaster, causing my condition to deteriorate further, so I suppose you could say that I learnt the hard way just how essential this phase of the treatment is.

The good thing is, you don't have to see a therapist to start developing safety and stabilisation skills.  There are plenty of things you can pick up yourself to help make your life feel more manageable.

I am going to write a series of blog posts sharing some things I learnt on my therapy programme in the hope that it may offer some ideas that you may want to try to implement in your own life.

Safety and stabilisation skills are important in managing a number of mental health problems.

Feeling safe is also a pretty essential part of life in general so these blog posts may be useful in a broader sense.

How can I feel safe when I don't know what safe is?

This is something that I struggled with for quite a while.  Perhaps to other people this sounds slightly unrelatable but in the past when I've been asked whether I felt safe, I honestly didn't know because I didn't feel I even knew what safe was.  As troubling as it may sound, I felt as though I had never experienced much safety throughout my life so it was almost as though safety was a concept that was completely lost to me.  Strangely enough, it was only when I was put in a psychiatric ward and placed on full observation that for the first time in my life, I felt as though I had some understanding or experience of what safe is.  It was a situation that I would never want to go back to but when I was sat in that room with someone watching me the whole time, as intrusive as it felt, I came to the realisation that I couldn't do anything to harm and no one could get me.  In this sense, as awful as it was, the experience gave me some idea as to what safety entails.

My reason for sharing this - I have a strong inkling that I'm not the only person out there who struggles to understand the concept of safety and if that's you, what I have to say is, don't panic!  Sometimes it can help to try and build an understanding of safety by thinking about what it is not.  In theology and philosophy I believe they call this way of thinking via negativa but that's a whole other story.  What I mean is... safety is not feeling under threat, safety is not feeling as though you can't trust yourself or others and safety is not feeling as though you could hurt yourself or others.  Ruling out what safety isn't doesn't necessarily bring you and closer to understanding safety itself but it would certainly help to identify situations in which you are not safe or protected and could help you to address them.

My main point is, don't worry if you don't feel you have much experience of safety, you can come across it along the way just by living life.

Whenever you come across an experience in which you think you might have felt safe, the thing to do is build upon it, think about the aspects that made it safe and try to recreate it for yourself.

A Safe/Positive Place

One way to build a sense of safety is to think of a place where you feel most safe - this could be real or imagined.

Originally, I found it quite difficult to think of a place I associated with safety so my psychologist suggested I try to think of a place where I feel most positive.  Safety can mean different things to different people.  I've discovered that for me, feeling safe is when I feel most present and as though there is possibility and hope in my life.  The place that I associate most with those feelings is the beach.  I took this video one day when I was sitting on the beach and I watch it at times when I feel anxious, on edge or indeed unsafe.

You might also associate safety with being around a certain person or even with a certain activity.

These things can be thought of as anchors - they can hold us together when it feels as though we are falling apart.

I've written a previous blog post about anchors that can be found here.

Create a Safe Spot

I suppose I got this idea from films where I've seen people draw a circle around them in the hope that it would offer them protection.  What can a circle like that really do to keep you safe? Nothing.  However, sometimes just designating an area for you to be safe in can help you to build a sense of safety within yourself.

Sometimes when everything around me is feeling a bit overwhelming, I like to create a safe spot for myself.  I put my favourite blanket on the floor and sit on it - sitting on the floor makes me feel more grounded.  I always stay inside when feeling unsafe as in the past going out has lead me to more unsafe situations when I'm in that frame of mind.

I surround myself with things that help me to feel safe, these include:

My colouring book - the perfect calming distraction

My teddy - who is available for as many hugs as I need

My favourite pebbles - good for grounding

Essential oils - a bit of a new thing for me but there are scents that can be associated with calm and safety

My journal - an opportunity to express feelings

My phone - to listen to music and to reach out to things and people that can help me to feel safe.

You might like to create a safety box with things in it that help you to feel safe.  It can also help to have a list of contacts you can reach out to if you are feeling unsafe that is always readily available.  You could even go wild and create a den - I used to love doing that when I was a kid!

These are just ideas, creating a sense of safety is all about finding things that work for you.

Love and Strength,

The One Day Seeker.