Just can't find an imaginary 'safe place'

[ladee]

That's true @Rain. I feel like this when I am home.

 

[Quakegirl]

Wow! I’m so grateful to not be alone with this. I was starting to feel like a real freak. Thank you to everyone who has responded with their own experiences and some great ideas. I wish yoga teachers etc would think before they talk about this stuff: that not everyone can find safety inside, and that for some, safety is very conflicted.

I was wondering if you could use your time at therapy with your therapist for a temporary safe place until...

Yeah..about that. I’m having a really hard time with him. We’re in this ongoing debate about the way he works with me. I want less casual talk, less talk about himself/his life (even if it is therapeutically relevant). More of the quiet, calm presence he has been able to give me sometimes. I have felt very safe there, but he’s also scaring away the hurt, frightened bits of me are the reason I’m there.
I think he thinks I need to be more flexible in my thinking and more tolerant of people changing. I think I need consistency, calm and a lot of breathing space to think and connect to emotions and memories that are not easy for me to access, let alone tolerate.
I love him to bits, therapeutically speaking, but I’m
not sure I’m going to be able to stay. I’ve got some serious work to do, and I can’t do it with him like this. So I need to find some other way to evoke a sense of calm and caring when I’m dysregulated than imagining him comforting me. And I would REALLY rather that other way it didn’t involve another human being...

 

[Quakegirl]

I don't know what safe is, what it feels like, or how it looks. So if I was safe, how would I know??

I do know how safe feels. But I can only get there in my head, even though it involves a person (my therapist, how he is sometimes when he’s really quiet and calm and nurturing and talking softly).
And it really does work: I can feel my heart rate coming down, panic subsiding and, if I’ve left my body, I can come back again.

In my fantasy he holds me. I have my head on his chest and I can hear and feel him breathing in and out, and somehow, that really calms me. I can feel my face against his shirt, and the warmth of it.
He doesn’t pay any attention to me, because that would scare me to death. He just holds me while he reads a book or something.

It’s embarrassing to admit it, but I feel like I am about 5 years old, and all I want to do is to go to sleep on him, with him holding me.

Sometimes when I am out in the world and I get triggered, I hear him talking to me in my head, telling me it’s going to be alright & I’m going to be alright, and he’s got me.

But that’s all I have...and now even that is making me sad when I think about it, because he’s doing all this stuff that doesn’t feel safe at all, and I’m angry with him. I’ve got to find another way..

 

[ladee]

I was thinking about the world we live in. I bet if we were to ask random people we see everyday, if they felt "safe", I feel many would say NO.
Our struggle is real and very lonely and painful at times. As most people put a "mask" on before they go out, it's a scary world we live in.
I do think about these people and they don't have the tools we do. Just sad for the human race.

 

[Freida]

@DandylionWishes you are brilliant! I have never been able to create a safe spot because each time I do it gets corrupted by the big bad. It makes grounding during EMDR a bit of bitch.

It never crossed my mind to do an imaginary space that was whimsical and kooks like a kid created it but ....wow... What a great idea!

 

[DandylionWishes]

@Freida thank you - I now have 3 young children of my own and if I could send you one of my daughter's pieces of "art", I know exactly which one I'd choose for you!

 

[Freida]

@DandylionWishes
Thank you for the thoughts!

I have a 6 year old niece who loves to draw. I think I'm going to recruit her - she's all about unicorns and rainbows.:woot:

 

[shimmerz]

So if I was safe, how would I know??

This was a real stumper for me when I first started on my quest for 'safe'. I worked with a Shaman so I had had a ton of practice with imagery. It is a worthwhile endeavour to practice imagery, imho.

So for me, when I constructed 'my safe place', well, that safe place would change from day to day. At first it was just a dark cave with a tiny spot for me which I rolled down a curtain, that couldn't be seen, as a doorway, so that nobody could get in, but I could see out of. Then, I liked the idea of a 'drip, drip, drip' from the cave ceilings so that I didn't hear the silence, or any other bad noises. Then I needed a pillow. That was made out of clouds. And so on, and so on, and so on. Get the drift though? No holds barred, I could do anything I wanted - I was not restricted to laws that normally govern this world. The only law was.... my safe place did NOT allow others. No cats, no dogs, no kids, no nothing. Just me.

Some things that gave me at least a feeling of what safe was:

Irl I love and feel at least semi safe with:
1. big warm heavy blankets
2. immersed in a swimming pool (warm), just floating
3. down pillows
4. in a room that nobody can get into
5. lying on a deserted beach in the sunshine
6. on a tennis court - playing against (or with) - who else? Me
7. skiing on a mountain all by myself, right after a huge snowfall
8. Me. Teaching
9 A chair that moved with me when I laid down in it. Completely wrapped around me.
10 Driving

There are more, but one of the most challenging things was learning how to know how I felt. What was the difference between semi-safe and not safe? What's the difference between comfortable and not comfortable? What is the difference between warm and cold? Which one did I like better. How did I know the difference between the two? Did I like to lie down with blankets or none? Do I recall walking on a winter's day and loving it? Do I love to walk on a beach but hate all the people? Then imagine a beach. Nobody on it. And walk there.

The thing is, functionally your brain doesn't know the difference between reality and constructs that you have made up in your mind. So, with mindfullness, think of one thing that you love (warm blanket) and try to feel that - how it feels, what colour is it, does it smell like baby powder? Do you like to pull it over your head? How large is it? The size of the room, or just enough to cover you?

That, is imagery. Taking your senses and feeling an experience from the past. I mean really, aren't we all experts at that? The ability to flashback actually allows us to understand the mechanism for imagery. The imagery in making a safe place though, is turning that skill around to feel GREAT things.

That was one of the reasons I started that thread on 'Positive Triggers' that some people took offense to. But really - knowing that we can create a positive experience in our mind gives us the potential for empowerment as we turn that around and into a positive experience.

 

[ladee]

One of my safe places is in creating. I set my space up and then turn offthe phone and put a note on the door!.
"The lights are on but nobody's home!"
And let my hands speak to clay or paper and charcoal. Or beading or whatever I feel moved to do.
I don't know if it's safe because I really don't know what that means. But I feel PEACE and that is good enough.

 

[katz]

I just got back from yet another meditation class where there was yet another instruction to create a...

I have always wished for a safe place. My abuse started so young that I don't know if I have ever had one. I can't remember when 'life' was safe. I guess that I could consider my grandparents house one. When I would go there, it was the only place that I got a good nights sleep. Now, of course, they are both long gone, and I'm back with no where to go. Not even home is safe--or at least what I would consider "safe".

 

[Freida]

@katz Your grandparents home would be a fabulous safe place because it was someplace you were at. It doesn't matter that it no longer exists -- it is still in your heart

 

[MyWillow]

Mine always has one or all of my dogs or cats in it. It’s them that make me feel safe rather than the place. One time I was waiting to work one of my Gundogs in the field. We were high up on a cliff face waiting for the action. Such a quiet place away from everyone and I just focussed on my girl who was quivering in anticipation of the work.

But we don’t use safer place any more in T as I kept dissociating. It was hard for her to get me back.