Safety

***TRIGGER WARNING*** Discussion of not feeling safe, panic, drinking, and Superman

I had a terrible weekend and didn't feel safe from within or without. I have been trying to think about how to create safe environments. I realized that short of a panic room with reinforced steel doors controlled from within the room, I wasn't going to feel safe in any house. Plus locking yourself in a windowless steel room seems horrible and lonely and then scary again when you have to come out. Since I can't really imagine any way to make it secure enough, it must be a psychological problem that has to be solved psychologically.

As for inside my head, I tried to make safe places but they got more and more elaborate and I couldn't seem to get them strong enough. I would always end up seeing a weakness in the structure I was trying to build...I built a castle with a moat and a drawbridge, then thought well they could shoot arrows with grappling hooks up to the ramparts and climb up, so I added guards around the top, then I worried that there would need to be a guard for every rampart or they would just time the guard's rounds and sneak up anyway.

I added a sliding disappearing door so the door to my room would look just like part of the castle wall, but that wasn't good enough either--they would find the joints and pry them open and smoke me out. Maybe I would feel safe if Superman would just sit there while I slept and take care of everything with the heat from his X-ray vision if sh*t went sideways.

I have found that looking at my T's picture and actively remembering how calm she is can calm me down but I have never one time thought to look at it when I was having problems. Plus, I'm not sure if looking at her picture is creepy or not. T keeps asking why I don't take xanax or call when I am upset but I don't know...I almost never think of either of those things, I am too busy thinking of the bad stuff. When I do think of calling her, I can't. I can't bother her..I am worried she will get tired of me and tell me she can't help me or she will put me in the hospital which I have heard is not a good place. Although if you feel terribly unsafe, it is probably better than the alternative. I would have gone last weekend but I couldn't wake her up be a bother.

When I used to have such terrible panic, after it was over I always wondered why I didn't just drink myself into oblivion, but it never occurred to me. Littles? Maybe...I don't know. When panic used to come and kick my a** for days, sometimes I could hear it's footsteps coming towards me, there was some warning, but now I think it is someone else's panic because I have very little notice that it's coming and once in it, I am pretty much swept away.

All this to say, does anyone feel really safe and if so, would anyone like to share how that happened/what makes them feel safe? I suspect this never feeling safe is related to whatever it's called when you aren't able to bond with your parents. And now, although I feel better, there are still a bunch of us who need to be able to bond with someone somehow. But we don't know how. I guess that's where T comes in. I sure hope she knows what she's doing.

***End Trigger Warning***

Hi, I don't know if this will help you but when I get worked up Blaze talks me, if he's not there then F talks me down. If I'm not about and Blaze is struggling then F talks him down or The Minoran tries to.
We all get on relatively well because we show each other compassion, when we get stuck in a emotional spiral, we pull each other back out. We bring each other back to the here and now and can usually say quite truthfully that there is no imminent danger, and we are safe.
If you Don't have an alter willing t do that for you now, then watch out for when they need help and maybe they will pay you back in kind some day.

we kind of follow a protocoll.
first someone who knows their job has to decide if there is a real threat or if it is a past one. makes no sense to pretend to be safe when you are not.
if the result of the reality check is that there is no present threat we first go for grounding. we havnt used the imagination of a safe place outside of therapy in a long time. which doesnt seem ideal, but we can fix most of it with good grounding.
grounding for us is a mix of mindfulness, being really aware of the here and now instead of the then and there. looking around in the room, identifying stuff and also becoming an observer of ourselves. observing body signals, observing our actions and most of all observing our thoughts. often the fear is rooted in the thoughts. maybe another alters thoughts? when we take an observer position it doesnt drag us into the intensity of the feeling. (and a mere observer doesnt worry about gaps in security all the time)

if you want to work with the safe place imagination mabye it could be helpful to find the part of you that finds the faults in everything you build and have a chat. i am sure they are trying to help but that makes you feel helpless. maybe if they get involved in the building.... dont know. maybe you have only just found the part of you who never feels safe. but then you know what to talk about in t....

Definitely have a written safety plan posted around the house. I gave a copy to my husband for him to keep at work. Mine was a pyramid, with the highest urgency steps on top, lowest urgency on the bottom. Lower urgency means more good options.

Highest: call 911, go to hospital emergency room

Next: call 24/7 crisis line [number], call T [numbers], call safe friend [numbers], ...

Lower: call husband [numbers], call other friends, post on DID Forum, email T, pay bills, clean toilet, ...

Lowest: take a shower, take a walk, garden, eat a chocolate, drink water, drink 1 class of wine, listen to music playlist, read a novel, ...

See? A personal safety plan is a very personal plan. There are reasons why for me "pay bills" and "clean toilet" are in there. They work for me but likely would not work for most other people. The music is a carefully selected playlist; songs on the radio were much too triggering!

Later, when I was more stable, with my T's help and after several long sessions worth of discussion and days of reflection I added in imagery a safe place and a containment system. My safe place is a lagoon in a jungle on an island. My containment system is a salt mine.

Thank you Littlecub7. I am just getting to know some of my alters and our communication is spotty. I do try to talk to them and I have utmost compassion for them and gratitude as well. I have asked a specific alter who seems to be a kind of angelic mothering person (Jo) to please help her and stay with her and have repeatedly invited the terrified alter to stay with me or Jo, whoever she feels most comfortable with, to help her feel safer. I can feel she is with me more. My alters do talk to me and T but not necessarily when I talk to them. I put out a general appeal for the adults to please help with the littles/scared ones but haven't heard back from anyone so I don't know what is happening with that. I will keep trying to communicate and treat them with compassion, thank you for reminding me of that...I think it is so crucial and they certainly deserve it.

Thank you for sharing with me Birdsong87. I will ask who is finding fault with the safe place...what a good idea! I was making it for the new alter who is so terrified so it is probably her but I definitely need to find out and talk with them about it.

I try to reality check but am usually too hijacked to think clearly and it hadn't occurred to me to ask another alter. I will write that down to remind me to ask next time.

I can't seem to do the noticing my body or the surroundings because I will panic. I can't meditate for the same reason. I think I am already too hyper-aware of everything and I go into a surreal bad place if I pay attention to my body or the surroundings. Evidently I can't be here now, but the then and there isn't working too well for me either.

I will pay more attention to my thoughts as you suggested. I am not as aware of my alters as I need to be. They often take over and I am kind of asleep even when I can later recall what happened. I want us to be able to be awake together so we can share and discuss things instead of this flipping from one to the other. Thank you!

Hi, Una. Thank you for the safety plan. I am going to copy and post it and give it to my husband for work...I am often calling him and he has no idea what to do or say so he often gets frustrated and makes things worse. Having all the numbers on there and what to do will be really helpful since my thinking is so taken over. From experience, specifying ONE glass of wine is totally a good idea, and a little chocolate is always a good thing. But, seriously, thank you. So many helpful ideas. It feels good that you and all who shared took the time to do so and gave such helpful ideas. I am deeply grateful.

I liked your description in the first paragraph and how you said there was no way you could imagine a way to make it secure enough. That's how we feel most of the time too.

I usually try to work with this unsafe feeling pretty differently than what others have described here because I haven't personally had lots of success with these types of ideas.

I tend to think "why do I feel unsafe" and journal about it, asking a series of questions that follow each answer. On a surface level I might not feel safe because of someone else, something they might do etc but ultimately what I try to answer for myself is why I feel unsafe, what is it about me that is contributing to that situation, because probably that is something I can change. The thought of being able to do something is what then calms me down. I try to answer why I might hold certain beliefs about my own capabilities to deal with certain things that scare me as I go. I'm not there yet, but I certainly find this more calming than other options.

Hi salted lipstick, I am very pleased to meet you. Thank you for writing! Journaling about what makes me have that unsafe feeling is a great idea and I am going to do it this morning. Have a great day!