Tag: safety behaviour

Safe Spaces: Are They Useful?

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Safe spaces; it’s safe to say that this phrase has caused a lot of controversy over the past couple of years, with institutions like Universities offering places for students to be in a space free of conflict and bias while the students are then being branded “special snowflakes.”
As someone who has never needed one of these safe spaces, I will refrain from giving my opinion and leave that to the people who are more invested in the subject.

I want to instead talk about safe spaces in regards to anxiety. This is not a place for a collective to gather, it is a place for an anxious person to feel…well…safe. Most times for an Agoraphobic, this will be at home. A place where they won’t be subject to stressful stimuli or panic attacks.

A safe space where you can sit and take a moment to breathe, a place you aim to get to. For me safe spaces are my home, my sisters, my nans, a car and a toilet. When I was going away, the lounge was safe space, the plane was a safe space and the hotel was a safe space.

These are places I am not constantly thinking about the world around me and super aware of every little thing my body is feeling. It’s a place I can eat, a place where I can enjoy myself.

But the question is, are they truly helpful?

A safe space can help reduce your anxiety, it is a place to recharge and a place to just be you. For a lot of us this space is somewhere we want to be, somewhere we can’t wait to get back to.

And that’s part of the problem.

A couple of posts ago, I spoke about safety behaviours. These are things that we do to trick ourselves into thinking that we are safer, when in reality we aren’t in danger in the first place. Examples are taking medication before you go out or carrying it with you, wearing non-restrictive clothing or going out with a person who you deem as a ‘safe’ person. These are behaviours that are unhelpful and a hindrance rather than a help.

Safe spaces act in a similar way. By viewing your house as a safe space, you are in effect calling all other areas that are not your house (or other places that you have given this label) unsafe. Like a safety behaviour, you are perpetuating the idea that there is danger. In reality this isn’t the case.

I’m not going to lie, I still use these and usually don’t realise I’m doing it. I go out on adventures and tell myself I can do it because chances are there will be a toilet or quiet pub I can sit in for a bit if it gets too much. I am in effect giving myself a safe space everywhere I go. While it has really helped me get out and go further than I thought was possible, in the grand scheme of things it hasn’t helped at all.

A good example of this is when I was travelling to the hotel in Tokyo. I didn’t think there was a toilet for the 2 hour bus journey. I was convinced as soon as the bus pulled off that I needed the loo and spent the first hour with my eyes closed praying that I would make it to the hotel toilets. Then I saw someone get up and use the hidden toilet at the back of the bus and all of a sudden the urge completely disappeared and I was fine.
The knowledge that I had access to the toilet and had an assigned seat next to the window was enough for me to now view the bus as a safe space. Once the perceived danger was removed, I felt completely different.

It’s not good for you and while you might feel like it is helping, I can promise you it isn’t. I can’t say that I have tried to change my thought process, but it is something I am figuring out. It’s the way I have thought for years now, even when I was younger I hated being away from home, even just for dinner at a friends house after school. I guess I was always destined to be a homebody.
It’s a long road, but if I don’t change my thinking, becoming housebound again could be on the horizon. Quite frankly, I’m not about that life.

Aim for the whole world be your safe space, you got this!

I Stopped Wearing Jeans To Cope With Anxiety

Al3 Comments

It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.

A few weeks ago, I was writing a post about how to cope with important plans at short notice and as I was doing a bit of research I found this (see link).

For those who haven’t had time to read the journal, basically people with anxiety and agoraphobia tend to exhibit “safety behaviours.” These are things we do to feel safer, but in the grand scheme of things they are a major cause of persisting anxiety.

When I did some more research, I found a lot of the things I did and still do are considered to be in this category. For a while I felt a bit like I had failed and not really made any progress. I felt like I had come so far, only to find that I was superficially coping.

So I had a strop and deleted my post.

After my strop I took a step back and gave it some thought. It’s not the end of the world. I managed to travel across the world, get on public transport, go out for meals with small groups of people and spend a day away from home without being sick. So they’re useful…right?

Below is a list of my safety behaviours and the thought process behind each one. I will order them from most used to least used.

(If you are a mobile user, I suggest using landscape view)

It can be easy for an outsider to look at these and see how irrational they are and for the most part I can see it too. Although during editing, I was reading through and still rationalising them to myself. It is how I have lived my life for the past few years, it’s a difficult thought process to break.

Misattribution Theory suggests that by carrying out these behaviours, we are reinforcing the idea that there is a threat and our actions or thoughts are what keeps us safe, when in reality we are safe and what we do to try and protect ourselves change nothing.

We are meant to be trying to control our anxiety, not limiting our exposure to it.

So to answer my earlier question, no. They are not useful.

Start by tackling smaller or lesser used behaviours, ticking them off your list one at a time. Then work your way up to your most used behaviours. While it may seem challenging at first, stick with it. You’ll soon realise that your bottle of water and your clothing don’t really protect you from anything .
Just take it one step at a time, keep a diary of your successes and work hard. You’ll get there.

I have some more tips for tackling uncertainty and “what ifs” in an older post.

I’m trying my best to change my behaviours, some I’m actively working on and others…well I’m not quite ready to say goodbye yet.

But hey, one day at a time.