Survivors have to learn what support and safety is.

Healing and Safety for Survivors
(Some thoughts a Tallahassee student gleaned from
several healing resources. Contact us for a comprehensive
list of books and workbooks related to healing our identity.)

By definition, survivors are exceptionally strong people. The strengths that you used to survive the abuse will also sustain you through healing. All of us deserve and need to feel supported and safe. Safety is an issue for most survivors but can become more or less significant an issue at varying stages of recovery. Some survivors have always felt unsafe, while others become concerned about safety as they start to identify their abuse. Identifying your strengths and resources, both externally and internally, will help remind you that you are strong; you are safe, and you made it. By making your strengths and resources conscious, you can draw on them as you work through your recovery and healing process.

What is safety? How do we know what is safe? Safety is both a protection from harm and a healthy response to unpreventable harm. In families where safety is provided for children, trauma (the unavoidable kind) does not seem to cause DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder.) Children in safe families are protected from unavoidable abuse: from being harmed sexually, emotionally, or physically over and over again by the people who love them. And, when harm does occur, such as a skinned knee, there is someone to go to who comforts and nurtures. Ideally, the comfort and nurture have no strings attached---they are unconditional.

When children do not have safety in their early years, they often experience more trauma in their adult lives than other people. Why? One of the reasons abused children experience so much more trauma than other people, even as adults, is that it is hard for those who were traumatized to recognize danger signals. When you grow up in a family where it is normal to be in danger, you do not know what safe is. You miss the signals that tell you to think twice or definitely not do something. Why? Because you do not know what they are.

Learning to keep yourself safer means learning what those signals are, watching for them, and doing something different when you see them. It takes time and help: You need to know someone safe with whom you can check out what you are seeing to begin practicing looking at things differently.

Since chronic childhood trauma teaches you to believe that dangerous situations are safe, learning more about what safe really is and how to get and stay safe is a very important task. As you accomplish the task of learning safety, remember it is more important than ever during times that have old memories attached to them, like holidays. If you want to increase your comfort during the holidays, increase your safety at all levels. Many people just increase their physical safety without paying attention to their emotional, mental, or spiritual safety.

It is easier to think about increasing your physical safety in terms of what NOT to do. You can stay away from perpetrators/offenders, avoid unpleasant triggers, not go places you find painful. What about what you CAN do? You can be around people you know who are okay with you as you are; reach out to someone else and support them; go somewhere new and exciting; take care of your body in a different way by being conscious about what you eat and drink and how much you exercise.

Most of us can list what not to do about the other areas of safety. We can spell out the don'ts---don't dwell on the past, don't let yourself get stuck in your feelings, don't get caught in repetitive thought patterns, don't go to old hangouts, don't do alcohol and drugs that make you feel worse. Don't, don't, don't.

What can you DO? Focus on the present. Remind yourself to keep your emotions progressing--you can choose much of what you feel! Find new places to hang out that are more in line with your new life. Keep a good balance of work, rest, and play--and remember to engage in activities that are aligned with who you are becoming instead of who you have been.

As a child, you were conditioned to ignore your needs. Life was a series of unbroken crises. The harder we could push ourselves, the safer we felt. Healing requires honoring, not ignoring, our needs. Pacing yourself is important. Acknowledge your needs and honor them. They are your protection. By practicing recognizing your feelings you can avoid the vast majority of difficulties that may arise during the course of recovery and healing. Your safety hinges on being self-aware and responding with care to your body/mind signals.

A way to create safety is by establishing your privacy. Many survivors grew up in environments where they had no privacy. When you were a child or adolescent, your journals may have been read. Your belongings searched through, even your thoughts may not have been private. Yet keeping certain things to yourself is part of establishing boundaries.

That goes for your healing process as well. You get to decide why, when, and how you share the things you write, draw, etc. Sometimes the reasons we want to keep things private have more to do with shame and keeping secrets than with maintaining appropriate boundaries. If you are reluctant to share your writings, feelings, or personal thoughts because you feel ashamed or afraid, gradually try to find ways to share as you establish trust and comfort. Privacy that isolates you and leaves you alone with your pain doesn't protect you; it keeps you from finding the allies you need.

Men who were abused may also find it hard to share because of cultural conditioning. You may not want to identify yourself as a victim; it somehow lessens your status as a "real" man. These cultural pressures can silence you and keep you in an emotional straitjacket. Although you haven't been taught to share your pain and your feelings, healing requires it. In expressing your real experience, your make room for your own healing and for the healing of other men. Take the risk. Begin to share.

You can journal and create a Safe Page(s) which you can keep and use to remind you of your safe places, safe people, and safe things. Turn to your Safe Page(s) whenever you're feeling frightened or just want to feel good.

FINAL NOTE

As a child, you were conditioned to ignore your needs. Life was a series of unbroken crises. The harder we could push ourselves, the safer we felt. Healing requires honoring, not ignoring, our needs. Pacing yourself is important. Acknowledge your needs and honor them. They are your protection. By practicing recognizing your feelings you can avoid the vast majority of difficulties that may arise during the course of recovery and healing. Your safety hinges on being self-aware and responding with care to your body/mind signals.

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