“Do you have a safe place you can go to in your head?” the nurse asked me.  It was night time.  Earlier in the day I had been told that I definitely had Type 1 Diabetes and been helped to test my blood sugar and to inject myself with insulin for the first time.  Now in the dimly lit cubicle my urges to self-harm were intense.  I resisted my first impulse to say “Yes here!”  It had been a tough few months.  My well documented eating disorder had confused the picture delaying my diagnosis and leaving me so desperate that I had repeatedly tried to end my life after being told that it would all be all right if I just ate.  But I was eating and I felt worse…

Please note: it’s important not to eat or drink anything but water for 8 to 10 hours before your fasting blood glucose test but if you’ve fasted for over 16 hours it can also affect your reading.  I so wish I’d known this sooner!

So although I was terrified of a future with an illness that I had seen my Grandpa struggle so much to live with it was a huge relief to be somewhere where people felt they could help.

However I searched my memory and came upon the place we used to go and lie in the sun by the trees on the school field.  In this place it is summer, the grass is dry and prickly underneath me and I have the feeling of contentment which comes with being on the home stretch of the school year.  In the background is the hum of traffic from the major road on the other side of the fence and I can follow the silver and grey shapes of the tree branches.  I still use that safe pretty regularly.  It’s now totally linked to the place I first use it so that I also see that dim room and feel the comfort of somebody wanting to help me when I was struggling as I go into it.

Safe places became very important to me when I began schema therapy on a low secure ward in 2010.  The first safe place we worked on was a jumping off point for the visualisations that allowed me to begin to understand how past events linked to my present responses and to work with some of those memories.  It was where we started, the place we could return to if I needed to escape and often the place we came back to at the end.  It is also a place I can go to ground and sooth myself whenever I need it. Mine was based on a tree by the loch on my university campus.  Though it had been years since I’d been there I fondly remembered its huge roots which went down into the water.  I would climb round them to sit looking over the loch out of sight from the path.  There was a wooded island in front of me and mountains behind that.  Sometimes I could see fish swimming in and out of the roots below me.

All this became part of my safe place but as we worked with it I added other things.  I began to use the scent of lavender as another way to calm myself and so that is now what I can smell in my safe place.  I sometimes hear birds singing but there is often the ticking of a clock.  This came from the rooms I did my therapy in and it’s there now whether there’s a clock or not.  I also learned to imagine other people with me in my safe place while keeping memories that didn’t feel safe from entering. It is a powerful tool and I still use it often.  I backed away from the tree by the lake for a while when I went to rehab and left the psychologist I had built it with as it reminded me how much I missed her.  After a time it was all right again and I could even imagine her being there supporting me if I wanted to.

The one time I found that I couldn’t use this safe place was when I was angry.  When we explored this my psychologist and I found that this was because I felt that by going to my safe place I was trying to become calm before I’d acknowledged my anger and explored whether or not I needed to do anything about it.  This shutting down had caused me many problems in the past and I did not want my safe place to be part of that.

As my schema therapy continued we built a second safe place which is very important to me.  We built it for my ‘Little Vulnerable Hilary’ schema.  One of the ways I know she has been triggered is when the thought  “I want to go home” pops into my mind, whether I am at home or not.  When we created the “Safe and Magic House”  she finally had somewhere I could take her. We first used the safe and magic house when we had accessed memories where Little Hilary was sad, hurt or scared.  First my psychologist and or my healthy adult schema would come into the image to give her the support and care that she needed.  Then we would also ask her what she needed now.  The answer was always to be somewhere safe and we would transport her to the ‘Safe and Magic House’ usually by rocket or broomstick (Little Hilary’s favourite stories are about Meg and Mog by Helen Nicoll and   Jan Pienkowski.)

The Safe and Magic House is somewhere no one but Little Hilary, Healthy Adult Hilary and my psychologist can ever get.  Even my Critical parent schema can’t go there.  In the house we can give little Hilary cuddles wrapped in blankets, drink juice, bake cakes, read a favourite story again and again and finally tuck her into bed safe and warm until tomorrow.  At different times we recorded a series of messages to my different schemas.  One of the ones to Little Hilary is about the Safe and Magic House and I find it very useful when I need to go there and am struggling to concentrate.

Some things to consider when creating your safe spaces:

• Use all your senses when you visualise it to make it more vivid
• Be aware of your body in your safe space, are you standing, sitting, or lying down?  What can you feel on your skin? What do you feel like inside?
• Consider imagining people you feel safe around being there with you.  Remember no one can come into your safe space unless you want them there now, even if they’ve been there before.
• Visit your safe space at times when you are feeling good as well as when you are struggling.  This helps to build up the safe feelings that go with it.
• Have more than one safe space.  Different places will feel right at different times.
• When you leave your safe place come back to reality bit by bit if possible.  I start by being aware of the sounds around me then of my body touching the chair/bed/floor, then open my eyes and take a moment to adjust to being back in the present.