Do you have “safe places”? Talk about your safe places and whether they are physical/external or untouchable/internal.
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
i have both internal and external safe places. my apartment in general is a safe place, although how much that is true varies from part to part. but i do things (decorating it, smudging with sage, playing particular music and envisioning safety, various other things to bless the space) to make the whole apartment, and my own room (the one that isn’t shared) a safe place. my own room is more of one, because no one is allowed to come in without my permission, and i can lock the door. it’s got my stuff i don’t want to share, and my computer, and my bed for when i don’t want to share a bed.
inside my head, there are a lot of different safe places. the main one is what parts call the “magic house”. it was partially bringing together a few different safe places i’d had, and partly something my partner and i made up together when i was having nightmares. this was before i knew i was multiple. and then, she suggested i imagine myself there, and i noticed that when i went there, there were a bunch of different “me”s doing different things at the same time.
some of the safe places in my head are more sound or feeling than something i see. there are ones that just feel like putting emotional/mental distance between me and the world. some of them are just music playing as a barrier or shield from things that are making me anxious. some of them are places where i can just curl up and go to sleep while my body is on “autopilot.”
i’m thinking about the first places inside that i made, when i was a teenager. or the first ones i *remember* making, i guess.
i realized that i could “curl up and go to sleep” while my body would go on to school and do school stuff… and all that was was a dark cave-like space, filled with cushions and pillows, where i would just go to sleep.
there were also a bunch of different spaces that different parts made in order to have a place… i guess where they would feel safe? not sure. but there were towers and houses and all of that… my imagination back when i was a teenager was that the space inside my mind was infinite, so i could make as many different kinds of places to feel safe or shielded or protected, or just “away” from what was bothering me.
within the “magic house,” there’s a lot of shared space, and also each part has their own individual place. it’s generally where we go if we’re going to be having a meeting… or some of us. i (ellis) am not as good at visualizing what’s going on, so i can’t always see or hear the others with my “eyes” or “ears.” but i think some of the others can actually see and hear what’s going on. sometimes i can, too.
for me, it’s more like… i’ll hear myself thinking something, and it isn’t me thinking it. if that makes sense. it’s like they’re putting their thoughts into my head (but not necessarily in a bad way).
We have an external ‘safe place’ and an internal one. I’ve only recently begun visiting the internal one – the house most of them to seem to live in. I have been the ‘outside’ person and I have NOT wanted to visit the ‘house’. With baby steps I have been able to step inside the front door where many of them are – in the front room. Actually, I hung outside on the porch for a few weeks before I could stand the thought of going into the front room!
Externally, we have an outdoor space we often go to – secluded with trees and a stream 🙂 Complete with signs that were posted long ago I believe saying “Keep Out” and “No Trespassing”. O well – I trespass. I think we like to be one hiding in the woods seeing out, rather than the one passing by wondering what’s IN the woods! This place seems to be our little “Narnia”.