For most people, the world is a safe and predictable place. Sometimes, bad stuff happens, like road accidents, house fires, or a drug overdose. When these events occur, they can be traumatizing and highly disruptive to people's emotional wellbeing.
A small subset of people experience trauma events daily or weekly for years on end. Think of somebody being emotionally abused by their spouse or family living in a war zone. First Responders, by the nature of their job, are disproportionately exposed to traumatic events. Needless to say, these multiple layers of traumatic experiences can be even more negatively impactful on people's wellbeing, destroying people's sense of control, agency, or dignity.
When trauma events occur, they tear asunder our feeling of personal safety. Feeling safe is critical to our mental health and daily functioning. There are some people out there who don't feel safe enough in their bodies, relationships, or homes for whatever reason. Maybe that person is you. In this article, I’ll explore the concept of safety, the fear system, individual variation in recovery, and practical suggestions readers can use to feel safer and take immediate action in dangerous situations.
What not to do
When friends and family tell traumatized people that their fears are irrational - they’re typically trying to be helpful. Unfortunately, telling people not to feel afraid doesn’t generate a newfound sense of safety, much like telling people they ought to be wealthy doesn’t generate money in their wallets. Money is earned through a process of saving and earning. Safety, too, must be relearned via a process that requires various particular steps to recreate an internal and external sense of safety in our bodies and minds. In my psychological first aid work across the globe, I often hear trauma survivors blaming themselves, believing that they should feel safe and acting surprised when they are unable to move on in life like nothing happened simply.
If critical self-talk about why people should feel safe after trauma events doesn't work, and if forcing logic onto traumatized people also doesn’t work, what does?
Understanding the problem
Feeling unsafe is a feeling problem, not a thinking one. The way each person can restore a sense of safety inside themselves can vary from person to person. Because this is highly subjective, we recommend contacting a qualified expert to receive a tailored individual approach to your trauma recovery. Each person’s journey will differ.
Notwithstanding, here are some general guidelines to help facilitate a greater sense of safety. Follow what is right for you.
Feeling versus being
"Safety" is both a technical state, where we are out of harm's way from threats, and a certain feeling in our bodies and minds, independent of the reality of the hazard level in our environment. What we feel at any given time and whether or not we are actually in harm's way are not necessarily the same thing.
Somebody can technically be safe from harm but not feel secure because of the traumatic stress caused by a traumatic event ten years ago, which today’s event reminds them of.
Inversely, one can be unsafe yet still feel safe due to naivety, ignorance, and denial. For example, somebody can overlook the red flags of an abusive person on a date out of loneliness and desperation and go home with them, only to be terrorized and taken advantage of.
A balanced person will generally both feel safe and be safe from harm simultaneously and feel unsafe only when they are actually in harm's way (See Gavin De Becker’s Gift of Fear for more on this).
Normal reactions to abnormal situations
When it comes to trauma events, it is normal to feel unsafe despite being currently safe in this moment after a traumatic event. This is because it is normal for trauma survivors to feel vulnerable and unprotected after an unsettling event, much like it is expected to feel a stomach ache after eating spoiled food.
It can sometimes take people days or years to feel safe again, especially if they aren't proactively seeking to create a newfound sense of safety inside themselves, as needed. If you hadn’t ever learned about working on that, why would you?
Hopeful news
If you feel unsafe, you can embark on a self-compassionate journey to recreate a sense of safety inside of you. Our world is filled with millions of resilient people who experienced traumatic events and took various steps to restore a workable new sense of safety in their bodies, relationships, and homes.
The fear system explained
Humans have a rudimentary alarm system built inside of them to protect themselves from harm. When you perceive danger, your alarm activates, urging you to react, run, hide, play dead, or fight. This fear-alarm system is adaptive and is a built-in feature inside all humans, with no exception (except for psychopaths).
Sometimes, this alarm system stays on long after the danger has passed. Think of this fear-alarm system as a background app inside of you. This app perceives that it is good for you right now to try surviving at all costs, and it will urge you to be extra cautious, avoid, scan, and hide from risk until proven otherwise.
Until our alarm system, buried deep within ourselves, feels safe on its terms, it will not stop dutifully trying to save our life, even when that is getting in our way from day-to-day functioning.
The soldier who kept fighting after the war
After World War II had ended in the Pacific theatre, a Japanese soldier named Hiroo Onada hadn't received the memo. He erroneously believed that World War II was still ongoing! As a result, Onada fought people in his surroundings (who he perceived as enemies) until 1974, decades after Japan surrendered. Finally, his former commander flew to the island to personally tell Onada to stand down. Onada received the message and finally allowed himself to stop fighting.
Our fear system is precisely like this loyal Japanese soldier, mistakenly standing guard to protect us at all costs, even if the war was over decades before. Our job is to gently send that "message" to our body, letting it know it is okay to lower our guard and relax.
Here are some ways to do this:
Get social: Seek out other trauma survivors with whom you can identify to receive comradery and advice. You may hear about something helpful from other survivors. Even if not, you will have gained an invaluable friend for social support during this journey.
Get technical: Learn techniques to help you enforce your boundaries and preserve your sovereign territory. Create safety by learning martial arts, buying and training to use a pistol for defence, role-playing saying "NO!" with a trusted therapist, studying what red flags look like when interacting with potentially abusive partners, and so on. No matter what risk we discuss, whether it is muggers or nuclear bombs, we can study from experts how to mitigate and manage those risks to a degree. Often, these technical skills translate into psychological feelings of safety, control, and agency.
Apply self-knowledge: Look inward and ask yourself what might help increase your sense of safety just a little bit. Listen to what your intuition tells you, and see if this can be helpful.
Seek a safe object, place, or prayer: Sometimes, things like a picture of somebody we love, a particular object or place, or a spiritual mantra help us to feel slightly safer. These things help us feel we have a tiny powerful or calming thing to rely on in our feeling of unsafety. We don’t want to develop dependence on things in life, but there is a time and place for this, especially right after a very unsettling trauma event. Sleeping at a friend’s house one night, setting up a phone check-in with a trusted friend, or going to bed with a sacred object of faith may increase our sense of safety.
Leave: If you are currently in an abusive relationship, warzone, or clinging to the side of a capsizing ship, you will not feel safe no matter what method you try. In these cases, shift your goal from "feeling safe" to "escaping the danger zone". We cannot feel safe while being shot or yelled at. Escape to safety with the help of your wits, friends, or a trusted professional, and then you can go back to work on fostering safety.
Final Words
Believe in yourself! With time, you will hopefully start to feel some relief. With ample support, patience, and faith in the process, you will soon feel more safe.
Check out our Psychological First Aid (PFA) course to learn the skills to support people during crises.
Article written by Avi Tenenbaum MA
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