Nesting is an idea that may be useful for you to explore if feeling chronically unsafe is part of your life. This may be as part of an anxiety disorder, a dissociative condition, for someone with self harm issues or who is highly reactive to triggers, and so on. The idea of a nest is to create for yourself a bolt hole to retreat to when you are feeling very unsafe and overwhelmed. Kids often instinctively do this, they may hide under the bed or in a cupboard or up a tree when they are scared. If you did this as a kid it may be you can replicate a similar sense of safety for yourself now by tapping into that good memory. I used the term nesting to describe this behaviour because it is so strongly linked in to your environment rather than other techniques that may be about self talk or moving your body in calming ways for example. That’s not to suggest this is in some way a better approach – there’s a lot of options out there and by no means do they all work for everyone. Nesting is also often the term used when a parent prepares a room or nursery for a child, and that has a similar concept behind it – to make a safe, comfortable pleasant place.

For many people, their home is their nest and they feel safe there and don’t need to think any further about it. To them, the idea of creating a nest for yourself may seem a bit ridiculous or childish. But many of us who feel chronically unsafe don’t find our home serves this purpose, and sometimes harking back to childhood and finding a way to calm our ‘inner child’ is more effective than efforts to maintain a mask of being ‘grown up and coping’.

If you can make your home feel safe that would be fantastic. If you live alone, it may be that you need good bolts on your windows, a lovely big dog, your own posters on the walls or music playing to help you feel like you belong and this is your space. If you’ve been burgled or assaulted in your home, this might be a real challenge. It can feel like the walls were torn apart and your sense of security turned out to be an illusion. The memories of people who came into your space may linger and torment you. You can over time reclaim your own space and drive these memories out. But if you’re having trouble with this, you might find it easier to start with something smaller.

It can be ideal if your bedroom is a safe place for you, especially as we spend so many hours sleeping and vulnerable there. For some of us though, the bedroom is the most tainted and difficult room in the house. If this is causing you major problems, don’t be afraid to rearrange. It doesn’t matter if you sleep on the couch or drag your mattress into the kitchen. Whatever you need to do to start to feel a little safe is worth trying. Once you can find a toehold on safety, it may be then that you can start to reclaim more and more territory. Sometimes it’s just finding that first toehold that gets everything started.

Follow your instincts in creating your own nest. If the wardrobe was a safe spot as a child, it may be that you can put a pillow, some stuffed animals, a flashlight and a book in there and hide out whenever the dissociation/flashbacks/panic attacks/urge to self harm etc gets bad. When I was a little kid, I read a book about meteors. It told the unfortunate true story of a woman who went to sleep one night in her rocking chair and was struck by a meteorite and killed. Being a highly stressed child with a vivid imagination, I linked her death to the act of sleeping and developed a terror of sleeping in my bed. For many months I went to bed obediently, then dragged my blankets off to the bottom of my wardrobe where I figured the meteorites wouldn’t be expecting me!

This little story is a great illustration of the kind of logic we have as children, and this kind of logic can sometimes be in play for those of us under high stress. Sometimes if we can put aside our need to look ‘normal’ we can speak our own emotional language and meet those needs. Whenever we do things that communicate to our self that we are looking after ourselves and working to make things safe we’re sending good messages. Sometimes that alone is enough.

One of my ‘nests’ is my bath. It eases joint pain, it wasn’t a tainted location for me, and I find it comforting and safe. My preference is to set up candles and oils and music and nest in properly. I keep topping up warm water and stay there as long as I need to. I find putting my ears underwater where I can’t hear anything but my heartbeat is very soothing. I’ve had some struggles with self harm when I’ve felt very unsafe, and there have been days where I’ve crawled out of bed and into the bath – with clothes or PJ’s still on, and just stayed there until I was safe to walk past the knife block in the kitchen. I think 9 hours was my longest stay. I might feel stupid or really annoyed with myself but I get out of those situations safely and that’s often more than the ER can offer me.

I’ve also used my computer space as a nest sometimes. Surfing the net can be quite trance inducing, hours pass without you really noticing. I’ve used this to reduce building panic or wait out dangerous situations too. When my bedroom has been simply impossible to cope with, I’ve dragged the mattress out into any other room and slept there that night. My bedroom has posters of my favourite artworks, an oil burner, music player, my journals, everything in it that I can use to make myself feel safe and at home. I put the kind of thought into it that expecting parents put into a nursery, and I keep playing around with the contents and arrangement until I find a set up that mostly works. It has to be familiar and to speak to me specifically. I often put up quotes and poems that I find inspiring or reassuring, and I keep my favourite books by my bed where I can reread them whenever I need to. Bolting back to a familiar environment is one of the keys of a good nest. For some people it might be their craft space, their kitchen, their shed, their garden… the possibilities are endless. All it needs to be is close by and some place that feels safe.

Fear and stress often have a regressive effect on us, and this can be really challenging to deal with. We are often deeply committed to our idea of ourselves as rational adults, and when we suddenly present with the emotional logic of a traumatised child it can take a lot of courage to face and meet those needs. But the pay-off can be huge. There’s a lot of ways to work on increasing a sense of safety, nesting is just one suggestion. If it doesn’t appeal to or work for you, try not to be too disheartened. You will find what you need. If you hadn’t thought of it but if it strikes a chord, you might want to go look at your environment with new eyes and see where your nest – or burrow, or eyrie, might be.

There’s a lot of room for different approaches to recovery from mental illness. Some people love affirmations, others write journals, some use humour… Something I’ve noticed doesn’t seem to work well very often is an aggressive approach to getting rid of dissociation. Some folks, once they’ve discovered what it is, get very keen about helping people to never dissociate. This dubious goal rather concerns me. Firstly, my personal approach to mental illness is about focusing on what I want rather than what I don’t. I mean, (one of) my goals is to have a passionate, meaningful life, one in which I can participate as fully as possible. My goal is not to get rid of dissociation. They sound similar but really they’re not. Certainly, being crippled by aspects of mental illness is something to work on, but it’s in pursuit of a higher goal. It is never the focus in and of itself. What does this mean? It means whenever my dissociation is low enough for me to enjoy life, I’m not sitting in therapy trying to get rid of the last of it, I’m painting! I’m down at the beach, out with friends, reading books, having a life. Every chance I get. These experiences give me the sustenance I need to get through bad times, they build my self esteem, give me hope, a sense of control over my own life, great comfort and joy. This is what it’s all about. I don’t mind limping a little, and I know that a great deal of the healing and recovery we need happens in normal life, in everyday relationships, in art and running and writing and standing in the rain.

Focusing on getting rid of a symptom like dissociation sets the stage for power struggles, for making assumptions about what is healthy, and for a ‘Russian roulette’ of symptom swapping. Dissociation for many people serves as a protective mechanism. Think of it as a fuse blowing in a house with dangerous wiring. You don’t wire over the fuse, or you risk burning down the house. You sort out the wiring problems so the house is safe, then you work on resetting the fuse. Good therapy always starts with helping people feel safe, and swapping out harmful coping mechanisms with healthy ones. You don’t just start kicking crutches out.

Therapists can become very frustrated with highly dissociative clients, thinking that if they could get rid of the dissociation, then they could get some ‘real’ therapy done. Trying to beat down dissociative defenses with an anxious client is likely make them worse. If therapy is perceived as a threat, the mind will continue to put all it’s energy into disconnecting as much as possible, using any method it can come up with. 

Not only can dissociation be protective, but the current definitions are so broad that getting rid of it entirely doesn’t sound like a good goal to me. If any form of disconnection from the present moment is defined as a form of dissociation, then we need some. We need space to daydream, time to get lost in our thoughts, in books or films. This is not black and white ‘dissociation bad’, ‘connection good’. In order to focus deeply, we disconnect from distractions around us. Creative people often describe this lack of awareness when they are deeply involved in their work. It’s healthy, inspiring, magic. This can be called ‘flow‘, or being ‘in the zone’, absolutely immersed in your task. Experiences of flow are thought to be highly protective against depression and anxiety. Some theories about hypnotic states are that we are all going into and out of different states throughout our days, without even noticing. We disconnect from events around us to ruminate and process thoughts and feelings, drive on auto-pilot, focus intensely during a stressful conversation, warm to friends and ‘come out of ourselves’ in their company, all the time changing our level of awareness of things going on around us and inside us. There can be a natural kind of rhythm to this process, we can have our own cycles of energy and focus, times when we are most focused externally and others when we are most aware of our inner lives. In some of these states we are very receptive, taking in deeply the things we say to ourselves, at others we have all our psychological defenses up. 

The thought of holding up a life where none of these things happen as the goal to strive for is horrifying to me. I value being able to disconnect from the day to day to find a place my heart soars. While I loathe being lost in severe dissociation, unable to see, feel, smell or taste, I also hate the ‘flatland’ of a totally symptom free life that somehow keeps being set up as the goal for people like me. A little madness is not a bad thing, a little dissociation that frees us to dream, likewise. The goal is about freedom, hope, peace, meaning, love, connection, art… being human. Even our weaknesses and limitations can be part of that goal. 

What I need when I’m lost and trying to find my way back isn’t someone trying to carve dissociation out of me like a tumour. I need to find a way back, like coaxing a small terrified creature to come out of the dark. The right person holding my hand can be enough to bring me home. Standing in a thunderstorm can be the intense sense of connection I need for a mind in flight to re-inhabit my body. Sometimes everyday life doesn’t have a strong enough call, it’s the song of the sublime that reminds me of who I am. It’s poems that make me cry and music that makes me feel safe and books that are paper receptacles for my shattered heart. These things that remind me that I am human, that I want to be alive, and that the world is deeper, sadder, richer and stranger than we think. 

The idea of territory can be a big issue for some people who’ve come through trauma, particularly the ‘interpersonal’ kind – that is caused by other people rather than natural disasters or accidents. It can be a little difficult to describe the kind of chronic anxiety that people can struggle with. Certain kinds of environments can become really stressful such as crowded events, places that are similar to the place where something bad once happened to you, or new places. I’ve had big troubles in this area myself, which is pretty common for someone with PTSD. In my case, I’ve found trying to take on environments like a university campus really challenging and stressful. I’ve found that thinking of this stress in terms of territory has been helpful for me.

On bad days, I don’t feel safe anywhere. It’s hard to even remember what it was like to feel safe. On slightly better days, there’s pockets of the world where I feel like I’m allowed to exist. These spaces feel like my territory. I know them well, I’m comfortable in them, I know where to retreat if I need to, where the exits are, the quiet spots. I feel much more comfortable in these spaces. Home, all being well, is a place like this. I feel much more relaxed because the space is mine, I’m very familiar with it, and I feel like I have the right to enforce my own wishes and preferences. These two aspects are key to my concept of territory; being very familiar with a place, and feeling like I have the right to be there as I am.

When I’ve been really struggling, my territory has shrunk down to nothing and nowhere has felt like my space. Over time, I’ve gained ground, partly by removing myself from some bad environments. I’ve worked on making some spaces feel like my own, such as my own home. The key then has been to try and expand my territory so that there are other environments I feel comfortable in, otherwise my world gets very small. One of the places I was first able to do this was public libraries. Libraries have traditionally been my haven, they are fairly quiet, not usually frequented by bullies, and full of books and information – and internet access, which was pretty important before I had my own computer and connection! One of my local libraries had an indoor garden which I immediately fell in love with. Another had comfy chairs and one of those vending machines with $1.80 nestle hot chocolates. I quickly felt at home. These places became pockets of new territory, like a chain of islands I visited. My goal was greater freedom so I kept adding new places over time, the local supermarket once I’d become really familiar with it, the walking track at the nearby park, a community center.

I’ve moved house a lot over the past 5 years, and I find this very disruptive. The dissociation means it takes a while for information like that to be processed. In a new house I’ll wake in the dark and not know where I am, get disoriented and lost easily when trying to navigate, drive back to my old place when I’m tired. One of the things I do is thoroughly explore a new area. I walk to the nearest parks, find fast food places for emergency meals, the chemist, go read all the community notice boards, collect the information at the local library, read the council pamphlets about community events. Knowing an area well helps me feel more comfortable in it and reduces that sense of permanent disorientation.

In tackling a new environment I take a similar approach. Let’s imagine a new community center. I’d go there sometime there weren’t many people, and investigate. Where are the toilets? The kitchen? The exits? Is there any quiet nook I could retreat to if I needed? Any garden or outside area to escape to? Is the physical environment welcoming or really challenging? Welcoming environments for me have open spaces, comfy seats, and lots of natural light. I’m less comfortable in squeaky clean corporate environments, and poor lighting, cramped space, closed doors and barred windows set my teeth on edge. Then there’s the issue of my place in this environment. How will it function? Are there areas I can’t go? Is it pretty relaxed? Would I get in trouble for ducking to the kitchen for a drink or sitting with my feet on the couch? The more rules and restrictions an environment places on me, the less it feels like my territory, and the more I’m a guest – in some spaces a barely tolerated guest. Where these rules are things I’d never do anyway – please don’t break the windows, it causes me less stress. Where they impinge on my ability to relax and function independently – I have to ask permission to go to the toilet, a staff member will bring me a glass of water if I ask for one, the less comfortable I am in that environment.

If I feel pretty comfortable to be myself, that taking the initiative or operating independently wont get me into trouble, then another thing I do to help myself cope with a new place is turn up early. If there’s an event on at 2pm I want to attend, but I’m feeling anxious, I might turn up at 1.30pm. It may be enough to just sit in my car, or I might be allowed to go and wait in the space. Not walking into a room already full of people but being one of the first to arrive helps me to feel I have a right to be there and that the space is part of my territory. This isn’t a dominating thing, I very much want other people to feel at home there too!

Volunteering helps me a lot with this issue too. Being part of the behind the scenes where you may be there at funny hours or when the place is normally closed, you often have access to screened areas and will spend downtime having a giggle with other volunteers after projects have been completed really help me to feel at home in a difficult environment. When you know where the glasses are kept, that the study door has to be bumped with your hip because it sticks in the heat, and that the third armchair is in that spot to cover a stain on the carpet you feel a much stronger sense of belonging and territory.

It’s not just difficult rules and hierarchy that can derail my ability to feel at home somewhere, rudeness or bullying can also derail me quickly. At one place I was starting to feel more comfortable in, I had an incident one afternoon that was quite minor but affected me strongly. There was a free resource in a particular location that I wanted to access, and another person was in the space. When I asked if I could get past them they were hostile and claimed the space as theirs, with no intention to move any time soon. I wasn’t expecting this and was suddenly unsure if I would be supported by staff in my reasonable request or if the other person would be supported as having the right to occupy it. Because I was only new to this location and my anxiety was pretty high, I felt the impact of this minor conflict. I went from feeling somewhat safe and at home to feeling intensely nauseous and distressed. I suddenly wanted to escape the environment as quickly as possible, but I also knew that if I walked out it would be incredibly difficult for me to come back. In this situation I was able to find a caring staff member to sit with me in a quiet space and let me express my distress. They didn’t tell me I was over-reacting or should be more assertive, they just gave me a glass of water and some sympathy for how upsetting it can be when you encounter a conflict like that you weren’t expecting. This quickly calmed me down and left me in a place where I certainly felt uncomfortable with this other person, but not generalised outwards to the whole environment. I was able to go home and I was able to come back and keep working on making that place part of my safe territory.

Being listened to and respected even if you’re not making much sense or speaking their ‘language’ goes a long way to helping me feel safe in new environments and that my needs and wishes will count and if I stand up for them I’ll be supported. I like to know what the rules are, written and unwritten, feel I could anticipate the reaction of the people running the place to any situation, and have enough space to breathe as my own person within it. Any opportunity to occupy it on an even playing field, to become more familiar with it, or to build connections with caring people there all help me to expand my territory and be more involved in the world around me.

Not the ‘hearts desire’ kind, the ‘strange stuff your brain gets up to while you’re sleeping’ kind. Although, the overlap of these two rather different concepts with the one word really interests me. In our group Bridges last week we talked about this. There’s a whole fascinating and complicated science to dreams, how they work, when they occur, why some people remember them and some don’t and all sorts of interesting things. But that’s not what I’m going to get into here. As someone with PSTD, dreams and nightmares are a big part of my world. I’m one of those highly creative types who dream furiously, frequently, in colour, and have some control in my dreams. (which doesn’t stop awful things happening – kind of like life) I’m also a highly traumatised person whose subconscious at times seems to be a swamp full of pain and misery, and nightly immersions can be distressing and exhausting. So doctors are often very surprised when I say that were there a medication that could stop all my dreams, I wouldn’t want to take it.

This isn’t masochistic, it’s because my dreams are an important source of information about how I’m travelling. For someone who’s severely dissociative, I am so accustomed to numbing and walling myself off that I can be in quite serious trouble and not notice until I collapse. My dreams are a nightly consultation with my mind in which the truth of how I’m going is revealed. For a few hours I sit in a theatre and watch  my inner world play out upon the stage. I need the information to make good choices in my life.

I’m not a huge fan of interpreting dreams, I think taking them literally and getting hung up details or thinking they are predictive is misguided. It can be kind of fun to read other people’s ideas about what things mean in dreams, but in my experience, people’s personal internal symbolism can be highly specific and unique. Not all dreams are in any way useful. I don’t rely on my dreams to the exclusion of all other sources of information, it’s just one more way to collect data on myself and see how I’m doing and what I need.

When I dream of being hunted I know I’m feeling afraid and overwhelmed. I need to retreat to safe territory, perhaps spend a day at home or cut down on some of my activity for a little while. When I dream of reuniting with people who once loved me I know I’m grieving and lonely. I need to give myself time to hurt and look for a chance to connect socially. When I dream of torture I’ve learned that means I’m under intense stress and at high risk – even if I don’t feel like I am. I use this awareness to help me look after myself better. Dreams can be a way of gauging how you’re going inside, and of helping information to cross dissociative barriers.

There’s another reason I wouldn’t want to stop dreaming. As someone with a severe dissociative disorder, I’m well aware of what walling off your pain can do. I know the weird disjointed feeling of surface calm while deep inside the screaming wont stop. I don’t want to forget I have nightmares. I want to calm my pain so I don’t have so many. As a child I valued my dreams deeply. No matter what happened during the day, at night I was free from the world. I traveled my imagination like an astronaut in space. It was something that couldn’t be taken away from me.

For multiples, dreams can serve as an even more important source of information – communication between parts. Again, this isn’t universal so try not to feel stressed if you don’t work like this. But if you are a multiple it may be worth considering paying some attention to your dreams if you recall them. Some people find that different parts have their own dreams. Some people find that dreams are how deeply buried parts who never come out communicate their fears and desires. It can be a way of system mapping and learning what other parts of you feel and need. You may be able to open a channel of internal communication by letting your system know that you’re paying attention. Try staying in bed in the morning for a moment to reflect on your dreams. If you don’t think about them in the first moments of waking they tend to fade away. Perhaps your dreams will help you listen to yourself and hear an uncensored reply. Or perhaps not. People are funny that way.

Dissociation is not very well understood, and most people think it’s very rare. In reality, mild dissociation is so common that most of us have experienced it! Part of the trouble understanding and talking about dissociation is that the language is clinical and unfamiliar. It’s not particularly easy to spell or pronounce. (many folks throw an extra ‘a’ in diss -a- ociation, but it’s quite long enough with the 5 syllables it already has) Dissociation is the disconnection between things that are normally connected. It’s easiest to think of as being unplugged on some level.

Most of us have experienced a small degree of dissociation. One common example is called highway hypnosis, which is where you may drive say, home from work, and arrive not able to recall any details of the trip. You’ve been driving on autopilot probably thinking about other things. Another example is daydreaming, or getting ‘lost’ in a good book. These are common experiences, and do not indicate a problem of any kind. Dissociation only becomes a disorder when it is severe, distressing or disabling.

Dissociation is not psychosis, although like any symptoms of mental illness, someone can experience both of them. A hallmark of psychosis is the addition of new information, such as seeing or hearing things that other people can’t, whereas dissociation is generally related to a loss of information instead.

Dissociation is a symptom of a number of different mental illnesses, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder. There is also an entire category of disorders where dissociation is the primary issue, just like the category of anxiety disorders groups different mental illnesses where anxiety is the underlying feature. One of these is called Dissociative Identity Disorder. 

Dissociation can happen in may different areas. It depends which area has been unplugged as to which symptoms a person experiences. People who suffer from chronic dissociation may struggle with symptoms such as:

• Emotional numbing – where someone cannot connect to their own feelings, feeling flat, empty or numb instead.
• Amnesia – ‘zoning out’/blackouts/lost time, when dissociation occurs in the area of memory, for example suddenly discovering that it is Thursday, and having no memory of Wednesday.
• Time speeding up or slowing down.
• Losing sensations – not being able to feel your own body, or feel sensations such as heat, cold, pain, hunger. Dissociation can unplug someone from their own senses, reducing or even removing altogether their sight or sense of hearing or ability to feel pain for example.
• De-realisation – this describes someone’s experience when they are unplugged from the world around them, it may feel like being in a dream, or that they are living in a film. Nothing feels ‘real’. This may not sound so bad but it can be very distressing to experience.
• Depersonalisation – describes being unplugged from yourself, where someone may feel unreal, like being a robot or living in a dream. They may not recognise their own reflection in a mirror, and may have out of body experiences where they seem to be watching themselves. Losing a sense of yourself like this can be intensely distressing unless the person is also experiencing emotional numbing.
• Other common symptoms include flashbacks, sleep disturbance, psychosomatic pain or body memories, and identity disturbances.

Many people experience one or more of these symptoms on occasion without having a mental illness. People who have a dissociative disorder may experience dissociation in only one or up to all of these areas. Some people struggle with chronic symptoms all the time, while others experience episodes. There’s a wide range of ways dissociation can present and different kinds of difficulties it can cause people. It can be difficult to describe dissociative experiences before you know the terminology. In my case, even reading about it wasn’t enough, it took quite some time for me to realise that the confusing experiences I was having were dissociative.

It can be difficult to imagine what severe dissociation might feel like, but if you have ever stayed awake for a night or two, perhaps studying, then you have some idea. You may have felt confused, foggy, your sense of time might have been different, perhaps the room appeared fuzzy or spun around you, you may not have felt your feet upon the floor. Going into shock following an accident of some kind also resembles a dissociative experience. If you’ve ever been injured you may have felt really cold or numb or had odd tingles or pins and needles in your body. You may have experienced tunnel vision, time may have slowed right down or skipped in little bursts so you felt like you were in the backyard one moment and the ambulance the next. You may have felt dizzy or like you were falling, even if you were already lying down. Everything may have seemed very surreal and strange, as if you were in a dream. You may have become quite confused and reacted inappropriately. Perhaps you started giggling despite having a broken leg. Perhaps you were injured in traffic collision but all you could worry about for awhile was the groceries getting warm on the back seat. Remembering experiences like these can help you better understand the struggles of people who experience severe dissociation.

For someone dealing with severe dissociation, the very first priority must be safety. It is very important not to ignore the risks that severe dissociation poses. Driving a vehicle or even walking near traffic can be very dangerous during a severe dissociative episode. People struggling with chronic dissociation have to adapt their choice of activities to the level of symptoms they experience each day to make sure they stay safe. For example, when dissociative, I tend to burn myself accidentally while cooking.

If memory is affected, using extensive memory aids can greatly assist in maintaining safety and accomplishing goals. I use ‘to do’ lists a lot and set reminders on my phone for appointments an hour before. The kinds of tasks I write on my to do lists vary depending on how well I am that day. On bad days they are very simple things such as brushing my teeth and eating breakfast!

Dissociation can be rooted in trauma or grief. If this is the case for you, it’s important to spend some time working through those experiences instead of just trying to manage symptoms. This doesn’t have to be done in therapy or to mean that you are awash with painful feelings all the time. Finding a balance between expressing and honoring the events of the past and being able to connect with the present can reduce dissociation. Sometimes dissociation worsens when a person feels that the world is not a safe place to be connected to. Working to restore a sense of safety and control can help to reduce symptoms.

Grounding techniques can be very helpful to manage dissociation, and I encourage people to work on developing their own grounding kit. Some people who struggle with severe dissociation are vulnerable to issues with self harm. Sometimes this is as a kind of grounding technique, in other cases people use self harm to trigger dissociative episodes when they feel overwhelmed and want to disconnect. Building self awareness is an important part of managing dissociation, as you learn what triggers or feeds your dissociation and what makes you feel safe, connected and grounded you will be able to tailor your own individual recovery. The more individual the approach to managing dissociation is, the more likely it is to work. It is absolutely possible to go on to have a meaningful, connected, vibrant life, even if you are like me and find that dissociation is something that continues to need managing on a day by day basis.

For a brochure about managing dissociation, click here.

In Bridges this week we talked about the issue of denial. Whether it’s denial of your mental illness, or denial about trauma in your past, many of us struggle with this issue. Denial can be quite crippling to your ability to function in life. Pretending you don’t have things to deal with or needs and limits that must be worked around can be like setting yourself up to fall, over and over again. If you never accept your situation, you never plan for it, never see the next crash coming, and only snatch a bit of life between episodes of crisis. Ignoring a trauma history can leave you vulnerable to having it scream for attention through psychosomatic illnesses, emotional exhaustion, mental illness, and relationship stress. Suppressing strong emotions is exhausting, and denying the impact of trauma can leave you cut off from part of yourself. Denial can be incredibly costly to our ability to function. We walk about in an illusionary world in our mind, and crash over cliffs we can’t see.

However, denial is also useful in helping us cope. It’s one way of putting some distance between ourselves and something that makes us really uncomfortable. On one level, denial can be a form of containment. First respondents are taught to contain their distress in order to be effective at their jobs. Firefighters, police officers, ER nurses all face situations that are deeply stressful and emotional. All of them unplug from their normal human feelings of fear, shock, horror, and sadness in order to focus, work efficiently, and protect people. It’s as if they contain all those reactions in a box, and put it to one side to do what must be done.

Over time, most people find that containment is breached at times. There are limits to how much we can buffer ourselves, and all of us who experience these kinds of trauma, whether in our personal or professional lives, find that some situations resonate so strongly with us they refuse to be contained. A soldier returns from war with an image of a dead child burned so strongly into his mind he will dream of it for the rest of his life. An abuse victim is able to put aside memories until someone touches their throat the way the abuser did. A nurse excels at maintaining a professional demeanour, but the dying patient who looks so like her mother reduces her to tears. We carry memories and ghosts, and part of recovering from trauma is learning how to live with them, and how to manage when our ability to contain is exceeded.

Denial plays a role in giving us distance, which allows us to focus on the present moment. This is often very valuable in that we can work on building our life without being overwhelmed by the very things we’re trying to escape. When we’ve used denial to help in this way, it can be really hard to let go of. It feels like a comforting friend where facing the reality of our situation feels harsh and frightening. Reality however, has a way of intruding.

We need to work on denial at times when it is not protecting us, but actually leaving us unable to adapt and accept the situation we are in. There’s many ways you can work on your own denial if it’s a problem for you. One of them is spending time with people who are dealing with the same issues. Accepting you have a mental illness is a lot easier when the three new friends you met in group are awesome people with mental illnesses. You can start to see that it might not be the end of the world. Facing traumatic memories is less terrifying when you understand how many other people are dealing with the same issues, so you’re not alone. Sometimes there are concrete things you can do to remind yourself that you are willing to confront and accept these things. Some people write memories in their journal, some blue tack a message to themselves on their bedroom wall, some wear a bracelet with an inscription. Some keep the hospital tag from their last stay, or a page of the notes they wrote in their last episode. Multiples struggling to accept it may keep different handwriting, a collection of photos of different alters, or a recording of different members of their system. My journals serve as a way to keep me connected to the reality of my journey when I start to distort or whitewash parts of it.

Sometimes denial can feel huge and immovable, like you’re trying to push over a mountain. Be kind to yourself. We hang on to things that have worked for us, and are really reluctant to give them up, even if they’re now causing us problems. This is just about conditioning, there’s nothing wrong with you! For some of us, it’s not just us who have issues with denial, it’s our whole family, social circle, culture. Sometimes our denial feels like a mountain because there’s a lot of people contributing to it! It is very hard to come to face something that no one else wants to accept either. It can feel like the end of the world to give up our illusions.

Stripping away denial entirely can also be a problem! We need a bit of buffering from reality at times. It’s okay to pace yourself, dealing with these issues is a process. It takes time, and sometimes little steps is exactly the way to do it. Everyone is different, whatever works for you is right. Sometimes moving too quickly can be really destabilizing, like riding a bike for the first time with no training wheels. It takes us time to adjust to these things. It’s not all that helpful to trade total denial for total absorption with the issue. Neither leave you much room to have a life. And the name of the game here is having a life – not being a good patient and ticking some box that says ‘I’ve faced all my issues’! I don’t spend every minute of my day thinking of myself as a person with a mental illness, or remembering traumatic events in my life. I try to find a balance between facing and dealing with what I need to, and living in the here and now, enjoying myself wherever possible. It’s a tricky line to walk and it doesn’t always work, that’s the nature of the process. Just as there’s no right way to do this, there’s no neat way, and some spills, tears, frustration and mistakes are all part of the deal.