Sense Of Safety: Can Childhood Trauma Stop Someone From Being Able To Feel Safe?

For some people, feeling safe is a normal part of life and something that they take for granted. This doesn’t mean that there won’t have been moments in their life when they have felt unsafe.

Throughout their life, there may have been numerous moments when this was the case, yet a moment like this may have soon passed. Thankfully, they will have soon been able to return to how they were before.

The Ideal

Through having a sense of safety, someone like this will be able to inhabit their body and, thus, to connect to their own needs and feelings. Moreover, they will feel safe enough to express who they are.

It is then not going to be an issue for them to assert themselves; allowing them to say yes and no at the right times. Moving forward in life and making progress will be something that is just part of their life.

A Very Different Life

For others, feeling safe won’t be a normal part of their life and something that they take for granted. If there have been moments when they have felt safe, they could be few and far between.

In fact, these moments may be so rare that it is a challenge for them to connect to what it was like for them to have this experience. And, even if they were to remember a moment like this, it could be an unwelcome reminder of how challenging their life is.

One Big Challenge

Through not having a sense of safety, someone like this will probably find it hard to inhabit their body. Consequently, it will most likely be difficult for them to connect to their needs and feelings.

Instead of expressing who they are and asserting themselves, they may typically do what other people want and what they think they want. Ergo, even if they are able to move forward in life and they appear to be ‘successful’, the life that they lead won’t be in alignment with who they truly are or bring them deep fulfilment.

A Different Experience

Now, although someone could live a relatively normal life even though they don’t feel safe and even be ‘successful’, they could lead a life that is radically different. Due to what is going on for them, they could prefer to spend a fair amount of time by themselves.

They are then going to have minimal contact with others and could be seen as anything but ‘successful’. Unlike the previous scenario, they won’t be a high-functioning individual who doesn’t feel safe.

Trying To survive

This may illustrate that as they feel so unsafe, they are unable to keep it together, so to speak, by pleasing others. In general, they will feel so unsafe that the primary way for them to handle what they are going through will be to keep their distance from others and to isolate themselves.

They are unlikely to be in a warzone but it will be as though their life is under threat. Trying to manage the high arousal that they are experiencing is going to take a lot of their time and energy, leaving very little left with which to create a fulfilling existence.

A Miserable Life

Even if someone doesn’t isolate themselves and can just about keep it together, they are still likely to have moments when they feel empty and depressed. They won’t have a good connection with their own body and their life won’t match up with who they are, so why would they feel any different?

However, if they are not aware of what is going on internally and why their life is this way, they could simply see themselves as a victim. It is then not that their life is the way that it is because they don’t have a felt sense of safety, or a felt sense of their own value; it is because other people are controlling them and holding them back.

Projection

If it wasn’t for other people, then, they would be able to behave how they want and to move forward. A lot of their energy can be directed towards certain people, with them being seen as perpetrators.

In reality, one will be co-creating this reality, and this means that they won’t just be a powerless victim. Nevertheless, for them to realise this, they will need to take a step back and to go deep within themselves.

A Deeper Look

Irrespective of what position someone is in, there is going to be a reason why they don’t have a felt sense of safety. What this may illustrate is that their early years were a time when they were deeply traumatised.

During this period of their life, they may have been abused and neglected on a weekly, if not daily, basis. The love, care and nurturance that they needed to be able to develop in the right way wouldn’t have been provided, causing them to feel extremely unsafe and insecure.

The Original Penetrators

If they do believe that certain people are holding them back or would harm or undermine them if they behaved differently, it can show that they are a projecting their early caregiver’/s onto them. Also, as they carry the trauma of being violated and have a victim consciousness, they can attract people who are the same but who have become perpetrators to avoid their own pain.

With this in mind, one can project parts of themselves into people and they can come into contact with people who are very similar to their caregiver/s. To change their reality, they will need to heal their trauma.

Awareness

If one can relate to this, and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for exte
al support. This is something that can be provided by the assistance of a therapist or healer.