A safe space is a location where you feel you can hide away from the stressors and responsibilities of life. This is something we all have, and it’s completely normal. Unfortunately, that safe space is more than likely the reason you may be feeling like crap all the time.
If you’re anything like me, my safe space is my bedroom. It’s a 12 ft x 12 ft room where simplicity is everything. There’s only my bed, TV, dresser, and now a coffee table that I use as an office desk. I actually have a real office, but I prefer using a small coffee table over a kitchen-table-sized desk because it doesn’t fit in my safe space. The simplicity of my bedroom makes me feel like I have more control over things, reducing those anxious feelings.
There are days where, like many of you, it feels like the world is crashing in through the windows and doors, ready to swallow me whole. My safe space is the only place that keeps the world at bay. To be more specific, my bed is where I feel the safest. I’m sure many people can relate. Sleep is like time travel for people with depression. I saw that in a video while doom-scrolling a while ago, and it stuck with me. I’m in this bad position where I feel my best in the morning, but as the day goes on, I get more and more depressed and anxious. The common factor here is my bedroom—my safe space.
The downside is, no matter how much time I spend in my safe space, I still feel like crap. I leave the house, and the moment I start to feel anxiety bubbling up, I immediately want to go home, lie in bed, turn on the TV, and drown out the world with YouTube or some short documentary.
I understand completely that this is a problem. The hard part is breaking the habit and making a positive change to stop doing this. So, how am I going to change it? Schedules. I’ve begun to map out each of my days down to the time I go to sleep. From the moment I wake up, I have something to do. That might sound more stressful, but it’s not. Having a set goal for each day gives me a feeling of “reason” to get out of bed and accomplish something. It makes me feel like I’ve earned the right to go to bed and sleep again.
Writing your daily tasks and goals down—along with a long-term goal—is key here. You’re much more likely to complete something when you write it down. Creating a micro-habit of checking that schedule every morning can truly change your life. The hardest part is getting started, which applies to everything in life. You have to recognize that you don’t just need to make the change to better yourself—you have to want to make the change. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves. That applies to you, too.
I’ll explore this more in a later topic, but I genuinely believe remote work is a silent killer. Maybe not for everyone, but for people affected by anxiety and depression, the worst place to be is stuck at home all the time. I work from home, and while there are many pros, the biggest con is that I no longer have a strong reason to leave the house. The type of job you have—and where you work—can greatly influence your mental health.
The key to not being miserable is pushing yourself to do the things you don’t want to do—or normally wouldn’t do. You could call it a form of exposure therapy. The feeling of completion you get, that dopamine hit, after successfully doing something you didn’t want to do is addicting. You just need to do it more often to build that desire. The rest will follow.
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