The Open Road: A Safe Space Born from Trauma
Driving is therapeutic to me. Anyone who has known me long enough has heard me say that at one point or another.
Driving is therapeutic to me. Anyone who has known me long enough has heard me say that at one point or another. Fortunately for me, most people around me don’t enjoy driving like I do, and so this has worked out for me socially as well.
Finding Safety Behind the Wheel
While going through EMDR therapy I was asked to identify a safe place in which I could imagine myself in when memories got too intense to relive. Driving was an easy answer for me, in fact it was the only answer.
Growing up in the household I grew up was like trying to navigate a minefield without mine sweepers.
You knew at some point you were going to catch shrapnel, you just never knew which step would be the one to set it off.
Living in Tension
My step dad—from the time he entered my life when I was 8 years old—rejected myself and my siblings from my mom’s previous marriage to my biological dad.
He only tolerated us so he wouldn’t have to deal with my mom being upset, but this was only while my mom was around. My mom was at work most of the day throughout the week, so this meant my brother and I would have to be home with just my stepdad from the time we came home from school until the evening when my mom came home around 6pm.
The worst was always Saturdays because we had all day with him. My step dad worked the night shifts and was off weekends. This created a very tense living environment for me.
I couldn’t be too loud, I couldn’t take up too much space, I was confined to the back space we deemed the second living room.
The primary living room was not for me. I could not sit there, I could not eat there, nothing there was mine.
I remember dreading coming home from school and waking up on weekends. I can still vividly remember hearing my stepdads footsteps coming down the stairs. I could always tell his footsteps apart from anyone else’s. They were heavy, and slower paced than the rest of the families.
My brother and I would immediately go silent when he would come down to avoid attracting attention to ourselves, but it honestly made little difference. If my stepdad woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day, we were going to be verbally abused regardless.
Escaping Through the Driver’s Seat
So as you might imagine, having an excuse to leave for any extended period of time was more than welcomed. When I got my license I started working very shortly after. I borrowed my moms van for a while until I turned 19 when I had enough money saved up to buy my own car. I took that thing all over the place.
I found any excuse to go walk around some malls or go to restaurants if it meant not being at home with my stepdad. Sure it was lonely at times because my friends couldn’t tag along all the time, but it was better than being on edge at home for hours at a time.
Driving gave me a sense of direction, freedom. I was in control of my life and where I was going in that moment I was driving. My thoughts were free to explore my environment. I could be myself out loud.
Some of the most important decisions I’ve made in my life were made on a drive somewhere.
Win The Night was born on a drive.
My decision to become a Marine was born on a drive.
Driving was my first real home. So in therapy driving was an easy answer for a safe space.
What Does Safety Really Mean?
My therapist often talked about how safe spaces truly vary from person to person. Sometimes there are no safe spaces, which means the clients would have to create a safe space for themselves.
I imagine that would be very difficult, because what reference point do you have? If no place was safe, how do you know what is without experiencing a feeling of safety first?
Maybe you would just list things that may be safe environments and try to imagine yourself there? That would be difficult for me. My therapist did inform me though that I was the first person to choose a car as a safe space.
I never really knew if I should be happy about that or not, but it works for me and that’s enough.
She did ask me at one point, to test if my safe space was a viable option:
“When you’re driving, where are you going?”
I paused for a moment…
“Where am I going? Somewhere I choose to be.”