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You raise a few good points. > How safe and cozy can a cat feel sitting right out in the open on top of the water bill? Dodman describes it as something like t

You raise a few good points. > How safe and cozy can a cat feel sitting right out in the open on top of the water bill? Dodman describes it as something like the placebo effect. “This virtual box may provide some misplaced sense of security and psychosomatic comfort,” he writes. Maybe I was a cat in a past life (or on the autism spectrum in this one), but I get it. Urban environments make me very uncomfortable. It's even worse when I commute to them by train or taxi. Once I'm there, it's very overstimulating, and there is no space within them that I can call my own. I can't take a nap anywhere, I can't sit anywhere unbothered, there's just no place I can retreat to and say "this is my personal space; leave me alone or die." The problem is mitigated when I drive into the city, since my car serves that purpose. It's my space, others respect that, and the law would generally support my reaction to anyone that violates it. Meanwhile I'm just expected to deal with it when someone reclaims "my" seat at the library. I have a pet theory (no pun intended) that the homeless suffer the same plight, which compounds existing mental illness. There's zero stability for them. Noplace is theirs. Set up a camp somewhere and get chased away, find someone else looting it, or the city destroying it. Shelters and even jail are temporary-- never theirs. I have a bunch of cats and see them do what I think I do. Sometimes, one gets pushed around a bit too much. They'll fuck off and camp out on some paperwork, inside a stray Amazon box or on top of the fridge (which doubles as a vantage point). Each delineates what is very clearly a personal space for them. Usually they don't get bothered again, but if they do, they do a total 180, become the aggressor and fuck the intruder up-- effectively fighting from a defensive position...which is exactly the comfort I get from having a car in the city (which I know creates problems for everyone; I avoid cities as much as possible). > It is also an exercise I found in a book for healing trauma : make a circle on the floor with some towels, or a rope, or other objects and sit in it. It actually works and can help calm down the nervous system. It is a "patch" you could say, a substitute for weaker boundaries. When you sit in the circle, you can feel your body and emotions more easily. The "personal space" theory definitely isn't for everyone-- my wife can't relate to any of it and yet sensory deprivation is what works for her. When she's overwhelmed, muting one or more senses (blindfold, noise-cancelling headphones, etc.) is what brings her back down. Maybe it's a male/female thing-- rather than reshaping her environment like I do, she reshapes her own perception of it. > Someone with no significant trauma and relatively good boundaries (physical, emotional) may not notice any difference. Definitely!

AltruisticGapHN 3y ago
> Urban environments make me very uncomfortable. (...) You could have (just a theory, I am not a therapist) weaker boundaries. From what I read it is not necessarily emotional. It is said that really invasive surgeries for example can weaken this internal sense of boundary for some people, which is added stress into the system that really never goes away unless the person can somehow brings back a good sense of safety. > I have a pet theory (no pun intended) that the homeless suffer the same plight Oh yeah. Absolutely... it must be awful. To live on the street means there is a level of stress in their body that just never quiets down. Unless they are in a group perhaps with safe people, or perhaps in an area of town where they won't be bothered. Can't even begin to imagine what it's like. I always remember one night I missed the last train, and I walked around in town, I was looking for one of those shop entrances where there is a small hallway and I was so tired, I figured if I get in a corner there outside of the main street lights, I could just try to sleep. But oh no, as soon as I walked in those spaces, lights would turn on automatically. It was awful... I never realized how unfriendly and so totally unsafe being out on the street at night is like. There was literally nowdhere I could hide in the dark and crawl into a corner. And obviously lying down on a bench at night in the park wasn't a sensible option. But yeah it's really about having a sense of personal space. Violence, invasive surgeries, or even sometimes natural disasters can severely affect someone's sense of safety. I remember one streamer on Twitch he said one night a tree crashed through the roof and that he never slept quite the same since! Hopefully for people who otherwise have good support and a safe environments these things can heal over time. > rather than reshaping her environment like I do, she reshapes her own perception of it. I use noise cancelling headphones for years now. It does provide relief, especially with noise from unruly neighbours. When I put the headphones on, I am also in my space in a sense. I think ultimately it has to do with the amygdala, and a "internalized" sense of safety, from past experience and relationships.

AltruisticGapHN 3y ago

> Urban environments make me very uncomfortable. (...) You could have (just a theory, I am not a therapist) weaker boundaries. From what I read it is not necessarily emotional. It is said that really invasive surgeries for example can weaken this internal sense of boundary for some people, which is added stress into the system that really never goes away unless the person can somehow brings back a good sense of safety. > I have a pet theory (no pun intended) that the homeless suffer the same plight Oh yeah. Absolutely... it must be awful. To live on the street means there is a level of stress in their body that just never quiets down. Unless they are in a group perhaps with safe people, or perhaps in an area of town where they won't be bothered. Can't even begin to imagine what it's like. I always remember one night I missed the last train, and I walked around in town, I was looking for one of those shop entrances where there is a small hallway and I was so tired, I figured if I get in a corner there outside of the main street lights, I could just try to sleep. But oh no, as soon as I walked in those spaces, lights would turn on automatically. It was awful... I never realized how unfriendly and so totally unsafe being out on the street at night is like. There was literally nowdhere I could hide in the dark and crawl into a corner. And obviously lying down on a bench at night in the park wasn't a sensible option. But yeah it's really about having a sense of personal space. Violence, invasive surgeries, or even sometimes natural disasters can severely affect someone's sense of safety. I remember one streamer on Twitch he said one night a tree crashed through the roof and that he never slept quite the same since! Hopefully for people who otherwise have good support and a safe environments these things can heal over time. > rather than reshaping her environment like I do, she reshapes her own perception of it. I use noise cancelling headphones for years now. It does provide relief, especially with noise from unruly neighbours. When I put the headphones on, I am also in my space in a sense. I think ultimately it has to do with the amygdala, and a "internalized" sense of safety, from past experience and relationships.