I Got My Own Back

An exploration of anxiety, internal security, and the therapeutic task of becoming someone you can trust to have your own back.

In my previous article, Your Confusion is a Red Flag I explored how confusion, anxiety and a sense of unease can sometimes be important information about our environment. This article asks a different question. Once we recognise that information, do we act on it? Or do we repeatedly override what we know? I believe the answer to that question has profound implications for our sense of internal safety.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern that seems to recur across many different clients. Anxiety, panic and a sense of destabilisation often appear alongside something else: a person’s relationship with themselves. More specifically, whether they experience themselves as someone who keeps them safe.

I’ve become increasingly interested in the possibility that our internal sense of safety depends not only on our early attachment relationships, but also on whether, over time, we come to trust ourselves, not only to recognise danger, but to honour our own experience, act in our own best interests, and recognise how internally dangerous it is when we do not.

I’ve noticed that when someone presents with anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks and so on, there is often an area of their life where they are acting against their own deeper knowing. They may be holding back words they know they need to say. They may be staying in a relationship they know they need to leave. They may continue drinking despite knowing it is harming them. They may struggle to say no when every part of them knows they need to. The circumstances differ, yet the pattern feels remarkably consistent. Their actions and their inner knowing are not aligned.

It’s a little like living in a house with someone they don’t experience as safe. Except the person they are living with is themselves. The body may be responding as though it is living with someone who isn't safe. If one part of us knows a boundary needs to be set while another repeatedly overrides it, the nervous system may experience that conflict as a lack of safety. From a parts perspective, different aspects of the self are pulling in different directions rather than moving together.

Of course, this way of relating to ourselves rarely develops in isolation. For many people, it begins in a home where safety was inconsistent or absent. Some people learn to override their own instincts in order to maintain connection or survive. Others internalise the experience of living with someone whose behaviour could not be relied upon. Often, both processes occur together. Over time, the relationship that once existed between child and caregiver becomes an internal relationship, shaping how safe a person feels in their own company and body.

There are several ways of understanding this. Attachment theory helps us understand the importance of early experiences of safety and security. Object relations explores how those early relationships become internalised. Parts work describes the different aspects of the self that can come into conflict, while inner child work often centres on developing an internal relationship in which the adult self becomes a safe, reliable parent to the younger parts. I see this idea as sitting alongside these perspectives, drawing something from each of them.

In its simplest form, it is about having your own back. It is about knowing that, as far as you are able, you will do the right thing by yourself. When you fall short, you respond with compassion, care and honesty rather than punishment or abandonment. Over time, that consistency begins to build something deeply important: the experience of yourself as someone you can rely on.

When anxiety presents, one thing to explore is whether the person has ceased to experience themselves as a safe protector. The work is not simply to regulate the anxiety. It is to rebuild the relationship in which the self becomes trustworthy again.

As part of inner child work, I often ask clients to imagine they have adopted a child. That child is completely in their care. They are responsible for that child’s safety, wellbeing and protection. If the child says they are frightened, they listen. If the child tells them something feels wrong, they take it seriously. If the child needs them to leave, they leave. If the child needs them to say no, they say no. If the child makes a mistake, they respond with compassion and guidance rather than criticism, shaming or abandonment. This relationship is built over time. A child who has lived without safety does not immediately trust because someone says, “You’re safe now.” Trust develops through repeated experiences of being listened to, protected and taken seriously. I think the same is true of our relationship with ourselves. We build internal security by becoming someone who consistently has our own back.