Blanket Forts For Support
WHAT IS A BLANKET FORT SUPPORT SYSTEM?
A blanket fort can be a place of safety and sanctuary, providing us with some much-needed comfort, a safe space – somewhere we can retreat to weather the storms.
Thinking about the support we have in terms of a blanket fort can be really helpful. It can help us to put together a support system so comforting, so strong, and so reassuring, that it can rival even the most epic of blanket forts.
WE NEED LOTS OF DIFFERENT SUPPORTS
When we build a blanket fort, we don’t use one support, we use a few. We could just throw a blanket over a stick, but there wouldn’t be much space underneath it for us to sit and it wouldn’t be the most stable of structures, it wouldn’t weather many storms with us.
To make a really good blanket fort, we need lots of different types of support. We need a couple of solid things to sit in the middle and hold the majority of the fort up. We might need some string. We probably need some pegs, tape, or pins to hold up some of the edges. We need some soft and squishy things inside to make it super comfy.
Just like with a blanket fort, when we’re building our support system, we need to have different supporters. We might need some professional support and some personal support. Sometimes the support we need is a therapist. Sometimes it’s an understanding friend to be an ear or to sit with us for a few hours. We all need different types of support at different times and for different things. We all do.
SOME PARTS OF OUR BLANKET FORT NEED MORE SUPPORT THAN OTHERS
Some bits of our blanket fort need lots of support to keep it up. Other bits of it don’t need much at all. Different bits of our fort might need different levels of support at different times.
There are some bits of our lives that we will need a lot of support. There will be other areas of our lives that are already pretty well supported. We might need a lot of help with learning how to manage negative thoughts and a little bit of help with planning our meals. But we could have our sleep routine down to a ‘t’. The support we need will vary and evolve as our needs do. We know ourselves best, so when building our support system, we know which areas of our lives we need to focus our support on.
SOMETIMES WE NEED EXTRA SUPPORT
There are times when our blanket fort needs a bit of assistance. If we open a window, our fort could flop or fall down. We need to add an extra few pegs, or the odd bit of tape to stick it back up. We might need to negotiate the structure slightly.
Life is a bit like that, it’s never linear and it’s never completely smooth-sailing. When things get a bit blustery, we might need some additional support, we might need to make adjustments too. This could mean texting a friend, upping the self-care ante, or ringing a crisis line. When building our support system, it can be helpful to think about how we can flex it to cope with the ups and downs of life.
SOMETIMES WE NEED A DIFFERENT TYPE OF SUPPORT
Sometimes, a bit of our blanket fort keeps falling down no matter how many times we try to fix it and bodge it. We might have a bit of tape that keeps coming loose or Blu-tak that keeps falling off. We need to try and find a different longer-term solution.
Our support system might need to change sometimes. Different things work for different people and sometimes things that we try just don’t work out for us, however much effort we put into them. There is absolutely no shame in that. We’re not born with all of the answers, we learn as we go. The things that don’t work teach us as much, if not more, than the things that do. As we grow and change, our needs do. As do the needs of others. Identifying the need to flex and pivot can serve us well in the longer-term, rather than keeping on with something that’s not working.
TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE IT WORK
A support system can be as cosy as the cosiest of blanket forts. A support system can also mean well and not bring much comfort at all. It’s all a bit trial and error-y, as all new things are. When we bring a willingness to try and to tweak, along with the acceptance that we don’t always get things right, our support systems are all the stronger for it, as are our blanket forts.
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Article shared from @BLURT Foundation.
