What is ‘Sanctuary’?

For me, I think I associate 'sanctuary' with my state of mind. For example, if I'm physically and mentally content, my sanctuary could be anywhere that allows me to feel calm and safe. This could be within my own home, someone else's home, outdoors enjoying nature, etc. 

My bedroom, that's my sanctuary. I can be myself there, don't need to mask, can listen to my music, watch favourite shows and films, and best of all I can sit with my cat chill. Life's pressures and crap can't get to me in my room. It's shielded by magic! 

I’m in the same boat, so far I’ve only been able to map the negative-space surrounding it, it’s a pain no matter which tier of Maslows-Hierarchy I try to establish it..

I don't know what sanctuary is. Whatever it is I've never found it. The closest to it is my bedroom but I've not found true sanctuary yet, my worries, trauma and pain follow me everywhere. I live in hope that sanctuary will find me one day..

Sanctuary unfortunately is the name of the housing association I rent my flat from. While the flat is very nice, Sanctuary’s customer service most of the time is dreadful.

My head is my sanctuary. The one place I can shut myself in and no one can get in, I can hide, be myself. It's the only true sanctuary I have.

Answer accepted, in as much as her art is an idol, it is a sanctuary-unwavering..

My sanctuary is Taylor Swift. Especially when I'm walking somewhere that makes me nervous.

I'm listening to My Tears Ricochet rn and it just speaks to me.

I guess I’ve had armour like-gossamer today, I’ve felt unusually-mortal and have felt the mortality of the world around me too-keenly, I haven’t reached for a single-ledge this week that hasn’t felt-like smoke..

I guess that’s partly my fault for taking the leaps, and leaving the ground too-flippantly, it’s been nice to notice that the forum hadn’t treated me like smoke, as you guys had enquired after me and I was touched (excuse the pun)..

Thank you, my friend..

What amazing conversations we have had!

Life is just overwhelming for me at the moment, with one thing or another... 

You’re good person Pegg and you’ve made good here. Wherever you go, whether or not that is away from here, having made-stone of our conversations in their completion, know that you’ve been the rainbow you speak of.
Your statements are and will be the quiet-church you speak of for me, this forum has consolidated thoughts for me, that a professional could never have done with a manual..

That's perfectly, and lyrically, expressed, DeSpereaux - exactly so.

Ah! But that's Sanctuary the Metaphysical! As in a sense this forum also is...

Sanctuary the Physical we might discover in random, unexpected places - in a rainbow, or a snowy hillside, or a quiet, old building... 

Or we might make it for ourselves, out of memories and comforts... 

Incidentally, I was on my way out of here until you started this irresistible thread... hmm..

Thanks for the clarification and contrast guys, it’s easy-enough to allow passage of the reverberations of past-chaos, to darken my thoughts and dull my peace. It was my pretext, in writing this discussion, that sanctuary was the illusion of stone and validation.
It was my point that it was inevitable that the stone was destined to be sand running through a firm-grip, and that validation was little-more than sown-wind waiting to be reaped, but it’s hard to see a pretext for what it is by one’s self..

I love that Pegg, sanctuary then is validation, sanctuary starts at the moment of admission into a place that arrests you of your burdens, even if temporary.

Sanctuary is the moment of authentication, the beep of a train-ticket at a barrier, that tells you that you need not worry again until you reach your destination..

DeSpereaux said:

Also what resources can an autist consider reliable and effective? Because to me it is not to be found in the upper-echelons of professional practice, nor can it be found reliably in operational service-provision, to me it has only been found amongst this forum and within my own skill-and-interest.

The advantage of this forum is that its members are often coming from a similar place and/or perspective - you are likely to find empathy here, and empathy can lead to validation, which we all benefit from as humans.

In an NT-dominated world, empathy and validation can be painfully lacking, as I'm sure most of us have experienced at some point. 

Perhaps then, this forum can be - indeed is - a sanctuary to its people. 

Beyond the basic and generic requirements of life, like a safe and secure place to live, an environment you can control to an acceptable extent, sufficient means to live - which are the foundations on which the rest rests - 

Sanctuary can potentially be found in people (astonishing but occasionally true) and animals, interests and ideas...

If it is to have a single defining characteristic, then Sanctuary is the sense of peace, security and serenity that allows you to be, and more fully become, yourself. 

That's it, I think...

Pegg.

There’s even a point to consider whether a responsibility can be considered a sanctuary, owing to the doleful-weight of threats to their stability.

Can you consider something, that you can be so catastrophic and invested in, a sanctuary? Does a sanctuary have to be a dispassionate and institutional in nature?

This is just a reflection, regarding the point that I am at in my cycle, as I map the desert I am in, I am quantifying just how sparse the landscape is now that the novelty is reduced.

I’m realising that if I want it to be more varied, I will have to build on it myself, and in ways that I have not imagined yet..

One of the ways to figure out where we fit in the world, even with the positive-aspects which an autist lives with, is the ability to abjure ourselves of the unhealthy-and-harmful aspects of the world which we live too.

This is not a neurotypical world, for we are in it too albeit in smaller number, we retain the right to ward-off and overcome the more-harmful aspects of this world. We deserve to carve out a sanctuary, and have respite from the world, as neurotypicals do in their own ways.