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The term "safety mechanism" when referring to mentally ill people can be applied in numerous respects. One of them was relevant to me when I had several relapses of psychosis (that were usually six years apart). I had a mechanism that would prevent me from doing physical harm. This was a special faculty that continued to work even when my brain was predominantly doing the wrong thing. 

Another "safety mechanism" is where I'd get out of a situation in which the demands were excessive. Job situations in which too much was expected caused me to leave in a hurry. While this wasn't good for my work history, it may have prevented mental damage. When medicated, and if you do not have the same insulation from your surroundings compared to neuro-typical people, you may not be able to handle as many demands. People, not just mentally ill people, can sustain damage through overload. The difference is where non-afflicted people can often handle more stimuli and more stress without complications. 

An example of not being able to do as much: I can barely handle picking up someone from the Oakland Airport or dropping someone off there for a flight. I can pull it off once in a while, but it brings me to my upper limit. And afterward, I need some recovery time. 

Another safety mechanism caused me to get out of destructive relationships (that were usually with other mental health consumers) or to avoid some relationships entirely. There are all kinds of traps and minefields in the realm of dating. A mentally ill man or woman needs to beware when she or he is thinking of dating. For example, you can catch an STD. There are strains of some STD's that are incurable viruses or are bacteria completely resistant to all antibiotics. 

Pregnancy is another risk, and it can cause a lifelong obligation, a particularly challenging one. And if you can't make a living before you were dating, you won't be transformed into being job ready by virtue of becoming a mom or dad--you'll probably still have the same problems with employment. 

Not to mention raising the child--twenty years--or maybe forty years of responsibility if the offspring inherits your disability. I never had children because I and/or a partner used birth control. This is because I felt that I could not provide for a child. And that is also a safety mechanism. It consists of conscious choice. 

Another self-protection involves writing at the computer. I can usually know whether my brain is up for the task. Writing is often very brain-intensive, especially if done well, and if my brain doesn't want to go there, I follow its prompt and I avoid writing until after I get the rest I need. Forcing oneself to churn out material is incongruous with the writing being a source of joy, and it could result in bad material.  

An author wrote that writing is "hard physical work." And it really seems to hold true, especially when you are producing good material. And I arrived at the comparison of writing vs. being a bricklayer. Or the comparison that writing a novel could resemble building a house. I know a man who built a house (with help) and now he is writing a novel (with proofreading help). When writing, you are not putting together pieces of brick, metal, and wood, you are putting words on a computer screen. But really it is the same thing in a different form. And safety precautions should be used since you don't want to overload the brain. The pretense that your brain should just work and isn't subject to overload, is just that, a pretense. 

When you get older, safety mechanisms may be more important because it is harder to bounce back from a mishap. You should be done with episodes of severe mental illness long before you reach age forty, and you should not burden parents with caring for you when they get too old. Life isn't easy, and employing some safety precautions is worthy, even though we'd like to think we can always count on our bodies and minds having the ability to do anything--they don't.