Before figuring out how to use the patio table, I went to the BATTLEFIELD at the start and lost lots of Sanity trying to travel through that area to with Pawky is. That's not ideal, is it?

You can make the BATTLEFIELD a bit safer by equipping the first tier of equipment, but you could visit it any time basically.  It isnt quite suicide to do it right away or without  gear, but BF1 is a good way to get a few thousand AGE very early on if you dont lose all your SANITY along the way.