I Take It With Me

Sitting with my therapist, crying (of course - it gets so cliche in there) I just wanted him to tell me it was safe. So I told him that. Pretty much verbatim "I just want to know that it's safe." But he didn't answer me directly. I don't even remember what he said because it was his expert method of dancing around something he either didn't want to discuss or didn't know how to address. So we talked a little bit more and it was almost time to go. He asked if there was anything any one of us would like to say before time was up. I said "yeah. you didn't tell me it was safe." He asked if I was talking about my arm, but I wasn't. I was talking about the world - out there - everything outside myself. We took out a collage I made and I showed him how on one side all was serene and protected and on the other side was chaos and pain and fear and violence. I just wanted to know if that other side - the bad side - was still bad or if it was safe. He explained that when I emerge from that protected place inside, I emerge with all that violence that is on the other side, I BRING it with me, so NO- IT'S NOT SAFE. I didn't expect that. But I understand it. I do not live in a violent world. No one is hurting me anymore. Yet when I try to interact with the world I still have all these violent, rageful, intense emotions and once I step beyond my walls that is what I bring with me. I am my own enemy and I am a danger to myself. He told me that it could be safe. That as we work on things slowly and carefully, I can emerge safely into this world. This is an astounding revelation.