External Images.

I feel sad today, I’m not really sure why. I saw my therapist yesterday and then I had a date and went for a drink and then saw the hobbit. It was an enjoyable evening, yet this morning I find myself with that lost empty feeling.

Some of the things my therapist said I understand why he said them, but they don’t make me feel better. He reassures me that the things I deal with aren’t so strange, that many people have the same fears.

We talked about the fear of the dark, the way I am terrified of it at night. The way I’d rather be outside in the dark than trapped in my home. He told me that many are afraid of the dark, it’s quite normal and that some part of us is inbuilt to have fear, it’s a part of our survival.

I feel like I want to shout at him, it’s not the same. I don’t care if others have this fear, I don’t care that I’m not alone. I don’t care that it’s ‘normal’ it doesn’t feel normal. It feels insane when I’m afraid at night; sure that just maybe the bad man is there once again.

We talked about my mum a little, where my fear of the darkness comes from. He told me I had really suffered. He told me he was sorry that I had. He said that considering all I had gone through, I survived. I came out quite sane. It makes me want to scream inside. I wish I could show him inside my head. I wish I could make him feel what I feel so he would know that I didn’t come out the other side in one piece.

But I also realise that I sat there. Perfectly still. Perfectly sane on the outside, without the tools to break my silence of how I feel, because I’m trained in keeping secrets. I even do it on the outside. Perfect external images.