Kindness Like Water

The other day my therapist said she didn't know whether to wrap me in cotton wool or bubble wrap to keep me safe.
I was fuming and something inside me tried to crawl to the furthest corner of my insides; a frantic retreat from her kindness.
Images of barbed wire piercing bubble wrap flashed through my mind, followed by the most vivid recollection of this scene from The Wizard of Oz.

At first I thought it was my therapist. Nice...
But no.
The witch is something in me and the water is kindness and VALIDATION.

If I let it soak me, I think I will melt.

Positive, you may think, given that the witch is after all, The Wicked Witch Of The West. But, truth be told, that part of me is desperately frightened of being melted.

Being heard is harder to swallow than being dismissed.
I find more pain in the kindness.

A watery war is being fought inside me somewhere. I don't want it to touch the wicked witch of the west, and yet I know that the witch is the villain of the piece.