I have a safe that stays in T's office. It sits underneath a table next to him and has done for about 18 months. Only I know the combination, so T can't take anything out of there unless I unlock it.

It is only imaginary, but for me I can see the benefits. It reminds me that there is "big" stuff that needs looking at someday and it has enabled me to be as open as I could at the point we put it in the safe - so we both know it is there.

I can't really remember how we decided on the safe, or how I decided on what should go there. In my mind they are simply words written on bits of paper.

Once or twice we have "opened" the safe and just looked at the naming of the things without going into any detail. I think T wants us to just take it really slowly, bit by bit, monitoring my emotions so I do not get overwhelmed which I guess then has the potential for being traumatic. We have also once given the things a label in terms of how relatively easy / difficult each one would be to look at in a little more detail.

Unfortunately I have had a lot of real time stuff going on so we have not looked in the safe for a long time, T does still give gentle reminders of it being there from time to time though.

For me it has been so helpful