problem with esc_textarea

I was validating data for textarea using esc_textarea but when extracting the value using get_option and trying to embed the value in the code it is adding some extra code like &gt,&lt so is there any way to filter this out or decode it.Actully i am giving image path using textarea so instead of displaying image it is displaying the path. when i remove esc_textarea in validation it works fine.Any help will be appreciated