Eva Hagberg > Quotes

“For five years, I have been sick and I have been trying to will myself to be better. To think harder about being better, to improve more. To become a better breather, reactor, meditator, hoping that if I just try hard enough, the symptoms will go away and I’ll feel like myself again, like a self I remember as if out of a rearview mirror except with this one, the objects are smaller than they appear. I have tried to force myself to be more clearheaded, energetic, grounded. Tried yoga, acupuncture, cognitive behavioral therapy, talk therapy, and long walks in the woods. And every few months, when I finally felt I’d reached a zenith of my abilities with yoga, CBT, or talk therapy, I would give it another shot: go to another doctor, a Western doctor, one with an M.D. and a white coat, and I would tell him or her my symptoms (for the gender of the doctor does not matter only, it would seem, my gender), and hope that once again, the doctor would pay attention, would take my case, would try to help me so that I didn’t have to so deeply and fervently try to help myself.”
― Eva Hagberg

“Language became insufficient; mirrors didn’t work.”
― Eva Hagberg, It's All In Your Head

“I did not yet know, when I first woke up from the surgery, that there would be friends of mine who would disappear, quietly, and then send a text — “how are you feeling?” — once a week and then not respond when I answered, sometimes dishonestly, sometimes with “terrible.” I did not know, could not imagine, the levels to which I would be stripped down, the point to which everything I ever thought I could count on would be removed.”
― Eva Hagberg, It's All In Your Head

“But what I never expected was what happened: that when everything I had ever counted on was taken from me, I came to a point where I believed — no, knew — that the only real thing that mattered to me was love. Love for my family, and my friends, and most of all, myself.”
― Eva Hagberg, It's All In Your Head