Kimberly Rae Miller > Quotes

“hoarders tend to be perfectionists, that each item they collect is one crucial part of an ideal world they are ever creating for themselves.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“Listen to what people mean, not what they say”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“Maybe if I endure all my pain now, I could be happy when I am older.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“One of the more popular theories behind the triggers for hoarding indicates that people who were neglected emotionally as children learn to form attachments to objects instead of people. When they do connect with others, they then keep any object that reminds them of that person as a way of holding on to those attachments.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“It wasn’t long before our hometown library became a refuge, babysitter, entertainer, soothsayer, and therapist. If I was grappling with something I didn’t understand—hormones, homework, boys, or bullies—I would find a book by someone who did understand, and the world seemed a lot more manageable.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Beautiful Bodies: A Memoir

“No one questions the home life of quiet girls with good grades and kickline practice after school. My need to be seen as perfect was as compulsive as my father’s need to surround himself with paper.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“EVERY NIGHT BEFORE I went to sleep, I would conjure the image of the actor George Burns in my head and ask him for the things I wanted most in life: new dolls, a best friend, and for my house to burn down. Religion was not a solidly formed concept for me, but I had seen a movie about God once; he looked like George Burns and was in the habit of causing trouble and granting wishes. I accepted him wholeheartedly as my savior.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“In my reading I found that many hoarders have similar stories to my dad. Maybe they weren’t the children of abusive alcoholics, but they were emotionally neglected at some point in their development. One of the more popular theories behind the triggers for hoarding indicates that people who were neglected emotionally as children learn to form attachments to objects instead of people. When they do connect with others, they then keep any object that reminds them of that person as a way of holding on to those attachments. Every”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“I had no use for nostalgia if it took up space.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from therapy: You can blame everything in your life on your parents,” I told him.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“I could sit in restaurants or parking lots with my parents forever, because I knew as soon as we pulled into our driveway, my family would disband and we’d all go back into hiding.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“You’re so strong. You don’t have to be strong all the time. You need to be brave right now for your parents. But I was not being particularly strong or brave. I was merely in a situation I had no other choice but to be present for.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“What shames us, what we most fear to tell, does not set us apart from others; it binds us together if only we can take the risk to speak it. — STARHAWK”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“But everything I wrote was with one very specific message: Love yourself anyway. You don’t have to be a size two to be beautiful. Life’s too short to never eat cake. It was, and is, a great message. I just didn’t believe it when it came to my own body.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Beautiful Bodies: A Memoir

“I remembered what it felt like to look at a parent who loves you and to be ashamed of them, and be ashamed that you are ashamed.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“The older I got, the more obsessed I became with maintaining the illusion that everything in my life was perfect—and as the years passed, I depended upon it to fly me under the radar of friends and faculty long enough to get to college.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“One day you won’t be able to pretend everything was okay, and you’re going to hate us.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“You’re so strong. You don’t have to be strong all the time.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“I wanted to forgive Paul—not because of my love for him, but because I didn’t think anyone else would ever love me enough to accept all the things that were wrong with me.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“My new schedule changed everything about how I ate; my focus shifted from wanting to be thin (because for the first I didn't have to be) but simply surviving my schedule. Instead of counting calories, I focused on eating for optimal energy - I didn't really have a game plan; I just tried to eat the foods that made me feel good physically and kept me awake during my long days. Within six months of starting my web series The Daily Special, I had gone from a size twelve back to a size eight, and it had been effortless. I decided right then and there that I had found the secret; the key to being thin was being busy and happy. That was it, I thought. I just had to busy and happy all the time and I would stay thin.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Beautiful Bodies: A Memoir

“be”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“My father was prone to thinking spells—it was like someone turned off his switch, and he went from energetic playmate to reclusive overseer.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“It’s amazing the things you convince yourself of when you’re apartment hunting in New York.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“I HAVE A BOX where I keep all of the holiday and birthday and just-because cards that my friends and family send me. They are memories, tokens of love and thoughtfulness, and there is a part of me that can’t bear to throw them out. I don’t need these cards. I hardly ever open that box, and so they don’t add anything to my life, but there is a part of me that thinks that maybe, just maybe, one day I will need to remember the moments and people they represent. This”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“ate matzo on Easter and ham on Hanukah, and I was relatively sure that Christmas was somehow intertwined with my birthday. It all made sense to me at the time. I”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“everyone has limitations to what they can give of themselves.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“Religion was not a solidly formed concept for me, but I had seen a movie about God once; he looked like George Burns and was in the habit of causing trouble and granting wishes. I accepted him wholeheartedly as my savior.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“Germans are orderly, Catholics believe in Jesus, Austrians look like Germans only shorter, Jews had to put blood on their doors so that George Burns wouldn’t kill their firstborn sons.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“It seemed beyond my understanding that a mother and a daughter could not love one another. Parents love their kids, kids love their parents—that seemed like a universal truth.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean

“We weren’t the kind of people that good things happened to.”
― Kimberly Rae Miller, Coming Clean