allison maisch

“. . . One of the most human things about anxiety is that we try to cure chaos with chaos. Someone who has got themselves into a catastrophic situation rarely retreats from it, we're far more inclined to carry on even faster. We've created lives where we can watch other people crash into the wall but still hope that somehow we're going to pass straight through it. The closer we get, the more confidently we believe that some unlikely solution is miraculously going to save us, while everyone watching us is just waiting for the crash."

. . . So Zara asked, without any sarcasm, "Have you learned any theories about why people behave like that, then?"

"Hundreds," The psychologist smiled.

"Which one do you believe?"

"I believe the one that says that if you do it for long enough, it can become impossible to tell the difference between flying and falling.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People