ellie l

“Before I arrived I though rehab was like... I don't even know. A place where a party girl could recharge her feelings to her regularly scheduled party-girl life!”
― Cat Marnell, How to Murder Your Life

“So what can all you pretty young addicts learn from this? Beware. Unhealthy people attract other unhealthy people-and girls on drugs attract bad guys like a wounded baby deer attracts vultures. When you're high every day, you are vulnerable every day. You are making your judgement all screwy. You will let bad people into your life. They will steal from you and manipulate you, and possibly fuck you while you are sleeping. They will take advantage of your numbness- that you aren't feeling what one should when one is treated atrociously. They will tell you that you look amazing when you're malnourished. They will shoot you up. They will encourage you to stay on drugs: they want you woozy, emaciated, and addicted so they can keep exploiting you.
Strong. healthy people just don't interest the sickos of this world as much. You want to be one of the strong, healthy people- which is practically impossible when your using. I'm telling you all this in case you are young. It took so long for me to figure it all out! Now that I'm thirty-three- officially a woman-I'm finally getting there. Guys still buzz my apartment, but I don't always let them in.”
― Cat Marnell, How to Murder Your Life

“As an ex-slut, his comment gave me pause. Had I been bettering myself during my ho era? Not decreasing my value but stockpiling experience? This thought made me feel tenderly towards my younger self, that skittish girl beholden to her appetites, chasing many smidge of warmth. Men's bodies were the best blankets. It seemed smarter, in the long run, to have more warmth than less, to hoard this animal currency that never went out of style.”
― Brittany Newell, Soft Core

“I thought often of the girl who lived down the street. She only ate apples and wore long sleeves in the summer to hide the scars on her arms. Her sadness felt sharp, driven, surgical, whereas my mother's was smeary, matted, willy-nilly, something she'd dragged home one night. It had none of the neighbor girl's perverse clarity.”
― Brittany Newell, Soft Core