Cassie

“Because that was a parent’s job: to provide shoulders. Shoulders for your children to sit on when they’re little so they can see the world, then stand on when they get older so they can reach the clouds, and sometimes lean against whenever they stumble and feel unsure.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Some people accept that they will never be free of their anxiety, they just learn to carry it. She tried to be one of them. She told herself that was why you should always be nice to other people, even idiots, because you never know how heavy their burden is.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“I've learned that it helps to talk about [anxiety]. Unfortunately I think most people would still get more sympathy from their colleagues and bosses at work if they show up looking rough one morning and say 'I'm hungover' than if they say 'I'm suffering from anxiety.' But I think we pass people in the street every day who feel the same as you and I, many of them just don't know what it is. Men and women going around for months having trouble breathing and seeing doctor after doctor because they think there's something wrong with their lungs. All because it's so damn difficult to admit that something else is...broken. That it's an ache in our soul, invisible lead weights in our blood, an indescribable pressure in our chest. Our brains are lying to us, telling us we're going to die. But there's nothing wrong with our lungs, Zara.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Perhaps you, too, have children, in which case you'll know that you're frightened the whole time, frightened of not knowing everything and of not having the energy to do everything and of not coping with everything. In the end we actually get so used to the feeling of failure that every time we *don't* disappoint our children it leaves us feeling secretly shocked. It's possible that some children realize this. So every so often they do tiny, tiny things at the most peculiar times, to buoy us up a little. Just enough to stop us from drowning.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People