“I would disappear, only to come home reinvented. I would be unrecognizable upon my fleeting returns. This fantasy was realized, but not quite the way I had intended. In deciding to remake myself, I managed to avoid the fact that I would also, by definition, have to erase what self there was to begin with. I began to wonder, many years later, if total erasure had been my intent all along.”
― Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
― Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
“What if depression is, in fact, a form of grief—for our own lives not being as they should? What if it is a form of grief for the connections we have lost, yet still need?”
― Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions
― Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions
“I wanted to turn heads not with lecherous leers of bemusement but with awe. I wanted to become untouchable, cruel, glittery, sleek and haughty as a cat.”
― Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
― Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
“I kept noticing a self-help cliché that people say to each other all the time, and share on Facebook incessantly. We say to each other: “Nobody can help you except you.” It made me realize: we haven’t just started doing things alone more, in every decade since the 1930s. We have started to believe that doing things alone is the natural state of human beings, and the only way to advance. We have begun to think: I will look after myself, and everybody else should look after themselves, as individuals. Nobody can help you but you. Nobody can help me but me. These ideas now run so deep in our culture that we even offer them as feel-good bromides to people who feel down—as if it will lift them up. But John has proven that this is a denial of human history, and a denial of human nature. It leads us to misunderstand our most basic instincts. And this approach to life makes us feel terrible.”
― Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions
― Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions
“So instead of seeing your depression and anxiety as a form of madness, I would tell my younger self—you need to see the sanity in this sadness. You need to see that it makes sense. Of course it is excruciating. I will always dread that pain returning, every day of my life. But that doesn’t mean the pain is insane, or irrational. If you touch your hand to a burning stove, that, too, will be agony, and you will snatch your hand away as quickly as possible. That’s a sane response. If you kept your hand on the stove, it would burn and burn until it was destroyed.”
― Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions
― Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions
Dannii’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Dannii’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by Dannii
Lists liked by Dannii














