Rachel

“Beautiful sunshine, cloudless skies, no one to play with, nothing to do. Living like this, the way I’m living at the moment, is harder in the summer when there is so much daylight, so little cover of darkness, when everyone is out and about, being flagrantly, aggressively happy. It’s exhausting, and it makes you feel bad if you’re not joining in.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“One of the first things mental health practitioners tell you after you try to die is that your recent attempt is not selfish, not a misery you’ve inflicted on those you love most, but a fatal final symptom of a disease that’s destroying you. Which, sure. Fine. But seeing my younger brother’s face in that psych ward after he’d flown in from his first weeks of law school convinced me I deserved to die in the most torturous way imaginable. Loving people so much it hurts doesn’t necessarily negate the need to die; it just makes you hate yourself more for all the pain you cause, makes you feel your death would be a gift.”
― Anna Mehler Paperny, Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person

“Chronic illness changes the way you see yourself—it outlasts jobs, homes, relationships. Even the flimsiest reification has power.”
― Anna Mehler Paperny, Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person

“It was clear that he didn't remember me from one day to the next. The note clipped to his sleeve simply informed him that it was not our first meeting, but it could not bring back the memory of the time we had spent together.”
― Yoko Ogawa, The Housekeeper and the Professor