Nancy

“They are no longer wives or mothers or adolescent girls, they are no longer women to be considered or contemplated, they will never be women who are desired or loved; they are patients. Lunatics. Nobodies.”
― Victoria Mas, The Mad Women's Ball

“Truth to be told, whether free or incarcerated, women were not safe anywhere. Since the dawn of time, they had been the victims of decisions that were taken without their consent.”
― Victoria Mas, The Mad Women's Ball

“When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker … but as survivors. Survivors who don’t get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it. Survivors who wake to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand. I hope to one day see a sea of people all wearing silver ribbons as a sign that they understand the secret battle, and as a celebration of the victories made each day as we individually pull ourselves up out of our foxholes to see our scars heal, and to remember what the sun looks like.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“Although madness in men is not the same as that in women: men use it against others; women turn it in on themselves.”
― Victoria Mas, The Mad Women's Ball