7 Quotes by K.L. Slater

Why is that everyone can forget about physical ailments quite easily, but when it comes to mental illness, it sticks to you like glue for the rest of your life?

The pork is in the oven with the foil off now, and a quick satisfying peek confirms that the crackling will be done to perfection. Just how Ben likes it. The apple crumble, with my own special oaty topping, sits on the side, and I have a big carton of Marks and Spencer’s vanilla custard stowed away in the fridge. I find nobody notices a little cheat, so long as it’s just here and there. The trick is not to overdo it.

Sit down, Mum,’ Ben says kindly when he’s finished mopping up the cream. I look down and see that the large area of polished wood is now dull and smeared, and although he’s done his best, the cream has surreptitiously seeped in between the boards where it might never be reached. ‘Mum?

It always amazes me how it is so easy to appear one way to the people around you but to live inside as someone else entirely.

All the dark stuff nobody’s saying is stacking up in the silences between our words. It lives and breathes in the space around us where we can’t touch it, see it, or escape it.

You could say it feels a bit like dressing up in the brightest party clothes so nobody sees how low and lost you feel underneath. You’d be surprised how easy it is to hide your true feelings with a smile and a kind word.

You don’t always know how you’re going to react to a sudden tragedy breaking your life into little pieces.