It might be all in my head, but that’s where I keep all my crazy, so that makes sense.

Surviving mortification makes you stronger and more resilient because you have no other choice but to move on. Either you can let it eat at you, or you can celebrate it and bring joy to someone else who will cringe and giggle like mad along with you. Accidentally making shit awkward is such a familiar, vulnerable, and underrated accomplishment.

Life is full of these moments that are supposed to be amazing but end up being questionable at best. I often wonder if it’s because we build them up as being so important and so they can never measure up. I think that’s part of it, but honestly I suspect that the people who made up all the milestones that are supposed to be important are psychopaths.

Someone once told me that the difference between introverts and extroverts is that introverts recharge by being alone (like any normal person) and extroverts recharge by being with others (like vampires).

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.

I know other people who are like me. They take the same drugs as me. They try all the therapies. They are brilliant and amazing and forever broken.

It's like I have a sensor in my head, but she works on a seven-second delay... well-meaning, but perpetually about seven seconds too late to actually do anything to stop the horrific avalanche of shit-you-shouldn't- say-out-loud-but-I-just-did.

It's tempting to start each sentence with an apology or disclaimer. To preface everything with "In my life I've found" so that people can't yell at me for being wrong (I often am) or misinformed (sure) or overly emotional (HOW DARE YOU). ... That's one of the frightening things about writing a book that no one ever tells you. You have to pin down your thoughts and opinions and then they exist on a page, ungrowing, forever.

Which sort of shows why my body is an idiot, because forced narcolepsy is pretty much the worst defense ever.