To take medication as part of the battle is to battle fiercely, and to refuse it would be as ludicrously self-destructive as entering a modern war on horseback. It is not weak to take medications; it does not mean that you can’t cope with your personal life; it is courageous.
When I said that I had a history of mental illness, I was told that in that case I could not well expect anyone to take my views on these things seriously. “I’m a trained professional and I’m here to help you,” the doctor said. When I said that I was an experienced patient and knew that what she was doing was in fact injurious to me, she told me that I had not been to medical school and would just have to proceed according to what she judged an appropriate protocol.
I believe that the emergency room policy in which saying “I have had severe psychotic depression exacerbated by extreme pain” is treated much the same as saying “I have to have a woolly teddy bear with me before you can use sutures” is unacceptable.
He, however, lost nothing by his kindness.
The child is father to the man,” and with such training, whatever may be his natural disposition, it cannot well be otherwise than that, on arriving at maturity, the sufferings and miseries of the slave will be looked upon with entire indifference.
The flesh of the coon is palatable, but verily there is nothing in all butcherdom so delicious as a roasted ’possum.
There have been hours in my unhappy life, many of them, when the contemplation of death as the end of earthly sorrow – of the grave as a resting place for the tired and worn out body – has been pleasant to dwell upon. But such contemplations vanish in the hour of peril. No man, in his full strength, can stand undismayed, in the presence of the “king of terrors.” Life is dear to every living thing; the worm that crawls upon the ground will struggle for it.
Jenny’s business was to prepare the coffee, which consisted of corn meal scorched in a kettle, boiled and sweetened with molasses.
Little in return? You’re so wrong. I worked hard because I had a hunger inside me that no amount of food could satisfy. I found relief from it by feeding others.
When we came home, nobody wanted to hear what we nurses had been through. We were expected to carry on from where we left off – get married, have our babies, support our husbands’ careers. That’s what I tried to do, but I had a bad time for a while.
What would it feel like to spew venomous anger? To writhe with hate? To cry bitter tears? To truly love and feel loved in return? To care deeply and passionately about something or someone? Was she destined to live emotionally flat forever?
Forces beyond my control have taken everything away from me except my freedom to choose how to respond.
She learned things went better if she kept a distance between them, a decision that brought with it sadness and guilt. She vowed to herself to carry the burden silently. That was a sort of love. Wasn’t it?
There are fine but important distinctions between wanting to be dead, wanting to die, and wanting to kill yourself.
Crush’ is too weak a word to describe how I feel. It doesn’t do you justice, but maybe it works for me. I am the one who is crushed. I’m crushed that we have only ever regarded each other as enemies. I’m crushed when the day ends and I haven’t said anything to you that isn’t cloaked in five layers of sarcasm.
Maybe it’s the whole concept of a guilty pleasure,” Neil says gently. “Why should we feel guilty about something that brings us – pleasure?
How do you tell the person you’ve spent four years trying to destroy that you have a crush on them?
Today isn’t my epilogue with Neil – it’s a beginning. I’ll leave the happily-ever-afters in the books.
I’m in love with you. You are the most interesting person I know, and I’ve never been able to talk to anyone the way I can talk to you. I’ve devoted the past four years to leaving Seattle, but you... You are the best thing about this city. You are going to be the hardest to leave. I love you so much.
So often, I’m trapped between the pain of remembering and the fear of forgetting.