“I feel the universe is telling me something. And it doesn't even matter if it's true or not. What matters is that I feel it, and believe it.”

“And it doesn’t even matter if it’s true or not. What matters is that I feel it, and believe it.”

“But I want to feel like life matters. Ihad something real with you, but then the realness scared me. I decided to go for other things instead.”

“Some people think mental illness is a matter of mood, a matter of personality. They think depression is simply a form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over.I know how wrong this is.When I was a child, I didn't understand. I would wake up in a new body and wouldn't comprehend why things felt muted, dimmer. Or the opposite--I'd be supercharged, unfocused, like a radio at top volume flipping quickly from station to station. Since I didn't have access to the body's emotions, I assumed the ones I was feeling were my own. Eventually, though, I realized these inclinations, these compulsions, were as much a part of the body as its eye color or its voice. Yes, the feelings themselves were intangible, amorphous, but the cause of the feelings was a matter of chemistry, biology.It is a hard cycle to conquer. The body is working against you. And because of this, you feel even more despair. Which only amplifies the imbalance. It takes uncommon strength to live with these things. But I have seen that strength over and over again.”

“And just like that, the universe goes wrong. Just like that, all the enormity seems to shrink into a ball and float away from my reach. I feel it, and she doesn't. Or I feel it, and she won't.”

“If I'm not telling you something, it's for a reason. Just because you trust me, it doesn't mean I have to automatically trust you. Trust doesn't work like that.”

“It doesn't feel like a date. It doesn't feel like friendship. It feels like something that fell off the tightrope but hasn't yet hit the net.”