“Underneath my imagination there didn't seem to be anything solid except for the space where I shoved my pain and sadness. Besides that, there were only twisted steel threads of axiety, woven through my body and brain, wired into me like a constant warning. Watch out, stay still, move away, stay silent, fight back, run and hide. Even when I was dreaming, but more so when I was awake, there was the constant fear of being caught off-guard, or by the wrong person at the wrong time.”

“I think what hurts the most is that I just really want to belong. I want to stand inside the circle of other people and be noticed for the right things, but it seems like the wrong things are always bigger. And all the advie I've ever read --smile more, be yourself, dream big, stay positive--seems to have some darker side that's never mentioned.”

“I wondered what it would be like to be just myself all the time, but my self seemed to be far away, and made up of all sorts of things that didn't really exist.”

“Imagination is what I have when I'm on my own. Pretending is what I do in the world. There's a space in between those two spaces, maybe like the space between life and death, but it's hard to navigate, and even harder to understand. Then again, I sometimes think that maybe that's just the way life is, and what I've been searching for is something different.”

“Being with other people is hard for me, even when I love them. People have different ways of seeing and feeling, and things they like and things they don't, and trying to keep up with all of that- trying to keep another person happy all the time--can be exhausting.”

“Sometimes, even when I'm trying to keep the load light it just feels so heavy. Like the sky is a ton of bricks waiting to fall and anything I might do, think or feel could cause it to come crashing down.”

“You know the saying a rolling stone gathers no moss? I'm the opposite. I've gathered too much, and when one thing happens, it brings up everything else that's ever been similar to it. I don't just feel things once and then move on. I fell them over and over again, and the only new thing is whatever precipitated the memory of the old, so it never really feels new at all. Everything just gets integrated into one big giant ball...”