“Helping people who are going through what I've been through makes me feel like [my pain] wasn't in vain. It gives the pain I went through a sense of purpose.”

“Even if we do everything right, things are still going to go wrong.”

“It doesn't get better," I said. "The pain. The wounds scab over and you don't always feel like a knife is slashing through you. But when you least expect it, the pain flashes to remind you you'll never be the same.”

“I was starting to think, maybe you need to feel your way more through life—just turn off the lights and follow your senses, even if you stumble once in a while. Maybe that's what falling in love is like. Just feeling your way through the darkness until you find something solid to hold on to.”

“But pain's like water. It finds a way to push through any seal. There's no way to stop it. Sometimes you have to let yourself sink inside of it before you can learn how to swim to the surface.”

“Sometimes the shit we go through does have a purpose. If we’re truly honest with ourselves, we can use that purpose to change our life for the better, not the worse.”---Nick Deluca”

“Some days life just wasn't worth the trouble of chewing through the leather straps on the straitjacket.”