“i will learn how to love a person and then i will teach you and then we will know"seen from a great enough distance i cannot be seeni feel this as an extremely distinct sensationof feeling like shit; the effect of small childrenis that they use declarative sentences and then look at your facewith an expression that says, ‘you will never do enoughfor the people you love’; i can feel the universe expandingand it feels like no one is trying hard enoughthe effect of this is an extremely shitty sensationof being the only person alive; i have been alone for a very long timeit will take an extreme person to make me feel less alonethe effect of being alone for a very long timeis that i have been thinking very hard and learningabout mortality, loneliness, people, society, and love; i am afraidthat i am not learning fast enough; i can feel the universe expandingand it feels like no one has ever tried hard enough; when i cried in your roomit was the effect of an extremely distinct sensation that ‘i am the only personalive,’ ‘i have not learned enough,’ and ‘i can feel the universe expandingand making things be further apartand it feels like a declarative sentencewhose message is that we must try harder”

“Living with life is very hard. Mostly we do our best to stifle life--to be tame or to be wanton. To be tranquillised or raging. Extremes have the same effect; they insulate us from the intensity of life.And extremes--whether of dullness or fury--successfully prevent feeling. I know our feelings can be so unbearable that we employ ingenious strategies--unconscious strategies--to keep those feelings away. We do a feelings-swap, where we avoid feeling sad or lonely or afraid or inadequate, and feel angry instead. It can work the other way, too--sometimes you do need to feel angry, not inadequate; sometimes you do need to feel love and acceptance, and not the tragic drama of your life.It takes courage to feel the feeling--and not trade it on the feelings-exchange, or even transfer it altogether to another person. You know how in couples one person is always doing all the weeping or the raging while the other one seems so calm and reasonable?I understood that feelings were difficult for me although I was overwhelmed by them.”

“My therapist told me I need to learn to love myself. It sounds easy enough, but really, how do you just wake up one day and learn that? It feels like something you should just do involuntarily, like swallowing or blinking, but now I have to work on it. It feels so forced. I mean, I know I went to a good school, and people tell me I'm smart and creative, but I don't KNOW that. I don't know how to make myself feel that.”

“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.”

“Do you have to make me feel like there's nothing left of me? You can take everything I have, you can break everything I am, like I am made of glass, like I am made of paper.Go on and try to tear me down I will be rising from the ground like a Skyscraper...”

“Is there anything here I can call my own? A feeling? A moment? Anything? Will there ever be a time when I am truly loved? When I'll know it and not wonder if it's real? Is there something I can protect and love and care about? Is there a truth I can keep that has no fear attached? Will there ever be a time when I can be somewhere and it will feel like home? Will there ever be a time when I will look around me and know I am finally in the place I am supposed to be? Is there anything here, anything I can see, while I breathe and breathe, trying to stay alive long enough to just be able to be here and know that I am here? Not just any here but the here I am supposed to be in. Is there anything that I can call mine that will not eventually be take from me? Is there anything, anyone, ever?”