Jennifer Niven, All The Bright Places
Full excerpt:
“Listen, I’m the freak. I’m the weirdo. I’m the troublemaker. I start fights. I let people down. Don’t make Finch mad, whatever you do. Oh, there he goes again, in one of his moods. Moody Finch. Angry Finch. Unpredictable Finch. Crazy Finch. But I’m not a compilation of symptoms. Not a casualty of shitty parents and an even shittier chemical makeup. Not a problem. Not a diagnosis. Not an illness. Not something to be rescued. I’m a person.”
What a beautiful and heartbreaking paragraph. Mental illness is a difficult topic. I know that I struggled for a long time with even admitting that I had issues with anxiety and mood swings. My mother always told me that I was a carefree person, and I believed her. Foolishly I thought that I was completely healthy and normal after a childhood like ours. When I think back on it, I can identify very clearly how
Just Words In Your Head 