no clever song lyrics

I'm reading Kat Kinsman's Hi, Anxiety  and it's a little but of a mindfuck how much of my internal monologue is spilling out of someone else's words. I get it, I'm not unique, anxiety and depression are not unique, but still.  I read the opening passage aloud to the boys about the author's  misplacing a wedding ring gets mixed up with all their trauma and ends up reinforcing the belief that they don't deserve to be loved. "ten years together and I've wrecked it all by letting him see that I'm helpless against my own head, hands and mind."

 

And the hits keep coming.

 

"When you're too small and tender to know all that much about who you're going to be, the people around you are more than happy to fill in the blanks."

 

"Books, paper and pencils were my refuge in a world where I already knew that pretty was a currency I lacked and that my home life was something I suspected was outside the norm."

 

"Since then, I scope out any crowded space, constantly running calculations on every other person's place in space and where they might move next."

"I could hang out with the boys without having to fear their rejection (You can't lose if you're not playing the game in the first place) and scheme to help match up y friends for love or...whatever.  I could bask in their happiness and pat myself on the back for all the mitzvahs I was performing without having to risk anything. Or inflict myself on anyone.

 

" I didn't want to stain them with whatever toxic thing was in me and made me feel the way I did."

"From early on I decided that even if no man could love me, because I was fundamentally flawed, I wanted to be useful and necessary, and maybe that would be enough."



 

"you think you're going to sleep now, just because you're in bed in the middle of the afternoon? Ha! Here's the memory of the stupid thing you said at that party, the low grade, the faux pas, the snub, the public tumble.  Obsess on that until you finally collapse in exhaustion - then wake up in horror remembering all the things you failed to achieve that day.  Why are you sucking up all the care and air that someone more worthy could be using?  why do you bother to BE?"

 

I think I'll probably have a lot to say about the book when I'm done, and I'll probably even say some of it here and some privately, but I wanted to put these bits out here.