Lauren Lexa Brown

only around 3% of the planet's terrestrial surface remains ecologically and faunally intact—areas that still have healthy populations of native species and minimal human footprint.[

FQ: you know this. diagnosis is a tool for empathy, not abnegation of responsibility. it wouldn’t be respectful of your autonomy to say your illness means people shouldn’t treat you like an adult. your diagnosis can help people recognize that you didn’t hurt them because you’re a spiteful, evil, selfish person. it can help your roommate understand... See more

I sometimes literally burst into tears when I read certain essays or papers now just because it feels so special to have been able to gain access to this part of myself, a part that craves knowledge for its own sake and finds a sometimes-euphoric pleasure in the act of seeking it

If we agree that our well-being is inexorably linked to the well-being of our communities, it becomes clear that nothing generative — nothing truly healing — can come from destroying yourself trying to save someone else.1

When people say that one ought to go to therapy to become a perfectly stable, functional, “healed” individual before they dare try to experience love or community, they are imagining a world in which a fundamental purpose of human connection has been replaced with a capital exchange.

But even outside of the material barriers imposed by this kind of standard, I am troubled by its implication: it insists that healing is a mountain to be climbed alone, and that relationships are the reward we get once we’ve reached the summit.

People, on the other hand, challenge us. They infuse our life with stakes. You can hurt a friend or partner or lose them forever if you refuse vulnerability or reject growth — the same cannot be said of a therapist, for instance, which makes them far safer companions.