We were all ostensibly there in supplication, pleading for myriad rescues. It was a place for humility, but humility didn’t require shame.

The problem with believing in and living by a “capital-T Truth” is that it tends to be unforgiving. It demands absolutism in a world of nuance. It recasts so many valid experiences as failure.

I’m doing the thing → feeling bad & explaining it away → my behavior is the cause. My decisions → because I stayed home, because I let work build up, because my sleep schedule is all fucked. I want this to be the case because if it’s the other option—that I’m not “better”—then I’m as far away from recovery as I ever was. No progress.

Now I’ve seen how one blurs into the other, how the reasons don’t matter when they all amount to a mass of shame.

Plath describes an adulthood spent hungry for different identities, but she’s stymied in an obsession with determining which next step would be best—as if there were a single right answer and as if she had only one chance to choose.

needed to follow through on one thing, and that thing, eventually, inevitably, had to be either the hospital or the pills. Why not the hospital? Why not this morning?

inconsistencies lest it turn out to be fraudulent. This skepticism is justifiable in a society obsessed with happiness, optimized wellness, and toxic positivity—are we living our best lives?—but it’s dangerous to create a hierarchy of happiness, and then use that hierarchy as a gauge for your wellness and safety. Put contentment through the wringer

I didn’t realize that having to stay wouldn’t necessarily translate into wanting to.

The goals varied, but without question each required performance. My recovery relied upon a coherent narrative and an audience to follow it. It could never be entirely for myself, because it needed to be not only validated but celebrated. It would be worthless otherwise.