It is a deeply entrenched cultural narrative that differences need to be overcome. Literature and film are filled with characters with atypical minds and bodies who, when not used as tropes for pity, overcome their personal limitations through heroic effort.

Am I solidifying the existence of the problem or dissolving it?

I had started meeting with a new therapist, a young woman—my first in probably six years—but felt lackluster about the experience, as I usually did when I tried that sort of thing, only ever lasting a few months with each one. (I always felt like I was trying to entertain them—this was my fault, not theirs, of course—but surely the right therapist

Are you always convincing yourself that you have an urgent problem that needs to be solved?

started thinking about my problems the first thing in the morning because I had come to identify myself with them.

Agnes said, “I’m, like, O.K., what is jealousy? Am I entitled to feel it? Is there something I’m getting right in feeling this way?” Baraz wants to comfort her. “I feel like she’s treating herself as a guinea pig or a case study,” Baraz told me, “and I want to relate to her as a person I care about who is in distress.” But Agnes is impatient with t