Bananapants

by Penny Reid

Being angry by oneself is irritating. Anger shared is comforting.

As described to me, his symptoms sounded like a list of traits describing a typical human, especially a typical teenage human. These “symptoms” made no sense to my brain because if they were symptoms of mental illness, shouldn’t all teenagers be diagnosed as having bipolar?

Incompetence was everywhere. EVERYWHERE! It was one of the constants in life: death, taxes, change, cockroaches, and incompetence.

I cut Ava out specifically because I needed to find a reason within myself to stay in the game with the cards I’d been dealt. I couldn’t make someone else the reason I lived, or didn’t.”

But being told something is true and accepting it as truth are separated by a mountain, one I was still in the process of climbing.

But brutally cutting her out and being selfish were the only things I could have done for my own survival.

When I’d been a teenager, I used to overhear my mom telling her entire knitting club about what was going on with me. I understood now what I didn’t then, that she’d needed to talk about it, to process it, to ask for advice. For better or worse, the presentation of my disorder had also been traumatic for her and my sister, maybe even my dad. But at the time it felt like an invasion of privacy and it made me feel like garbage.

“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.” ― Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life

Well, society had told me to go fuck myself repeatedly from a very young age, so—as far as I was concerned—society could go do the same.

Hyperactive type is an inconvenience for everyone, thus everyone is motivated to “fix” it. Inattentive type is only an inconvenience for the person suffering from it, so it often gets written off as laziness, or ditziness, or flakiness. Good times.

“Ineptitude is not just underestimated in depth and breadth, it is more dangerous to society than bad intentioned competence, I’m afraid.”

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” ― Vincent van Gogh, Attributed; The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

as someone who loves you and knows you, I want to make sure you hear these words, because I never want you to doubt your own value, or what you bring to the table. You are not less than. You are, and always have been, greater than.”

“You can’t tell me a society can function with only private couriers. That’s completely improbable. Mail would get lost all the time without a regulatory oversight body, and there’s nothing fun about lost mail.”

It’s all weirdos, trying to do their best, and looking like fools until they meet that person who makes them feel exceptional instead of foolish.”

asking for a father’s permission was an outdated, sexist custom, and he would never agree to let his daughter marry someone who believed in an outdated, sexist custom.”

“There are certain people who you will always, always love.” — Selena Gomez, Attributed

“Do you think God stays in heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he’s created here on earth?” — Spy Kids 2 (2002)

“It’s all smoke and mirrors and pretending, honey,” she went on. “Everyone is in various stages of falling apart. All the time.” Stepping forward, she cupped my cheeks between her palms, like she used to do when I was little. “Some people are just better than others with their smoke and mirrors, and how often and how well they lie to others. And to themselves.”