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People in your life will want to shame you, to keep you in your old habits and dysfunctions because you’re easier to predict that way. They’ll want to keep you trapped on autopilot, an eternal victim of your own trauma, because you’re easier to control that way. But I want to tell you that we deserve so much more. Say it with me—we deserve more.”
the idea that shame can only survive in the darkness. It makes me wonder if she’s in more pain than she’d ever know how to tell me.
stunned that she hasn’t been pretending all this time, that she really can just talk about our dead friend like this, at a moment’s notice and without pain or regret.
“Like she had this need for total control that was so fucking bonkers and chaotic and endearing, and
Joni has had to censor her authentic self in order to preserve it.
new persona as a coping mechanism, protecting herself from disappearing altogether by splitting herself into two distinct versions.
“And how if these choices are only made to avoid some imagined worse fate, we end up losing trust in ourselves. And, you know, self-trust can be a slippery fish to win back.”
Everything, I think, everything that happened was because of her.
For not only pulling me down with her but making me feel grateful for the privilege.
To find out not just if we were enough for each other but if we would ever be enough for anyone.
loving someone gives them the power to break you, but that maybe, one day, you might just be lucky enough to stumble across another human who recognizes you exactly as you are and who will spend the rest of their life learning how to strike a match to fill your darkness.
