Triggered Quotes

“Tell me: How do you know that you won't be killed by a falling meteor? How do you know that you shut off the toaster oven this morning? That one of the seething millions of bacteria on your hands will not kill you? That your friends don't all secretly hate you? Do you have a religion? Do you have right religion? Are you sure? Are you a pedophile, a necrophiliac, a rapist? A murderer? How can you know that these tendencies do not dwell latent inside you, waiting for the right moment to evince themselves in the most horrific manner possible? How do you know that you are not a monster? How do you know that it isn't the end of the world?”
― Fletcher Wortmann, Triggered: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

“An institution is right or it is wrong. One that cannot accept dinosaur bones is one that cannot be trusted on more important matters.”
― Fletcher Wortmann, Triggered: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

“anti-life equation = loneliness + alienation + fear + despair + self-worth ÷ mockery ÷ condemnation ÷ misunderstanding × guilt × shame × failure × judgment n = y where y = hope and n = folly love = lies life = death self = dark side —Grant Morrison, Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle #3”
― Fletcher Wortmann, Triggered: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

“In the end I was allowed to be a college student, a little, for a bit. I wish I’d had more time to enjoy it. But what matters is that I left Swarthmore a stronger and happier and saner person than I had been when I’d arrived. I am not certain that the lessons I learned were the ones I was intended to, or that the institution deserves credit for all of them. But I suppose that, really, there isn’t much more you can ask of an education.”
― Fletcher Wortmann, Triggered: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

“I believe that everyone has this tendency to think in circles, trying to neutralize what we cannot control. We lock ourselves up, hoping to protect against the inevitable. We write rules and laws, we draw arbitrary comparisons. We make judgments. We skirt past the unfamiliar alleyways and hold our breath past graveyards. We do all of these things to protect ourselves from the absolute terror of pure being, and yet they accomplish nothing...So if I have advice for you it is this. Imagine the worst thing in the world. Think the unthinkable. Find the hidden places where you refuse to trespass, those principles that you have sworn never to break; and then start to consider what, perhaps, might happen to you if you broke them. Recognize when you are afraid and learn when you cannot protect yourself. Learn to accept horrible and inevitable things. Learn to be heartbroken, to be hopeless, and then to get better....Do terrifying things. Live. (258-9)”
― Fletcher Wortmann, Triggered: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder