Honestly Tho It’s Time For A Psych Renaissance. Let’s Bring Back The Unmedicated ADHD Icon And His

I wonder what would have happened if in that moment Ellie screamed “Dad” instead of “Joel.”

Would Abby have stopped or killed him faster?

My friend once said that “you have to be both gay and mentally ill to understand Siken. You can’t just be one or the other. You have to be both.” But I think writing is universal. The whole point is to convey the experiences of others and ourselves in a way that people who haven’t had those experiences can understand. But yet, I haven’t met someone who isn’t gay and mentally ill who likes Siken. Maybe I just don’t meet many people who aren’t gay and mentally ill. Maybe we try to find reasons that it’s better to feel the way we do. Like maybe I’m depressed but I can understand Siken. It’s some kind of solace.

What is “understanding” poetry anyway?

Every episode I think “surely, things will get better. Surely, they—at the very least—cannot get worse.” Every episode I am somehow proven incorrect

I may have just made my life's work

I started crying about here and then continued for the rest of the movie

“It is literally impossible to be a woman. You’re so beautiful and so smart. And it kills me you don’t think you’re good enough. Like we have to always be extraordinary. But somehow we’re always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too thin, and you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin! You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money, because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about you kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior which is insane but if you point that out you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood but always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged so find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old. Never be rude. And never show off. Never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory! And nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong but also everything is your fault! I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie ourselves into knots so that people will like us.” -Gloria (America Ferrera, BARBIE)

I have a concussion now and am having an extremely difficult time resting. All I can think about is how Riz’s greatest fear is sleeping on the job. I’m scared that if I don’t rest enough now, I’ll have brain damage but resting is so hard

Paper Towns is an amazing deconstruction of the manic pixie dream girl trope.

I don’t understand how anyone could read “The fundamental mistake I had always made…was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl,” and not understand that the whole of point the book is that Margo is not a mpdg and that Q is wrong for treating her like one. The whole of the book is that Margo wanted to cultivate this image and persona but ultimately it just makes her feel worse.

This quote from Margo summarizes a lot of it: “I was the flimsy-foldable person, not everyone else. And here’s the thing about it. People love the idea of a paper girl. They always have…Because it’s kind of great, being an idea that everybody likes. But I could never be the idea to myself, not all the way.”

Growing up, I felt this so much. All of this pressure to be funny and smart and pretty and perfect, but the truth is that no one can be all of those things all the time. We are all people, with all of the complexity that that entails. When we pretend not to be, we lose out on having people love us for all the parts of ourselves.

So much of it is related to being a woman too. This pressure to make ourselves smaller so that we can be a supporting character. Every time I show a man that I know something he doesn’t, I can feel how uncomfortable (at best) and angry (more likely) they are. Paper towns is a great reminder that I am not here for anyone else’s development. I am my own story.

"i have the right of way" was a form of protective charm uttered by urban travellers in the early 21st century. They believed this phrase acted as a ward against danger and injury, invoking the divine spirit of 'Traffic Law', one of their primary deities.

True love is actually sending your best friend a photo of your tongue asking “is this normal? You know we’re close when I can do this” and receiving a photo of her tongue back with the caption “Ugh. Mouths are ugly. I love you too.”