Quotes From "Your Voice In My Head" By Emma Forrest

In other words, it was a struggle with himself. And the product of that struggle: anger, bitterness, resentment, envy or transformation, aspiration, hope, decency..the product of that struggle is the quality of your life and the nature of your soul. Emma Forrest

When you live with voices in your head, you are drawn inextricably to voices outside your head. Very often the voices work to confirm your worst suspicions. Or think of things you could never have imagined! There are only so many hours of the day to hate yourself. Emma Forrest

If killing yourself is not an option anymore, you have to sink into the darkness instead, and make something out of it. Emma Forrest

I never lie ― I am a blatantly truthful person about almost everything. My addiction (or disease as some call it) always lies. I have had very good relationships, but the addict in me always fucked them up. I fall in love quickly, it's a high that rivals drugs for a while. I am monogamous, but I always cheated with depression before the relationship fell apart. Addicts need best friends, healthy people need healthy relationships. Emma Forrest

It's as if he can no longer acknowledge the love he felt or the pain I am in. I have been dismissed. I don't think I was smarter or as beautiful as the other girls he did this to. It's just that I was me. It was all I had. Emma Forrest

I'm not crazy or dangerous, just a bit eccentric and lonely. Emma Forrest

When he kisses me, I cry. I explain it's not because I wish he were someone else, it's because it's such a shock to the system to be desired after feeling so completely abandoned. Emma Forrest

What people don't understand when you've already been a suicide and pulled through is that after the sadness comes fear: Where is my mind going with this? I don't want to die. I do not want to die. When you don't have so much control over your own thoughts, over the myriad voices in your head, you don't know where they could go. Emma Forrest

The sadness ― the general sadness that squats and pees inside my brain ― isn't over. It never will be. I know how best to chase it away, though. It usually works. Sometimes it doesn't. But I pray and say, fuck it, then. I choose this. It chooses me. I choose it back. Emma Forrest

I think I've lost my faith and I can't stop writingbecause I don't know howmuch longer I can hold on. Emma Forrest

The goal was to get sane, to get whole, to be complete enough to support someone else. Emma Forrest

He meant everything he said, when he said it. But this is his default. And it won out. Right now you're depressed about one thing. Before you were depressed about everything. These are good times for you."" I'm afraid of loving again. I'm afraid I've lost my faith."" You haven't."" The trapdoor I have in my mind? That can go to those bad places? It's almost gave way again."" You know the ways to keep it nailed shut. . Emma Forrest

You do it how you can do it, so long as it's getting done, you're okay. Emma Forrest

I'm in love with someone good and kind and gentle, and he's seen the darkness too, but somehow we've become each other's light. Emma Forrest

But I saw the pain and sadness in everything, and swirled it round my mouth like a fine wine. Emma Forrest

It is madness. And if you don't know who you are, or if your real self has drifted away from you with the undertow, madness at least gives you an identity. It's the same with self-loathing. You're probably just normal and normal-looking but that's not a real identity, not the way ugliness is. Normality, just accepting that you're probably normal-looking, lacks the force field of self-disgust. If you don't know who you are, madness gives you something to believe in. Emma Forrest

There's a boy whose affection I am determined to hunt down and kill. It used to be material objects I felt I needed to be happy. It would make me feel stable if I had him. If I had someone like him, it would prove that I'm stable, and then I wouldn't have to do the work to get there. I am constantly looking for ways to cede control of my worries to someone, anyone. Emma Forrest

Men and the pursuit of them are strongly intertwined with my mental health. I would say, in my defensive defense, that the problem with being a serial monogamist is, there isn't anybody random or unimportant: everybody you sleep with really means something, which is to say each of them is on your public record. At some point I wake up thinking, Fuck this! I don't want another man in my bed ever again. What I really want is a cat. . Emma Forrest

In hindsight, I have no idea why he was ever with me. He thought highly of my breasts. And .. . that's it, I think. Emma Forrest

Time heals all wounds. And if it doesn't, you name them something other than wounds and agree to let them stay. Emma Forrest