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.

Write a page every single day, even if what you put on the page that day is no good - it's the only way to get better.

I wish I had been less keen to inject my own opinions, but I was a teenager and your teenage self is generally an idiot compared to the adult you. That's the way it should be. If it's the other way around, you have a problem.

I still believe that you truly find yourself not in travel, but in other human souls.

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.

My radar, after all these years of sanity, is still off when it comes to what people do or don't mean.

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.