I had very low self-esteem. Books saved me. I found friends in stories like The Chronicles of Narnia and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. During lunch hour at school I'd avoid social interactions by sitting on the bathroom sink and reading. My mother worked in my school cafeteria. When my anxiety got really bad, I'd put a coat on, grab my book and a flashlight, and hide in the freezer with the mac and cheese.

One moment I'm perfectly fine and the next I feel a wave of nausea, then panic. Then I can't catch my breath and I know I'm about to lose control and all I want to do is escape. Except that the one thing I can't escape from is the very thing I want to run away from... me.

Every time I get scared or feel like I'm not going to be good enough at something, I say that mantra to myself. "Pretend you're good at it."

I very much own the fact that I'm a misfit. The Internet makes everyone realize they're screwed up.

A friend is someone who knows where all your bodies are buried. Because they're the ones who helped you put them there." And sometimes, if you're really lucky, they help you dig them back up.

When someone writes something hateful and threatening I respond with something like, "I want to be so much like you; I want to wear your skin." By messing with them in that way you change what they're selling. They won't share it. And it halts the conversation. Or I'll change it to "Jenny, you're like a rose bush that grew a watermelon." They come back pissed off and write, "I didn't say that!"

I am the Wizard of Oz of housewives (in that I am both "Great and Terrible" and because I sometimes hide behind the curtains