The problem with the stigma around mental health is really about the stories that we tell ourselves as a society. What is normal? That's just a story that we tell ourselves.

He never once tells me what Tiffany thinks or what is going on in her heart: the awful feelings, the conflicting impulses, the needs, the desperation, everything that makes her different from Ronnie and Veronica, who have each other and their daughter, Emily, and a good income and a house and everything else that keeps people from calling them "odd.

It hurts to look at the clouds, but it also helps, like most things that cause pain. So I need to run, and as my lungs burn and my back rebels with that stabbing knife feeling and my legs muscles harden and the half inch of loose skin around my waist jiggles, I feel as though my penance for the day is being done and that maybe God will be pleased enough to lend me some help, which I think is why He has been showing me interesting clouds for the past week.

Life is hard, and children have to be told how hard life can be…So they will be sympathetic to others. So they will understand that some people have it harder than they do and that a trip through this world can be a wildly different experience, depending on what chemicals are raging through one’s mind.

You need to make time for family no matter what happens in your life.

I think it's strange to live in a house with someone you cannot talk to-especially when that someone is your father-and the thought makes me a little sad.

Air goes in and out of my nose, throat, lungs, blood, heart brain - and so I am