Quotes About Struggle

Maybe it wasn't the lack of achievements that had made her and her brother's parents unhappy, maybe it was the expectation to achieve in the first place.

Acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty.

Adding anxiety to depression is a bit like adding cocaine to alcohol. It presses fast-forward on the whole experience.

she hadn't tried to end her life because she was miserable, but because she had managed to convince herself that there was no way out of her misery

She had come to imagine mediocrity and disappointment were her destiny.

Even death was something Nora couldn't do properly. It was a familiar feeling. This feeling of being incomplete in just about every sense. An unfinished jigsaw of human. Incomplete living and incomplete dying.

Was this what fame was like? Like a permanent bittersweet cocktail of worship and assault? It was no wonder so many famous people went off the rails when the rails veered in every direction. It was like being slapped and kissed at the same time.

noise. Adding anxiety to depression is a bit like adding cocaine to alcohol.

No. It's about everything. It seems impossible to live without hurting people.' 'That's because it is.

was as though she had reached some state of acceptance about life – that if there was a bad experience, there wouldn't only be bad experiences. She realised that she hadn't tried to end her life because she was miserable, but because she had managed to convince herself that there was no way out of her misery.

Even death was something Nora couldn't do properly, it seemed. It was a familiar feeling. This feeling of being incomplete in just about every sense. An unfinished jigsaw of a human. Incomplete living and incomplete dying.

Some humans not only liked violence but craved it, I realized. Not because they wanted pain, but because they already had pain and wanted to be distracted from that kind of pain with a lesser kind.

as C. S. Lewis once put it, "The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say 'My tooth is aching' than to say 'My heart is broken.

No. It's about everything. It seems impossible to live without hurting people.' 'That's because it is.' 'So why live at all?

She'd been petrified of motherhood. The fear of a deeper depression. She couldn't look after herself, let alone anyone else.

You'll be fine." "I don't know if I can do this. I've gone blank." "You're overthinking it." "I have anxiety. I have no other type of thinking available.

But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.

Nora tried to act as if every sentence he said wasn't an animal running into the road.

People often use the word 'despite' in the context of mental illness. So-and-so did such-and-such despite having depression/anxiety/OCD/agoraphobia/whatever. But sometimes that 'despite' should be a 'because'. For instance, I write because of depression. I was not a writer before. The intensity needed - to explore things with relentless curiosity and energy - simply wasn't there.

I was a human being with human illnesses, which other humans have had—millions and millions of humans—and most of them had either overcome their illnesses or had somehow managed to live with them.

The power of all the regrets simultaneously emanating from the book was becoming agony. The weight of guilt and remorse and sorrow too strong. She leaned back on her elbows, dropped the heavy book and squeezed her eyes shut. She could hardly breathe, as if invisible hands were around her neck.

There was an invisible baton of failure her mother had passed down, and Nora had held it for a long time. Maybe that was why she had given up on so many things. Because she had it written in her DNA that she had to fail.

she had reached some state of acceptance about life – that if there was a bad experience, there wouldn't only be bad experiences. She realised that she hadn't tried to end her life because she was miserable, but because she had managed to convince herself that there was no way out of her misery

The weird thing about depression is that, even though you might have more suicidal thoughts, the fear of death remains the same. The only difference is that the pain of life has rapidly increased.