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1 " Was this what it was going to be like? Was I turning into someone who had panic attacks about walking home from the tube or staying the night alone in the house without their boyfriend? No, fuck that. I would not be that person. "
― Ruth Ware , The Woman in Cabin 10
2 " I can't stand THE DEPRESSED. It's like a job. It's the only thing they work hard at. Oh good my depression is very well today. Oh good today I have another mysterious symptom and I will have another one tomorrow. The DEPRESSED are full of hate and bile and when they are not having panic attacks they are writing poems. What do they want their poems to DO? Their depression in the most VITAL thing about them. Their poems are threats. ALWAYS threats. There is no sensation keener or more active than their pain. They give nothing back except their depression. It's just another utility. Like electricity and water and gas and democracy. They could not survive without it. "
― Deborah Levy , Swimming Home
3 " Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing. So they fragment the memories into hundreds of shards, leaving only acceptable traces in their conscious minds. Rationalizations like " my childhood was rough," " he only did it to me once or twice," and " it wasn't so bad" are common, masking the fact that the abuse was devastating and chronic. But while the knowledge, body sensations, and feelings are shattered, they are not forgotten. They intrude in unexpected ways: through panic attacks and insomnia, through dreams and artwork, through seemingly inexplicable compulsions, and through the shadowy dread of the abusive parent. They live just outside of consciousness like noisy neighbors who bang on the pipes and occasionally show up at the door. "
4 " We drove down Corydon avenue towards my mother's apartment. How are you doing, she asked me? Fine, fine, I said. I wanted to tell her that I felt I was dying from rage and that I felt guilty about everything and that when I was a kid I woke up every morning singing, that I couldn't wait to leap out of bed and rush out of the house into the magical kingdom that was my world, that dust made visible in sunbeams gave me real authentic joy, that my sparkly golden banana-seated bike with the very high sissy bar took my breath away, the majesty of it, that it was mine, that there was no freer soul in the world than me at age nine, and that now I wake up every morning reminding myself that control is an illusion, taking deep breaths and counting to ten trying to ward off panic attacks and hoping that my own hands hadn't managed to strangle me while I slept. "
― Miriam Toews , All My Puny Sorrows
5 " I had massive anxiety as a child. I was in therapy. From 8 to 10, I was borderline agora-phobic. I could not leave my mom's side. I don't really have panic attacks anymore, but I had really bad anxiety. "
6 " I suffer panic attacks which has made me really conscious about my fitness and I have become addicted to jogging. It might sound odd but a lot of good has come out of it. My fans send letters saying they have taken up jogging because I do it. "
