Laurie Halse Anderson Quotes

After that I couldn't show my face outside. I lost my identity and balance. I was still living with my parents, and they were my only friends. For so many people, this thing with the nurse was confirmation that I must be mad or mentally ill.

I have friends who've tried suicide many times and haven't succeeded. I myself made an attempt, so I had a connection with that sort of group of people who have tried suicide at one time in their lives.

When I was 19 years old, I came down with anorexia. I had it for about a year before it became public. And it had a lot to do with my self-esteem.

I truly, truly suffered depression, to the deep core.

I suffer from depression and anxiety, and having a show and having a character that portrays a young woman who is dealing with that and the consequences of it - how it affects her friendships and her relationships with her mom and her sister - it's beautiful to see that.

For a long time, I didn't want to live.

I went through an extreme depression.

I know how this feels: the tightening of the chest, the panic, the what-have-I-done-wait-I-was-kidding. Eating disorders linger so long undetected, eroding the body in silence, and then they strike. The secret is out. You're dying.

Everywhere you go, you see women more beautiful than yourself. You imagine him being attracted to them. You're drinking gasoline to stay warm.

I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don't want to die. I want to eat like a normal person eats, but I need to see my bones or I will hate myself even more and I might cut my heart out or take every pill that was ever made.

Anorexia taught me to love life and to realise that starving yourself to death is a bloody waste of time. It's awful, and it hurts so many people around you. It's a terribly selfish thing to do.

When I think of all the years in my 30s when I starved myself... but when I got the role of Lois, I stopped thinking about my looks and was just myself.

I think my anorexia was to do with being a teenager, not being in films.

I'm always wearing Spanx, eating ice cream and feeling a bit lonely.

It's often difficult for those who are lucky enough to have never experienced what true depression is to imagine a life of complete hopelessness, emptiness and fear.

I always felt that anorexia was the form of breakdown most readily available to adolescent girls.

I think a lot of what is going on with kids who get pushed too far and attempt either murder or suicide is that they are trying to deal with their own non-existence for the people who are supposed to care most for them.

Among young people, often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships. They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they're desolate.

I might look successful and happy being in front of you today, but I once suffered from severe depression and was in total despair.

Kurt had this dumb suicidal ideation - that's what I called it. I thought if we could live through this, we could live through anything.

I felt like I was the only person on the planet with this 'thing called depression', and I remember being frightened. I was knocked out and dopey, and I cried all of the time.

This little kid pointed at me and said, 'You look disgusting!' That was the first time I thought maybe I did. I decided I'd better start eating. I'm just thankful that I made it through with relatively few scars.

Depression - it falls into that small category of things like combat that, if you haven't been in it, you can say you can imagine it all you like. But it's truly different.

I'd lie in bed in my dormitory and grab at bits of my body, wanting to tear them off... I was so large by then that, in the heat, my thighs chafed together and bled. I was very unhappy, and yet no one ever asked me how I felt.

I end up doing selfies 'cause I am so sad.