I wasn’t going to have enough money to pay for a Good Lifestyle, which meant I’d feel ashamed, which meant I’d get depressed, and that was the big one because I knew what that did...

you have to be the prude or the slut, and if you pick one, other people hate you for it, and you can’t trust anyone anymore, because they’re all after the same thing, and you...

I waste at least an hour every day lying in bed. Then I waste time pacing. I waste time thinking. I waste time being quiet and not saying anything because I’m afraid I’ll stutter.

I’m waiting for her to say “Craig, what you need to do is X” and for the Shift to occur. I want there to be a Shift so bad. I want to feel my brain...

And I could have died right then. And considering how things went, I really should have.

I’m fine. Well, I’m not fine – I’m here.””Is there something wrong with that?””Absolutely.

It’s not a mental complaint-it’s a physical thing, like it’s physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. … you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So...

You all right, man?’ This should be my name. I could be like a super hero: You All Right Man. Ah…’ I stumble.Don’t bug Craig,’ Ronny is like. ‘He’s in the Craig zone. He’s Craig-ing...

I’m not better, you know. The weight hasn’t left my head. I feel how easily I could fall back into it, lie down and not eat, waste my time and curse wasting my time, look...

I’ll fail.””At schoool.””Failing at school is failing at life.

That’s worst than gonerreha, man!

What happened when you woke up?” “I was having a dream. I don’t know what it was, but when I woke up, I had this awful realization that I was awake. It hit me like...

When you mess something up, you learn for the next time.

Dreams are only dreams until you wake up and make them real.

You want to play video games twenty-four hours a day?””Or watch. I just want to not be me. Whether it’s sleeping or playing video games or riding my bike or studying. Giving my brain up....

I’m done with those; regrets are an excuse for people who have failed.

It’s such a silly little thing, the heart.

(…) Since I was a kid.””Which you refer to as ‘back when you were happy.'””Right.

your relationship with air—that’s key. You can’t break up with air. You’re kind of stuck together. Only slightly less crucial is water. And then food. You can’t be dropping food to hang with someone else....

I wanted to tell people, “My depression is acting up today” as an excuse for not seeing them, but I never managed to pull it off.

I have a system with bathrooms. I spend a lot of time in them. They are sanctuaries, public places of peace spaced throughout the world for people like me.

I am a guy,” I say.”And I hate boys,” she says.”But a guy’s different,” I say.”Maybe a little,” she says.

People don’t make good Anchors, though, Craig. They change. The people here are going to change. The patients are going to leave. You can’t rely on them.

This was all an excuse, I think. I was doing fine. I had a 93 average and I was holding my head above water. I had good friends and a loving family. And because I...

Sometimes I just think depression’s one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there’s so much stuff out there that you have...

And I’m not assuming and I’m not judging. I’m just being curious.

I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that’s really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you’re so...

I don’t-” I shake my head. (…) “What? What were you going to say?” This is another trick of shrinks. They never let you stop in midthought. If you open your mouth, they want to...

It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare, you’re so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.””And what is that nightmare, Craig?””Life.

I can’t eat and I can’t sleep. I’m not doing well in terms of being a functional human, you know?

It’s a huge thing, this Shift, just as big as I imagined. My brain doesn’t want to think anymore; all of a sudden it wants to do.

We look into each other’s eyes as we shake. His are still full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I...

Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That’s above and beyond everything else, and it’s not a mental complaint-it’s a physical thing, like it’s physically hard to open your mouth and...