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Marya Hornbacher

Marya Hornbacher Quotes

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Famous Marya Hornbacher Quotes

“At times it may seem worse - harder, at least - to live through the despair of this loss without the temporary comfort of our addictive behaviour. We cannot drown our sorrows. We must face the fact that we don’t know, really, where we are, how we got here, how long the pain will last, or how to move past it. That uncertainty may be the most painful part of not knowing a God: no one is there to reassure us that a God will take the pain and confusion away. We simply don’t know. And we have no way to numb ourselves or to forget the condition we’re in.”

KnowsWayMayLongFactsSeemsPainLastsPastFacesMovingLossForgetKnowingConditionsSorrowComfortDespairHarderPainfulGods WillConfusionUncertaintyTemporaryNot KnowingBehaviourNumbHis Loss
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“There is never a sudden revelation, a complete and tidy explanation for why it happened, or why it ends, or why or who you are. You want one and I want one, but there isn't one. It comes in bits and pieces, and you stitch them together wherever they fit, and when you are done you hold yourself up, and still there are holes and you are a rag doll, invented, imperfect. And yet you are all that you have, so you must be enough. There is no other way.”

WayWantStillsEndsDoneEnoughTogetherBitsPiecesHappenedFitWho You AreHolesExplanationRevelationsImperfectDollsRagsTidyStitchesBits And Pieces
Author:Marya Hornbacher
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“You never come back, not all the way. Always there is an odd distance between you and the people you love and the people you meet, a barrier thin as the glass of a mirror, you never come all the way out of the mirror; you stand, for the rest of your life, with one foot in this world and no one in another, where everything is upside down and backward and sad.”

PeopleWorldWayFeetThis WorldMirrorsDown AndSuicideDistanceGlassesOddBarriersRest Of Your LifeUpside DownSelf Harm
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“Hospitalizations in general are blurry. The days are the same, precisely the same. Nothing changes. Life melts down to a simple progression of meals. They become a way of life fairly quickly. You may welcome this transition. It may seem inevitable to you. You have been removed from the world. It is all right, in a way, because there is nothing so sure, so safe, as routine.”

WorldWayMayHas BeensSeemsSimpleSafeWelcomeInevitableLife ChangingMealsRoutineTransitionProgressionBlurry
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“Madness is not what it seems. Time stops. All my life I've been obsessed with time, its motion and velocity, the way it works you over, the way it rushes you onward, a pebble turning in a brook. I've always been obsessed with where I'd go, and what I'd do, and how I would live. I've always harbored a desperate hope that I would make something of myself. Not then. Time stopped seeming so much like the thing that would transform me into something worthwhile and began to be inseparable from death. I spent my time merely waiting.”

WaySeemsWaitingMadnessObsessedMy TimeDesperateWorthwhileInseparableSeemingBrooksPebblesVelocity
Author:Marya Hornbacher
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“I threw up again that night, half-afraid that my eyeballs would explode. But it was, by far, more important that I get rid of dinner. Of course, by then, throwing up was the only way I knew how to deal with fear. That paradox would begin to run my life: to know that what you are doing is hurting you, maybe killing you, and to be afraid of that fact--but to cling to the idea that this will save you, it will, in the end, make things okay.”

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Author:Marya Hornbacher
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“Soon madness has worn you down. It’s easier to do what it says than argue. In this way, it takes over your mind. You no longer know where it ends and you begin. You believe anything it says. You do what it tells you, no matter how extreme or absurd. If it says you’re worthless, you agree. You plead for it to stop. You promise to behave. You are on your knees before it, and it laughs.”

IfsKnowsWayMindBelieveEndsMatterLaughingEasierPromiseMadnessAgreeExtremesArguingAbsurdKneesBehaveWornWorthlessBipolar
Author:Marya Hornbacher
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“I don't think people realize, when they're just getting started on an eating disorder or even when they're in the grip of one, that it is not something that you just "get over." For the vast majority of eating-disordered people, it is something that will haunt you for the rest of your life. You may change your behavior, change your beliefs about yourself and your body, give up that particular way of coping in the world. You may learn, as I have, that you would rather be a human than a human's thin shell. You may get well. But you never forget.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayGivingHumansWellsMayBodyBeliefRealizingForgetParticularGiving UpBehaviorEatingMajorityYour BodyNever ForgetAbout YourselfDisorderShellsGet OverRest Of Your LifeCopingEating DisorderGet WellGetting StartedBehavior Change
Book:Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
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