Igår läste jag ut Girl, Interrupted (ännu en gång) och här är några citat som fastnade hos mig:

”In the parallel universe the laws of physics are suspended. What goes up does not necessarily come down, a body at rest does not tend to stay at rest, and not every action can be counted on to provoke an equal and opposite reaction. Time, too, is different. It may run in circles, flow backward, skip about from now to then. The very arrangement of molecules is fluid: Tables can be clocks, faces, flowers.
These are facts you find out later, though.
Another odd feature of the parallel universe is that although it is invisible from this side, once you are in it you can easily see the world you came from. Sometimes the world you came from looks huge an menacing, quivering like a vast pile of jelly; at other times it is miniaturized and alluring, a-spin and shining in its orbit. Either way, it can’t be discounted.
Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.”

”Scar tissue has no character. It’s not like skin. It doesn’t show age or illness or pallor or tan. It has no pores, no hair, nor wrinkles. It’s like a slipcover. It shields and disguises what’s beneath. That’s why we grow it, we have something to hide.”

”Daisy was pleased with herself and spent more time out of her room, hoping that someone would ask her about the apartment. Georgina obliged.
”How big is the apartment, Daisy?”
”One bedroom, L-shaped livingroom, eat-in chicken.”
”You mean eat-in kitchen?”
”That’s what I said, asshole.””

”Daisy shut her eyes and paused, relishing her favorite part. ”The sign.”
”What does the sign say?”
”’If you lived here, you’d be home now.’” She clenched her hands with excitement. ”See, every day people will drive past and read that sign and thing, ’Yeah, if I lived here I’d be home now’ and I will be home. Motherfuckers.””

”The debate was wearing me out. Once you’ve posed the question, it won’t go away. I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won’t.

[...]

Actually, it was only a part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy.”

”But when they were done, I wondered if there would be a next time. It felt good. I wasn’t dead, yet something was dead. Perhaps I’d managed my peculiar objctive of partial suicide. I was lighter, airier than I’d been in years.”

”You could pop into the seclusion room, shut the door, and yell for a while. When you were done you could open the door and leave. Yelling in the TV room or the hall was ”acting out” and was not a good idea. But yelling in the seclusion room was fine.”

”Half a dozen nurses, including Valerie, and an ide or two were on duty during the day. The night staff consisted of three comfy big-bosomed Irish women who called us ”dearie”. Occasionally there was a comfy big-bosomed black woman who called us ”honey”. The night staff would hus us if we needed a hug. The day staff adhered to the No Physical Contact rule.”

”Progress note: The patient suffered an episode of depersonalisation on Saturday for about six hours at which time she felt that she wasn’t a real person, nothing but skin. She talked about wanting to cut herself to see whether she would bleed to prove to herself that she was a real person. She mentioned she would like to see an X-ray of herself to see if she had any bones or anything inside. The precipitating event for this episode of depersonalisation is still not clear.”

””You spend nearly two years in a loony bin! Why in the world were you in there? I can’t believe it!” Translation: If you’re crazy, then I’m crazy, and I’m not, so the whole thing must have been a mistake.
”You spend nearly two years in a loony bin? What was wrong with you?” Translation: I need to know the particulars of craziness so I can assure myself that I’m not crazy.
”You spent nearly two years in a loony bin? Hmmm. When was that, exactly?” Translation: Are you still contagious?”

”It appears to be a way station between neurosis and psychosis: a fractured but not disassembled psyche. Though to quote my post-Melvin psychiatrist: ”It’s what they call people whose lifestyles bother them.””

”One of my teachers told me I was a nihilist. He meant it as an insult but I took it as a compliment.”

”One of the great pleasures of mental health (whatever that is) is how much less time I have to spend thinking about myself.”

”This time I read the title of the painting: Girl Interrupted at Her Music.
Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen, as her life had been snatched and fixed on canvas: one moment made to stand still and to stand for all the other moments, whatever they would be or might have been. What life can recover from that?
I had something to tell her now. ”I see you,” I said.
My boyfriend found me crying in the hallway.
”What’s the matter with you?” he asked.
”Don’t you see, she’s trying to get out,” I said, pointing at her.
He looked at the painting, he looked at me, and he said, ”All you ever think about is yourself. You don’t understand anything about art.”