Jonathan Franzen Quote
That summer when I was feeling very much like Juliet holding the potion, the therapist would tell me, Just know that those thoughts aren’t you. That’s the OCD, it’s not you. It was a kind gesture—she was offering me the illness narrative that reigns now, the one that constructs very, very firm boundaries between brain and self, illness and consciousness, self and other. I clung to that for a while, the notion that the maelstrom happening in my brain was not of me but outside me, happening to me. That there was a tidy line dividing me from disease, and the disease was classifiable as other. But then it became difficult to tell whether certain thoughts should go in the me box or the disease box—where did I want to throw a rock through the kitchen window belong? Eventually I could no longer avoid the fact that mental illness is not like infection; there’s no outside invader. And if a disease is produced in your body, in your mind, then what is it if not you?
That summer when I was feeling very much like Juliet holding the potion, the therapist would tell me, Just know that those thoughts aren’t you. That’s the OCD, it’s not you. It was a kind gesture—she was offering me the illness narrative that reigns now, the one that constructs very, very firm boundaries between brain and self, illness and consciousness, self and other. I clung to that for a while, the notion that the maelstrom happening in my brain was not of me but outside me, happening to me. That there was a tidy line dividing me from disease, and the disease was classifiable as other. But then it became difficult to tell whether certain thoughts should go in the me box or the disease box—where did I want to throw a rock through the kitchen window belong? Eventually I could no longer avoid the fact that mental illness is not like infection; there’s no outside invader. And if a disease is produced in your body, in your mind, then what is it if not you?
Related Quotes
If I have one piece of advice to give you all about what to search for in your quest for What Next, it's to find where the line blurs between hard work and happiness for you. To find that thing where...
The downfall of the attempts of governments and leaders to unite mankind is found in this- in the wrong message that we should see everyone as the same. This is the root of the failure of harmony. Bec...