“Why would I be gentle with myself when I was very clearly doing this thing — like so many other things in my life — wrong? No, I didn’t need gentleness. I needed more self-discipline, more conviction, more toughness. I needed to get my fucking shit together.”

“In fact, the strain of hiding my illness would likely have caused me to break down with even more frequency. How would she have coped with those dysphoric, hallucination-ridden breakdowns — and how would I have dealt with her uneducated reactions?”

“Real human change requires space to be honest with yourself, honest with others; a space that doesn’t exist when you’re trapped by necessity behind a fortress of self-protection. As the inmate Poussey in Orange replies when a correctional officer pressures her to speak openly during a group therapy session: “Does it ever occur to you that actually feeling our feelings might make it impossible to survive in here?”

“I called it sexual assault at first. Sexual assault seemed less damning, less permanent.”