The biggest problem that women have is being ambivalent about their own power, ... We should be comfortable with the idea of wielding power. We shouldn't feel that it detracts from our femininity.
Elizabeth WurtzelRead
Pain or not, I would most likely walk around in a suicidal reverie the rest of my life, never actually doing anything about it. Was there a psychological term for that? Was there a disease that involved an intense desire to die, but no will to go through with it? Couldn't talk and thoughts of suicide be considered a whole malady of their own, a special subcategory of depression in which the loss of a will to live has not quite been displaced by a determination to die?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the struggle of feeling suicidal without the action to follow through, exploring the complexities of such feelings.
In this quote, Elizabeth Wurtzel articulates a deep internal conflict experienced when one grapples with intense feelings of despair and suicidal thoughts, yet lacks the resolve to take action. It highlights a particular psychological state where depression manifests as an overwhelming longing for escape from suffering, while simultaneously being paralyzed by a lack of agency or motivation to end one's life, thus suggesting a need for a deeper understanding of this psychological condition.
Themes
Suicidal ThoughtsDepressionMental HealthPsychological StruggleExistential Despair
In practice
Example use cases
In a mental health awareness campaign, this quote could highlight the importance of understanding the complexities of depression.
More from Elizabeth Wurtzel
All quotes →The men have piled up in my past, have fallen trenchantly through my life, like an avalanche that doesn't mean to kill but is going to bury me alive just the same.
Elizabeth WurtzelRead
Whenever I talk to anyone I care about, I am always seeking approval. There is always a pleading lilt in my voice that demands love. Even the people I work with, the ones I am supposed to have a professional relationship with, all business, get pulled into my need. I can't help it. I want to be adored.
Elizabeth WurtzelRead
Getting help for substance abuse can be reduced to the deceptively simple focus of ‘keeping away from the dope.’ But what does getting help with depression mean? Learning to keep away from your own mind?
Elizabeth WurtzelRead
Taking a hypersensitive approach to life had come to seem so much more pure and honest then joining the ranks of the numb masses who could let it all slide by. What I stopped realizing was that if you feel everything intensely, ultimately you feel nothing at all. Everything registers at the same decibel.
Elizabeth WurtzelRead
It's being a grown up, which I never figured out how to do, scrubbing the tub, and remembering to eat and shampoo my hair. It's the basics: I can write a whole book, but I cannot handle the basics.
Elizabeth WurtzelRead
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When I look at the patients that I've cared for with mental illness, I know that many of them took years to come forward and tell somebody that they were in pain and that they needed help.
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