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
I could not bear the deep freeze settling around my bones at the thought that yet another attempt to get out of my life alive would end in disappointment. Time became palpable and viscous. Every minute, every second, every nanosecond, wrapped around my spine so that my nerves tightened and ached. I faded into abstraction. A self-generated narcosis created a painful blank where my mind used to be.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the struggle with despair and the feeling of being trapped in one's own life.
Elizabeth Wurtzel's quote encapsulates the emotional turmoil of feeling suffocated by disappointment and the weight of time during desperate moments. It communicates a profound sense of hopelessness as the speaker confronts the daunting reality of their existence, where each second feels heavy and painful, leading to a state of mental numbness and detachment from life.
Themes
DespairTimeHopelessnessDisappointmentSuffering
In practice
Example use cases
During a mental health awareness talk to illustrate the struggles individuals face.
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.
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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.
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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?
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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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