“Because once you see yourself as an outcast or as someone who doesn’t fit in, the stigma doesn’t need to come from anyone else. You carry it in your mind, in the folds of your persona. That’s why you’ll do anything to be normal again. It may not matter to anyone else that you lack what you desire. But it matters more than anything to you.”

“Because once you see yourself as an outcast or as someone who doesn’t fit in, the stigma doesn’t need to come from anyone else. You carry it in your mind, in the folds of your persona. That’s why you’ll do anything to be normal again. It may not matter to anyone else that you lack what you desire. But it matters more than anything to you.”

— Ann Swindell