Words Wednesday is a column where I share whatever quote I’m most in love with this week in the hopes that it will make both of us better writers. Whether it be from a blog, a movie, or one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read, these words rocked me emotionally and I want them to inspire you too.
I don’t know what inspired me to read Thin Girls, but I am halfway through it at the time of writing this and I cannot be more obsessed with Clarke’s writing. She has so many quotes that I could have chosen to write about, and it honestly took me a while to narrow it down to just one. I’ve now read 3 five star books in a row and I’m not sure how I’m going to go back into the trenches and read a less-than-fantastic book after this, it has truly ruined my perspective.
“The most frightening things are the things we cannot see”
Diana Clarke, Thin Girls
Thin Girls follows the life of a girl named Rose, an anorexic twin currently in a rehab facility for anorexics trying to recover. It alternatives perspective between the current timeline, and Rose’s life in high school, placing it at opposition at all times to her twin sister Lilly’s life. The book is haunting in its exploration of Rose’s emotional state, and I know that I will not do this quote justice here.
The most frightening things are the things we cannot see. For Rose and for many of us, it is easy to not be scared of the things that we know exist. If we can see something, hold it, make it exist in reality, then we are able to stop being scared. Reality and physicality take the power away from certain things.
It’s much harder to take the power away from something that is just an idea, or something that is hidden in the shadows. When we cannot see something, then our own brains give it even more power than it already has. We are able to build it up, twist it into something scarier and more forbidden than it was meant to be. This is what anxiety disorders, eating disorders, disorders of the mind do to us. They allow us to twist things that are at worst neutral and turn them into the most frightening things imaginable.
If we were able to take it out of our minds and hold it, maybe then it wouldn’t seem so bad. But when we cannot see it, and it exists only in our head, it is horrible and malicious and poised for the kill.
Write Through the Night 