EitherOr by Elif Batuman

Author:Elif Batuman [Batuman, Elif]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

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He went down a list of routine questions: whether I had been dropped on the head as a child, had seizures, or received special messages from the radio or television; whether I was sexually active, did drugs, thought I would be better off dead, or planned to hurt myself or others.

I said “no” to everything, notwithstanding my wish, passionate at times, to be dead. It seemed clear that the only part he cared about was the plan—the plan to “hurt myself” (though it was really the opposite; it was a plan to stop being hurt). “Better off dead”—as if the whole point wasn’t to opt out, once and for all, from the question of how to be well-off, or better-off.

But I didn’t have a plan, I wasn’t going to do it: partly because it would be the same thing as murdering my mother, and her sister, and then what would happen to my cousin; and partly out of fear that I would fail, and then people would say it had been a “cry for help.” Which is exactly what it would be if I told this guy about it now.

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