They don’t know—I laugh a lot when I’m going through something that would otherwise ruin my soul, destroy my heart, annihilate my mind, and turn me into a monster. It’s my last hope to hold onto my humanity: to laugh, to obsessively and unnecessarily laugh—to laugh at life itself, even at things worth crying over.

And then I cry. I cry over things worth laughing at. I cry and sigh over every breath I inhale, every grief I exhale. What they name dissociation, depression, anxiety, and emotional numbing is my life. Am I just pathetic, or is this what it means to be human?

— Sadia Hakim // Letters Unsent