The Perfectionists

With perfection comes pressure. Students here are some of the best in the country, and sometimes, they have to let off a little steam. What five girls don’t know, though, is that steam can scald just as badly as an open flame.

This doesn't mean you're damaged. It just means your mind has adapted to feelings of being unsafe. It's a coping mechanism

all of us are damaged in our own ways. It's just that most people call it 'experience'. And you've had a lot of experience.

The first step of any therapy is a little self-awareness. I want you to think about the ways your habits, your belief systems, your personality quirks have been developed to help you and protect you. Then ask yourself if they are truly working or if they’re hurting you. For instance, when you feel a headache coming on, focus on something in front of you. Something real, like your hand, to keep you in the moment. It sounds small, but it helps, I promise.

She wanted more than anything to believe him. To believe that things didn’t always have to be so desperate, so painful. To believe she didn’t always have to be alone. To believe that maybe, just maybe, one day, everything would be okay.

Don’t you think it’s a good idea to . . . I don’t know. To slow down sometimes? To look around and see what you want out of life?

Memory was a tricky thing, but reality was even trickier. Once you made up your mind about something, it was hard to comprehend that the truth could be something else

I know what I know,” she said softly. “But I let go of the fury I had for that boy a long time ago. If I didn’t, it would consume me. Like perhaps it’s consuming you

Under the glitzy, glamorous surface of the simplest popcorn flick, there were often hidden depths of meaning.