Olga Dies Dreaming

I never expected this book to be so triggering that I had a very prolonged panic attack, ugh. But yes my coping method of choice has always been making myself feel worse to feel better? That's some sort of perverse way to gain perspective? That's for a therapist to answer if I can just figure out if HSA can be used for therapy.

Quotations though! From the same chapter but cut out some passages in between:

After Spice It Up and the Great Recession, Olga began to notice that her clients were growing steadily richer while the people doing the work were getting compensated in exactly the same way. Even the rich people appeared less content than before. Simply existing seemed an immense burden to them. Their wealth bought them homes that were "exhausting" to deal with, vacations that were "overwhelming" to plan for. What was required to please them, to make them feel joy on their most joyful day, became increasingly impossible to achieve. Olga raised her prices, inflated her bills, increased her markups. But the money didn't make any of it feel better. She began, gradually at first, to find not only her actual day-to-day work tedious and stupid, but also the entire project of her life. Around this time Olga noticed that her mother's notes no longer filled her, even for a moment, with smug satisfaction. She began to wonder if the only person she was enacting revenge on was herself.

…

"It's funny, when I was going away to college and my mother was all up in arms about losing me to the bourgeoisie, I couldn't see any downside then, because I'd touched the holy grail. The Ivy League." Society's finish line!" Matteo chimed in. "That's the rub! It felt like a finish line to me, because I knew what it took to get there and survive it. But to everybody else? The kids whose parents and grandparents had gone there before them? This was just their starting line. To something bigger. Something I couldn't even imagine. I feel like I've spent all of this time since then trying to figure out where I was supposed to be headed. What thing could I achieve that would make me feel ... enough?' Matteo put his bowl down and looked at her with all his attention. "Olga," Matteo said, "if you did nothing for the rest of your life of any note, you'd be more than enough." She felt unsure of how to receive such kindness, and unsure if she actually believed it to be true.

…

"But, ma, you realize the solution to Olga's dilemma is in the poem?' "Wait," Olga asked, "how do you mean?" "I mean, it's a tale for you to learn from. It's about not chasing an external ideal, not trying to fit someone else's vision for you and instead building with the community of people who simply accept you as you are."