If someone who has lived through extraordinary things still wants to have a place in society, the only way to do this is by presenting themselves as helpless.

 If someone who has lived through extraordinary things still wants to have a place in society, the only way to do this is by presenting themselves as helpless—that is, labeling themselves with terms such as “victim,” “survivor,” in a way psychiatry can digest, and also by defining themselves with marks such as “has the … disorder,” “happy despite the mental illness of …,” in a way society can digest. Because an extraordinary person shaped by extraordinary things, by their very nature, requires detachment from society, since it is made by and for sameness, not for difference or divergence. For such a person still to want a place among people is like trying to mix lava with water.