“While we wait for the pills to take effect, we either (a) worry about or (b) look forward to our new personality. Will we recognize ourselves? We hope so, we hope not. In the ideal situation, we will be ourselves, but enhanced—calmer, funnier, the kind of person who could be described as stable. We hope against hope that once the pills help us stop sabotaging our relationships, pushing away and/or stalking our lovers, and throwing things at people, maybe we’ll get boyfriends or girlfriends who stick around. We’ll sleep better, wake without dread, and our smiles will come back. We won’t go on any more impulsive shopping sprees, and we’ll always be able to pay our rent.
Or maybe we don’t dare hope for a good life, because a good life is a foreign concept. We wouldn’t know it if it bit us. Instead, we just hope for tranquillity, and if that comes at the expense of having no personality and taking up permanent residence on the couch, so be it.”

— Stacy Pershall, from “Loud in the House of Myself.”