She was open and impulsive: many people found her exhibitionistic, and some of the people who lived with her found her outrageously, immorally invasive. But her lack of reserve had a generous side as well, which was, I think, connected to her spirituality. If suffering like hers had any use, she reasoned, it was not to the sufferer. The only way that an individual’s pain gained meaning was through its communication to others.
Diane Wood Middlebrook, from ‘Anne Sexton: A Biography’
