Elizabeth Wurtzel is Stalking Me

I was 15 - in 10th grade, if you like - and I was depressed. No, not like that. Really, can't-get-out-of-bed, I-can't-believe-I'm-still-breathing depressed. I was innocent. I had seen Christina Ricci in a couple movies (Pumpkin, 200 Cigarettes) and shared my appreciation for her skills with a few friends in journalism class. And then a stranger decided to speak with me. She wasn't really a stranger, more an acquaintance-of-an-acquaintance type. She took Biology with a boy I was sucking up to in order to become editor of the high school newspaper. Friend by proxy. So she decided, as all high school girls did, that she knew me well enough to offer her non-refundable, non-re-giftable two cents about my life and the Right Thing to Do. This was, naturally, to watch Prozac Nation, as then I would be cured of all my depression by seeing exactly how horribly my emotions were destroying the entitlement to a fulfilling life of all around me. So I watched it.

It was awful. No, not like that. It was a great movie, with great acting, great story, and great insight. Not into the book it's based on, nor the author's life, but my life. I realized two things when the credits rolled: I was an extremely messed up fifteen-year-old, and Elizabeth Wurtzel was writing this all. About. Me.

She knew me. She knew my moods. She knew how I responded to stress (with paranoia and sub-texted, passive-aggressive sniping which induces passive-aggression in others so you still get to win the morality contest). She understood the sarcasm, the defensiveness behind it, and the characters and plot that built up to that moment when past and present rhyme, and everything's suddenly between rewind and slow motion, when it all fits, and you realize exactly what you're saying, and you "get" the context behind everything. She experienced, considered, and wrote about the optimistic hopes of the endless possibilities the future holds, and yet the pessimistic, overwhelming thought that you probably won't live to see any of them. She knew first-hand what happens when you question suicide for the first time: (1) Sanity is no longer a quality you measure permanently in black and white, but rather in degrees every time you wake up. (2) You're already dead.

And then I read the books.

I own three of them, all bought on the same day, in the same bookstore, with the same gift card money. I've read each three times. And yet, even with the three-time charm, I'm still cursed, doomed to an eternity of picking up on even more intricate material which elicits "Damn straight" to no end. The first, Prozac Nation, is about depression, medication, destruction on a metaphorical and literal level simultaneously taking place in girl, home, and country. More, Now, Again is a non-enjoyable memoir of addiction. And Bitch is about bitches. And yet, with such a wide range of subject matter from personal to sociological, even without being a drug-addict or a woman, every paragraph, sentence, and word is perfectly whittled down to fit me.

So I beg of you, Ms. Wurtzel: Please leave me alone. Ban these books from my shelves and mind forever. Stop stalking me. You're no longer allowed to be advertised through television, newspaper and magazine bylines, or especially word-of-mouth. You shall not contact me either physically or by telepathy. Remove yourself from my life. This is not a command, but a plea. And if you want to make it right, take the pain you know so well and write about how you got rid of it. I don't care if it's true; just tell me it is. And maybe, one day, far in the future, I can see my dreams as reality, never having to worry about the things you worry about.