There are some remarks that are so stupid that to be even vaguely aware of them is the intellectual equivalent of living next door to Chernobyl. Elizabeth Wurtzel More Quotes by Elizabeth Wurtzel More Quotes From Elizabeth Wurtzel Woke up this morning afraid I was gonna live. Elizabeth Wurtzel morning The brief relief of seeing other people when I leave my room turns into a desperate need to be alone, and then being alone turns into a terrible fear that I will have no friends, I will be alone in this world and in my life. I will eventually be so crazy from this black wave, which seems to be taking over my head with increasing frequency, that one day I will just kill myself, not for any great, thoughtful existential reasons, but because I need immediate relief. Elizabeth Wurtzel thoughtful crazy people I start to get the feeling that something is really wrong. Like all the drugs put together – the lithium, the Prozac, the desipramine, and Desyrel that I take to sleep at night – can no longer combat whatever it is that was wrong with me in the first place. I feel like a defective model. Elizabeth Wurtzel drug sleep night And I want out of this life on drugs. Elizabeth Wurtzel this-life drug want When things get unbearable, I wrap myself into a tight ball and shut my eyes. Every muscle in my body is tense. I open my eyes and I'm still where I was when I closed them to escape. Nothing's changed. Elizabeth Wurtzel balls body eye The measure of our mindfulness, the touchstone for sanity in this society, is our level of productivity, our attention to responsibility, our ability to plain and simple hold down a job. If you're still at the point when you're even just barely going through the motions--showing up at work, paying the bills--you are still okay or okay enough. A desire not to acknowledge sadness in ourselves or those close to us--better known these days as denial, is such a strong urge that plenty of people prefer to think that until you are actually flying out of a window, you don't have a problem. Elizabeth Wurtzel strong responsibility jobs In the meantime, I could withdraw to my room, could hide and sleep as if I were dead Elizabeth Wurtzel ifs sleep rooms It's nonverbal: I need love. I need the thing that happens when your brain shuts off and your heart turns on. And I know it's around me somewhere, but I just can't feel it. Elizabeth Wurtzel brain heart needs Very early in my life it was already too late. Elizabeth Wurtzel late too-late I am sick of the girl who cries 'wolf' all the time. Even though not one of those cries was ever a false alarm Elizabeth Wurtzel alarms sick girl Embrace fanaticism. Harness joie de vivre by pursuing insane interests, consuming passions, and constant sources of gratification that do not depend on the approval of others Elizabeth Wurtzel approval-of-others passion insane Divorce has taught us how to sleep with friends, sleep with enemies, and then act like it's all perfectly normal in the morning. Elizabeth Wurtzel divorce sleep morning Age is a terrible avenger. The lessons of life give you so much to work with, but by the time you've got all this great wisdom, you don't get to be young anymore. Elizabeth Wurtzel life-lesson age giving People who think that Sylvia Plath was a poor, sensitive poet are not getting that she had great amounts of ambition and anger that moved her along, or she wouldn't have been able to fight against that depression to produce such an incredible body of work by the age of thirty. Elizabeth Wurtzel fighting ambition depression I guess I realize that I don't want to die. I don't want to live either, but-there really isn't anything in-between. Depression is about as close as you get to somewhere between dead and alive, and it's the worst. But since the tendency toward inertia means that it's easier for me to stay alive than die, I guess that's how it's going to be, so I guess I should try to be happy. Elizabeth Wurtzel suicidal trying mean But just as a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, a little bit of energy, in the hands of someone hell-bent on suicide, is a very dangerous thing. Elizabeth Wurtzel suicidal suicide hands It's being a grown up, which I never figured out how to do, scrubbing the tub, and remembering to eat and shampoo my hair. It's the basics: I can write a whole book, but I cannot handle the basics. Elizabeth Wurtzel hair writing book The shortness of life, I keep saying, makes everything seem pointless when I think about the longness of death. When I look ahead, all I can see is my final demise. And they say, But maybe not for seventy or eighty years. And I say, Maybe you, but me, I'm already gone. Elizabeth Wurtzel finals years thinking I come from a family of screamers. If they are trying to express any emotion or idea beyond pass the salt, it comes in shrieks. Elizabeth Wurtzel salt trying ideas That's what it's like in my head all the time, constant snow, constant weather patterns of all sorts - blizzards, cyclones. Elizabeth Wurtzel cyclones weather snow
