Prologue: I Hate Myself and I Want to Die Summary and Analysis

The novel starts in the middle of Wurtzel having a nervous breakdown. She is sobbing on the bathroom floor during a party, her black chiffon dress stark against the white bathroom tiles. She is sobbing and crying because of a number of small mishaps that have happened that evening, but also because she is coming down from a self-medicated high on cocaine. Initially, she took the cocaine with a friend because she was having problems socializing at her own party, but with the cocaine, she immediately became confident and more friendly.

Wurtzel has recently decided to get off her lithium, which is why she is in such a precarious mental state. She has stopped taking her lithium because she is convinced that it is causing...