The simile of depression
In the chapter, 'Full of Promise,' the narrator opens her discussion using a simile of depression by comparing it with cancer that develops slowly and at last bursts. The narrator says, "But depression is not a sudden disaster. It is more like cancer: at first, its timorous mass is not even noticeable to the careful eye, and then one day – wham! – there is a huge, deadly seven-pound lump lodged in your brain or your stomach or shoulder blade, and this thing that your own body has produced is trying to kill you.”
The simile of boiling tongs
Wurtzel shares her experience with the pain of depression using a simile to help readers understand her suffering. Wurtzel says, “My spirit, my emotional being, whatever you want to call all that inner turmoil that has nothing to do with physical existence, were long gone, dead and gone, and only a mass of the most god-awful excruciating pain like a pair of boiling tongs clamped tight along my spine and pressing on all my nerves was left in its wake.”
The simile of a messy car
The author describes the reality of life using a simile of a messy car. The author says, "Sharing kids with a person you have come to despise must be a bit like getting caught in a messy car wreck and then being forced to spend the rest of your life paying visits to the paraplegic in the other vehicle: You are never allowed to forget your mistake.”
