Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame

by Mara Wilson

I spent a lot of time feeling scandalized, and I loved it. There is nothing more fun than being young and judgmental.

The ones who scared me, who still scare me, are the girls who see all other girls as competition, who see themselves as the persecuted ones, the ones whom the pretty and popular girls hate. When you believe you’re persecuted, you will believe anything you do is justified.

Please don’t romanticize mental anguish. I know many people who think to be an artist means you have to suffer. It’s not only an incorrect assumption—there are comedians who had happy upbringings, I swear—but encouraging suffering will only hurt them and the people who care about them. Artists who struggle with mental illness, trauma, disease, addiction (often the latter is a way of self-medicating to ameliorate or cope with the first three) do not want or welcome it. I don’t know if I’d consider myself an artist, but speaking as someone who sometimes makes stuff, I can say that my best work is created when I’m content and contemplative, looking back on painful times rather than in the middle of them. To focus on someone’s pain instead of their accomplishments is an insult to them. As my friend Patrick put it, a person is a person first and a story second.

People who choose to be vulnerable are rare. People who manage to do it well are even more so.