Elliot is frequently shown telling "inspirational stories" to fellow staff and patients that invariably ended with someone committing suicide, to the extent that by "My Happy Place" it has become the expected result of any story she begins. In the episode "My Fishbowl," she admits that she tried to kill herself as a teenager by filling her pockets with rocks and walking into a lake, like her favorite author, Virginia Woolf; however, the attempt failed when someone rowing a boat in the lake accidentally struck her on the head with an oar.