It's never been hard to find it when you try, but now I would propose that it's far easier to stumble upon them. In a library, one would hope things are sorted in some way where you can find what you're looking for. Obviously that sorting has changed over time and across cultures, but there is some order. The internet can lack that for various reasons.

I understand that your personal experience and circumstances are unique in this regard, but not everyone is used to being the focus of any kind of story, much less an explicit one. Those who are used to it are used to it in the way that fame and notoriety breeds stories. They're not talking about you, just their idea of you based on hearsay and third-hand accounts. That's different from people being familiar with the explicit details of your life and inner world and making decisions about how you would act based on their interpretation of your core self. That's a level of... intimacy that can feel exploitative in a way rumors and speculation, simply aren't.

[Boy, this is a whole lot of stuff that Elle had put time into deliberately Not Thinking About! But now she's talking about which means she'll have to eventually process how she feels about it all, and she already knows what the answer is: not great. She had been hoping to put off this particular confrontation with reality for a little while longer. ]