Prozac Nation
This article is interesting. If the movie does come out, I know I'll see it, and I feel that I should read the book before I see the movie.
However, Prozac Nation is one of those books that you feel you should read but so many people have talked about it and it's so much.. everywhere that you don't really want to read it. As well as that, it is really the kind of book I should have read when I was fifteen or sixteen, along with all the others I liked back then... The Bell Jar, Girl, Interrupted, Catcher In The Rye, etc.etc. Reading it now would be like going back to that sad, woe!-filled, teenage place and I'm not so sure that I want to do that.
It does look interesting... but it does look overwrought at the same time. A little too typical, maybe, though I can't say that because it is a real person's experience. Somehow though when things are just as they should be they become more detached from whoever is reading them. I don't know if that makes any sense.
Has anyone read this book? What did they truly think? I've only ever heard one person's true opinion, really.
I think it's just one of those cases about hearing of something so much that you're already sick of it before you go near it.
I like the title though. It always amazes me to think that a whole country could be running on the working of a population wired and stuffed with anti-depressants.
- Fatima.
6 Comments:
Drew again (maybe I should sign up so I don't keep having to say that.
I can totally relate to wishing you'd have known then what everyone seems to know now...though no one seems to ACT on what they know. I went through a horrible depression from 17 through 21..deadly, definitely. I fought medication like crazy but gave in due to pressure from my family. Now I know the original med they had me on is carcinogenic (great!) and later, after the hospital and the really horrid part (years after the original dosing), the damn little yellow pills caused me so many long term side-effects, I cannot now believe that I allowed myself to be herded into capitulation...but of course when you're that depressed, you have no fight in you.
Why am I talking about my insanity in your journal? I guess because people are way too unwilling to talk about this - they are ashamed, they blow it off as the foolishness of youth, they are still medicated to this day...any number of reasons. I think that the doping of America is a tragedy. I think that if people don't talk about how they got through their crises, and I mean REALLY got through it, not how they skated by, the country would be made up of less fragile people.
There are angry people who accuse me of being insensitive for calling medication a crutch. Maybe I should qualify my statements but I don't. There are a meager few who actually NEED drugging. I admit it gave me some distance to clear my head (via a heavy layer of fog), but I would have been a better person if I could have done what I did later and struggled through it with true emotions.
My mother hasn't had a clear thought in 15 years. Her purse grows to accomodate her growing scrip list. When I go to the pharmacy for her, the staff knows her by name, and probably knows me by sight. These are pills highly sought after by the most addicted sects of junkies, and she pops them by the handfuls. I want my mother back.
**Hah, I'm blogging in your blog. I have an old Adbusters called The Overmedication of America. I need to type that article out.
5:56 AM
I understand, and I agree.
It's like a mass scale opiate and it's very worrying. I think so many times teenagers especially who face the kind of problems that most teenagers face are taken to therapists who seem to automatically diagnose them with ADD, bipolar disorder or anything that requires medication. And sometimes - though this may make some people very upset - I am not sure that a branding of that person as definitely ill is necessary, because many times they are facing what people their age tend to face. When you tell someone something is wrong with them, and give them medication, they tend to sit back and accept it... some people really could struggle out of their depression and become healthier on their own terms. I know because I have done it and so have other people I know. But once you give someone medication, it is like pulling them out of the battle and adding them to the list of dependent people. People ARE ashamed to talk about it but no matter whether they 'really need it' or not, there are far too many people being medicated currently. There are real sets of issues that are not being addressed. I always think that I am proud not to have seen anyone and not to have been given anything.. I am far from perfect and perhaps it would have helped, but I think that with some of these things, the only person who can really help themselves is you. Medication helps fix a chemical imbalance, and it helps make it easier, and for many people it is very very necessary, but for some it is a matter of pure mental ability.. or for someone to really sit down and listen and help that person find the real cause of their problem and guide them through fixiing it. When so many people are relying on medication you know this are not many separate indvidual problems but a larger social one.
- Fatima.
8:20 AM
Temazepam may increase the effects of other drugs that cause drowsiness, including antidepressants, alcohol, antihistamines, sedatives
9:21 AM
What happens if I overdose? � Seek emergency medical attention if an overdose is suspected.� Symptoms of an Zoloft overdose include sleepiness, dizziness, confusion, a slow heart beat, difficulty breathing, difficulty walking and talking, an appearance of being drunk, and unconsciousness.
5:43 AM
If Ionamin is stopped suddenly after several weeks of continuous use. Seizures may be a side effect of sudden discontinuation of the medication. Your doctor may recommend a gradual reduction in dose.
3:46 AM
It is not known whether Zydone passes into breast milk. Do not take Zydone without first talking to your doctor if you are breast-feeding a baby
1:46 PM
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