It was the year of 1996 that Elizabeth Quetzal dazzled teens with her masterpiece memoir, Prozac Nation. Soon it was turned into a film, and teens everywhere seemed rebirthed by the concept that everyone is depressed.
What is Prozac might you ask? Well, it was first approved in 1987 in the US. It was later launched in 1988, and along with it came all different types of SSRIs. Merely 27 years later, and we see 1 in every 10,000 person in the US was prescribed antidepressants admitted for depression. 1 in 5 of us humans will be depressed over an entire lifetime, and shockingly 1 in 10 pregnant women are on antidepressants as well. Shortly after the pills came on the market, over 6 million Americans were taking an antidepressant- along with 6 million Europeans.
So what has Prozac done for us exactly? Lots, and probably more than you would ever know. The young & depressed had no voice or meaning before Prozac, and everyone was considered a drama queen. Nothing is more debilitating than being called a drama queen. Depression itself wasn’t depression until the drug hit the market, and it used to be titled just anxiety, nerves or a nervous breakdown. Those severely struggling with depression saw Prozac as the Holy Grail, and many cases have changed people’s lives in no way but positive. Prozac shed light on the darkness millions were living through each day, and made life easier and clearer.
Looking at society now, it is easy to think that the Prozac epidemic is lost in the past- but let’s not forget why it went so wrong.
Like most things in life, Prozac was abused and endorsed in ways that would make the devil himself smile. Yes, that may seem to be a little dramatic but that’s only because no one reminded you that over 1000 people in the US alone committed suicide after being triggered from being on an antidepressant, along with 2000-2500 in Europe. Statistics also show a movement in violent outburst after the drug went on the market, like school shootings. Think about it, were there any school shootings like there are modern day in the 1950s? Then came birth defects, birth terminations and substance misuse with pregnant women. This adds up to an additional 6000+ birth defects and 30,000+ miscarriages. The abortion rate is merely too common and high to even estimate. Prozac essentially focuses all action on your mind. It’s a more than complicated concept to explain, but think of it like this:
When you hurt your arm or leg, you undergo physical therapy and psychiatry along with proper treatments to lead your way back to health. Easily you could attack the nerve itself and numb the pain that you feel at that moment in time- but is it really gone forever?
This is what antidepressants are like for most consumers. It numbs the current pain and attacks the most obvious nerve. In essence, it’s killing any way, shape or form that connects treating yourself the old fashion way. Depression has grown and developed a lot since Prozac was made mainstream, but the issue with the drug is that is became too recreational and too trendy for anyone to handle. In addition to that, marketing companies and big businessmen are making a couple extra bucks off of the new fad- meanwhile no one really looks at the big picture. Psychiatry was the first type of medicine that was used to discover disorders as serious as clinical depression. Maybe the biggest issue with our society isn’t that Prozac exists, but that we all glamorize and treat mental disorders like they are a new trend to try.
Sadness is hard to talk about, but statistics show that everyone feels it. Coping mechanisms seem to dwindle with fitting into the normality. No one wants to admit their illness because it defers them from everyone else. Nothing feels worse than being told that you and your problems are both not good enough. How can we solve that? Make it official by getting your very own prescription at the walk in clinic!
It’s bad enough young females struggle so much to be accepted physically, but psychologically teenage girls are forced to persevere through the darkest times- because the pain is so misunderstood. I don’t live in a war embedded country, and I don’t live on the street but that doesn’t mean I don’t suffer. Pain shouldn’t be put on a podium. Living two lives is set up for mass destruction, and society is too advanced to allow people to suffer from something so curable so silently. We are all born differently, so it makes no sense to be expected to constantly feel the same. Those who are suffering DO NOT do not want to be told to get over it, nor do they want to be belittled. Telling someone with a mental illness to move on or stop being sad is so stupid it’s merely ironic. The main reason our society can’t love and accept each other is because we don’t love and accept ourselves. We really don’t consider each other’s feelings, nor try to understand why it is a beautiful, smart, well dressed thirteen year old could be so depressed. People who truly suffer from depression will be the first to tell you how much of a battle it is. They are not the ones to use medications to get high, or simply weasel their way into a prescription out of boredom.
All in all, the sadness may never be cured. We all may suffer from depression until the end of time. Shaming someone for their feelings is horrifically cruel, and feels even worse when it’s you and you have no one but yourself to care about how you feel. Antidepressants and psychiatry may treat an illness, but the best way of treating it is to look for the source of it. Open up if you are suffering from the fever. If someone opens up to you about how they feel- don’t make it worse for him or her. It’s that simple.
