Prozac Nation Paperback – April 2, 2002

I downloaded this to read after I saw the author’s obituary in The NY Times. It’s one of those books that had been on my radar for a long time but the persona of Elizabeth Wurtzel was kind of a turn-off (spoiled, self-absorbed, privileged). But I was totally impressed once I started reading, and finished it in three sittings. She is so articulate in describing what deep, wretched depression is like that I couldn’t help but feel compassion and admiration for her honesty and bravery. She had to know that a lot of people would be judgmental about her experience, yet she persisted and bared her soul for all to see. Knowing that she died of breast cancer makes her struggle all the more poignant.The book is also interesting in the wake of what we’re learning about medications for depression and how many of the drugs, like Prozac, that showed much promise, are proving to be little better than placebo. We actually know so little about the brain!

I had my reservations as I started out to read this book, but I could hardly put it down; though at times I had to, if only to give myself a break from the escalating hysteria that the heroine goes through, or the frustration and irritation that I would start to feel at her as a reader! This, I believe, makes it a really good book, and as the author herself points out in the Afterword, this sort of frustration and incomprehension is what she was hoping to achieve through her narrative because that is how she saw herself in the years of her depression.I haven't experienced a condition similar to Elizabeth's myself, but I know a close person who has, and reading the novel has helped me understand better what she was going through - and shudder at the image.In the end, the author leaves the readers with lots of relevant social questions to ponder, the first and foremost of them being the reasons why so many people are becoming clinically unhappy, and what we should make of the easiness with which Prozac and other drugs are prescribed in this country.If you are interested in such issues, this is definitely a book to read!

No one, not even for a single instant, can look out at the world through the eyes of someone else's mind. Yet, Wurtzel tries to bring us into hers and show us what it's like to view the world from a mind suffering from hereditary (probably manic-)depression. And since she is trying to show us what it's like INSIDE her mind, is it any wonder that her mostly stream-of-consciousness narrative tends to be self-centered? Who of us in the privacy of our minds is NOT self-centered? After all, we are all fated to be only ourselves 24/7 for our entire lives. And constantly suffering, as Wurtzel does from severe bouts of depression, interspersed with irrational frenzies, is it any wonder that Wurtzel does NOT seem to notice the affects her behavior is having on those close to her, such as her mother? (Yet Wurtzel still dedicates her book, "For my mom, lovingly.")The hardcover edition of this book came out in 1995. Some of us love it; some of us hate it; some of us don't know what to make of it. But at 269 reader reviews and still counting on this Web page alone, it looks like this book is going to keep disturbing us for quite some time in the future -- particularly now that it's been made into a movie.I understand approximately ten percent of us suffer from some form of chronic depression, including me -- not to anywhere near the extent Wurtzel does, but enough to understand where she's coming from. Why doesn't she act like a "normal" person? Because she can't understand the mind of a "normal" person anymore than a "normal" person can understand hers. If she could change her mind to that of a "normal" person, don't you think she would? Indeed, isn't that her motive for taking Prozac in the first place?And since we're dealing with a person's mind here, not a novel, I think it is precisely this inability for any of us to truly be able to occupy another person's mind that is leading to all the controversy. No, this read is not particularly fun, but then neither is being a manic-depressive. Yes, it's often repetitive and at times boring, but so is life. And she does try to give us a bit of humor mixed in with all her problemsAlthough I recommend this book for everyone due to the insights it can give on how some of us look out at the world, I particularly recommend it for those gnormal h people, such as Wurtzel fs mother, who find themselves either having to bring up, or married to, or have some other such close relationship to someone suffering from depression. Note that the hardest part of her entire day is simply getting out of bed. Note how her mind is stuck in overdrive and almost out of control. Note that while she is just barely functional, she wishes at times she could cross over the line into sheer insanity, be institutionalized, and be done with it. Note the sudden flashes of fear for no reason. And note the state of her mind when she tries to gescape h from all her problems (from herself, really) by suddenly flying off to a London she has never been to -- and discovers immediately, of course, that she fs just put herself in an even worse situation. Yeah, I can understand where all this is coming from; and a gnormal h person after reading this book will at least gain a better idea.Ironically, my only disappointment about this book is its misleading title. It is NOT about Prozac since she doesn ft start taking it until the end of the main book. It IS about being gYoung and Depressed in America h. But I had hoped to find out more about this supposed wonder drug and what it feels like to be on it. Interestingly, though, in the Epilogue written some eight years later, she writes that while the Prozac did seems to help her sudden mood swings, after several years on it, her old problems started creeping up on her again. Drugs can help people like her, but not cure them. She is stuck with being herself for the rest of her life. Just like the rest of us. For better or for worse.

Prozac Nation helped me to realize that I'm not alone in suffering from depression. Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir hit home with mein quite a few ways: from the general apathy of her father to her depression, to her acting out sexually only to be more depressedto having so-called friends not really understanding what's wrong, I found that I could relate to this book in more than one way.The references at the end to Nirvana were a bit dated, and I couldn't really relate to that bit, but overall, I found myself walking inher footsteps, especially as she skips medication only to find that without it, she can't function normally. Everyone has a journeythrough mental illness that they have to take, sometimes alone, but thanks to this book, I found the peace and afffirmation that Iwas looking for: I didn't have to travel far to find a good reference book that I plan to read and re-read again and again. Avaliant read.