Let the Good (Prozac) Times Roll!
March 5, 2009, by Prudence Baird
Nowadays, physicians whip out the prescription pad when women my age cross their thresholds. Hot flashes? Prozac! Empty-nest blues? Prozac! Husband suffering midlife crisis? Prozac. (Why the wife must medicate herself when Goofus makes a damned fool out of himself is beyond me, but hell, if being stoned helps women avoid committing manslaughter, I’m all for it!)
My first brush with Prozac came in 1989, after I had been unceremoniously dumped by a chinless mama’s boy. I’m not sure which depressed me more—that I had settled for a guy who still wet his pants, or the fact that said pants-wetter had dumped me first.
The next business day, I was first in line for legal drugs of any kind. The psychiatrist, who looked to be about 12 years old, pressed several samples of 150 mg. Prozac into my hands. “Take your first one after dinner tonight. You won’t feel any effects for two weeks,” he promised.
Like hell I won’t!
The next day, my partner and I were in an elevator on our way to a new business presentation when it happened. I looked at the shiny panel of brass elevator buttons. So many glimmering choices! I grinned at them; they gleamed back. What floor did I want? Heck, I didn’t want any floor! I just wanted to stare at the dozens of reflections of me in the elevator’s mirrored paneling.
Sensing something was up, my partner steered me by the elbow into the conference room, where I perched on the edge of a swiveling chair, my hounds-tooth miniskirt easing up my well-aerobiscized thighs. I looked down into my lap and noticed that I hadn’t shaved above my knees. Several longish brown leg hairs were squished into various squiggly shapes by my Hanes Barely There pantyhose. I stood up and pulled the pantyhose away from my thighs and spent the next few minutes and a considerable amount of spit trying to make the hairs lie down in the same direction—knee bangs!
Several men in suits came into the room—I waved. So happy to see you! My cheeks hurt from smiling. The lights overhead buzzed loudly. Outside the windows, the Pacific Ocean gleamed. I laughed. My leg hairs were in perfect alignment.
That evening, I flushed all the Prozac samples down the toilet, turning hundreds of fish, if not gay, extremely happy.
So when I broke my right arm in the dead of winter last year and the physician suggested Prozac to battle the gloom of both sunless days and the helplessness I felt at being unable to blow dry my hair, I was apprehensive. No longer in the business world, I couldn’t act the boardroom idiot again. And, thanks to the miracle of menopause, my legs are almost hair-free these days.
Just for the sake of argument, what would be an appropriate dose? The doctor considered my weight—roughly the same as in 1989, around 105 pounds. “Oh, about 10 milligrams will lift your spirits considerably,” she said.
I mentioned the episode with the 150 mg. capsules. Her eyes widened. “That’s enough for an enraged bull elephant!”
Aha! I pursed my lips. After all, I’m preaching a drug-free existence to my teenagers…
“Or,” said the doctor helpfully, “You could read this book, A New Earth, which really helped me. I was on Prozac, too—and loved it.” She looked furtively at me—the pusher confessing she nibbled at the wares. “But…” she shrugged.
I bit my lip, Clinton-style. Like our 42nd president, I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t want to admit it. Not yet anyway.
“I’ll tell you what,” continued the doctor. She scribbled two separate prescriptions and handed them over. On one was written, Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth; on the other, a prescription for Prozac, 10 mg.
“You decide,” she said, winking.
March 5th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Loved this! Frankly, the older I get the less I trust pharmaceuticals. Ever watch the evening news? Apparently only us older folks do and we all need PILLS and lots of them. From the fine print in the commercials, it seems like the side effects are way worse than the original condition.
I’ll take Eckert Tolle any time, a piece of choclate is my drug of choice. Keep up the great writing!
March 5th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Well…I have a couple of friends who have always had coo-coo brain chemistry that has sent them into very black depressions, and the Prozac or like drugs help them enormously. You wouldn’t not take insulin if you had Diabetes, would you? On the other hand, the rest of us who are just mildly neurotic, can “pussy” up and ride out the blues. That’s why there’s ice cream, after all. Funny blog, Pru…In fact, that laugh just lifted my spirits. Thanks.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I can relate to this. I was automatically put on 20 mgs of Prozac prior to my hip replacement surgery, and told that it would help me cope with arthritis pain as well as menopause symptoms. The side effects, in my view, counteracted the positives. I took myself off the Prozac, but a couple of years later, was told by my gynecologist that Prozac would help hot flashes and I should get back on it. Seems like doctors give it out like candy in a reception room. That can’t be good.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Very funny!
March 5th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Years ago I was having terrible lower back pain that had resisted all therapies and numerous doctors’ suggestions. I remember one of those many doctors recommending Prozac, too. “I’m not depressed,” I said, “just sick and tired of having a sore back. He insisted, but so did I. F@#! these guys! Save it for those who really need it. Pru, I don’t know what made me laugh more, your funny blog or the memory of that chinless, pants-wetting mama’s boy, who was never very funny, now that I think of it.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Confession time: I am a proud card-carrying member of the Prozac Nation and although I take a very low dose I would not trade it for all the Dodger Dogs in Los Angeles. However, if Prozac, in ANY way, delays my much anticipated “hair-free legs of menopause”, I too, will flush them down the toilet… right after I stop laughing about Mr. Pee Pants.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Loved the piece!
Yea Pru!
March 5th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
For me Eckhart Tolle’s book A New World is more like Ambien than Prozac. Every time I try to read it, it puts me to sleep. Thanks Pru for another wise and funny post. I can’t get the picture of hair bangs—pasted down by pantyhose and spit—out of my mind. You know, I vaguely remember that chinless mama’s boy. He didn’t deserve you.
March 5th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
First of all, some people genuinely benefit from pharmaceuticals for depression, anxiety and a cornucopia of neurological ailments. In the old days, people like that either went nuts, were placed in asylums, got lobotomies or became artists like lets say Edgar Allen Poe or Vincent Van Gogh. It’s a good thing that prozac or Eckhart Tolle weren’t around or we wouldn’t have “The Tell Tell Heart” or “Starry, Starry Night.” That said…I was wondering how the hell you got through that chinless idiot and many, many challenges you’ve had. I guess we all come out on “the other side” — wherever that is! Highly appropriate piece of writing for such a hopeful, depressing totally weird period in global history. Wish we could all take Prozac and make it better.
March 6th, 2009 at 6:14 am
I laughed so hard, I thought, who needs Prozac when we’ve got “Pru-zac!”
March 6th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Cathy, thank you confirming that it’s not just me. I cannot read more than two pages of A New Earth without nodding off. So, instead of trying to find some deeper meaning in this phenomenon (like, “am I THAT shallow?”), I’ve decided to use the book for what it does best–as a nightcap for melatonin. Pop one 500mg Trader Joe-brand melatonin before bed, prop yourself up with Eckhart Tolle’s tome, and before you can say, “humans-are-on-the-verge-of-creating-a-new- world-through-personal-transformation,” voila! A sleep so restful that you don’t even get up to pee. Now, that IS a new world.
March 6th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Very funny… “Pru-zac” Just a side note for the environment and the little fishies, no more flushing meds down the toilet. Especially if you live near water!
March 6th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Buzzy, thanks for pointing that out…that was no throwaway line about turning fishes gay. Anti-depressants in our waters are wreaking havoc on male fish and amphibians. The little creatures are developing egg-sacs and their wee testes are suffering from shrinkage. Just another horrific side effect!
March 7th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Pru, whoah! you have an ex P-Pal. Seriously, I mean was he a little pisser or did his accidents require hasty exits from parties, cinemas etc? Very funny story Pru.. love your prozac high escapade.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Alright Prudence, im in the 50′s club now,give or take 10yrs or so.