Throughout this semester I enjoyed most of the selected
readings so far, too choose one reading was tough but I ultimately decided to
go with Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation. I selected a couple of quotes from the passage that stuck out to me.
“I think that maybe it relaxed me so
much that I was actually relaxed enough to think about my problems in an
unhibited fashion” I suggest. “Which made me realize that my life is even worse
then I even thought”.
To me this genuinely speaks to the author’s state of mind at
the time of writing this book, It really drew me in. This book has a very raw and powerful approach to
depression and other mental illnesses that are effecting many young people today. The way Elizabeth Wurtzel expresses her
struggles with being in a prestige college, trying to understand her
relationship with her significant other all while dealing with this disorder is very honest and
relateable to patient reports with these ailments.
“My main symptoms, Dr. Sterling
believes, are anxiety and agitation in her opinion, even worse than the
depression itself is the fear I seem to have about never escaping from it.”
This book shows young people there are ways to get through
this and brings color to the black and white stigmas of depression; who and how
it affects us. Many teens struggle with not understanding what is going on
inside them; why they can’t stop crying or feeling sad, why they aren’t like
everyone else. The statements in this book are very powerful because year after
year many depressed people fall victim to suicide when the depression gets to
overwhelming; I believe if this book made it to the right hands it could even
have deferred that thought from some minds.
This excerpt helps us understand more clearly why people become
so dependent on prescription drugs, sometimes the disorders are so mentally debilitating
they want everything to just go away and stop hurting them, one pill can take
that away even if only for a short time.
“Somebody has to make this stop! I
wonder if the Zanax will help, I wonder if there is any in my knapsack, wonder
if anything will work or if there is no pill, no potion, no serum, no shot,
nothing under the whole big black sun that can possibly penetrate a pain so
deep”
It shows the extreme frustrations this disorder causes the
people afflicted with it and brings to light that the appending epidemic of
prescription drug use was upon us, which we all know now is a major concern. I believe that made this
memoir publishable. Elizabeth's journey helps the reader's be more empathetic and optimistic for a healthy
recovery because they now have a story to reflect on and
personalize to their own journeys through this disorder.
“After I hang
up the phone, still crying like a rain storm, a nurse walks in and gives me a
small brown tablet”.“She tells me be careful not to chock since she sees that
I’m wheezing from so much crying… And amazingly, only a few minutes after I
swallow the Mellaril, my tears and all my feelings completely subside. Just
like magic, I am calm, care free, careless.”
While she is expressing her ups and downs with trying to understand
and accept her disorder, find a cure or just something to
subside her raging manic feelings. She explores different
drugs, I think that this brings an educational factor showing that one drug is not for all individuals and
that they should not settle for unbearable side effects or give up on themselves
after one drug fails. I feel that moral of her story the true agony she felt through this time in her life is most clearly stated in this last quote.
“Instead of
depressed girl I’m just blank girl”
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