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Prozac
by Arkhobbit
Has the baby boomer generation become melancholy? Are the boomer women suffering from a depression so severe that it requires medication? We must be, according to a trend I've noticed. A short while ago, I was one of 15 to 20 women on the Internet discussing current events and sharing personal stories. All of us fell squarely into the baby boomer age range. During the conversation, it was revealed that as many as five to seven of the women were taking the anti-depressant Prozac. I was amazed that out of 15 or more women, as much as a third were suffering from some type of depression. That ratio seemed a little high. A short while later, I asked another woman, a psychologist, if there was a high occurrence of depression among baby boomer women, and if so, why? I told her that it seemed to me more women were being given prescriptions for Prozac and related drugs, and that it's strange that so many were depressed. "Prozac can be a godsend for those who fit the symptoms indicated for its use," she said. "But mostly, I'm concerned that it is just another in a long line of pills often prescribed for women." I asked her what she meant. She said there is a long history of prescribing mood-changing medication for women undergoing crises instead of encouraging them to face and adjust to problems in life. She said this trend began in the 1960s when women were given addictive barbiturates as "mother's little helpers" to get them through stress-filled days of being house-bound with active toddlers. She said this trend continued into the 1970s and 1980s when women were given Valium to help deal with the stress of their toddlers becoming busy teen-agers. Now these women are being given Prozac. "Specifically, the women who were medicated in the 1960s while they had children, and again in the 1970s while they raised the children, are relying on Prozac to get them through peri-menopausal symptoms," she said. Peri-menopausal symptoms are the early warning signs of menopause. My friend was describing a tendency in our society to drown pain caused by disappointment or frustration with drugs, instead of facing and dealing with these problems. Prozac was designed to help people suffering from severe clinical depression, a type of depression most often caused by a chemical inbalance in the brain's soup of chemicals that determine moods, actions, etc. It was created to combat a physical ailment, not an emotional one. The women I talked to said they were given Prozac prescriptions not to fight depression caused by a chemical inbalance in their brains, but rather to get them through stressful periods caused by divorce, the empty-nest syndrome or menopause. These are emotional upsets, not chemical upsets. Divorce and suddenly facing a house bereft of teen-agers may be upsetting, but it certainly isn't a physical ailment! Another friend likened prescribing Prozac and similar drugs to women facing disappointments in life to turning them into joy junkies. Just like the joy medication given to inhabitants in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," Prozac is being used to deliberately stop people, women specifically, from dealing with their problems. It's a condescending pat on the head, as we're told not to worry our pretty little heads over the real problems in the world. Why have women been encouraged to medicate away the pain they may suffer from disappointments, and emotional upsets? Another friend surmised that it's another example of a male-dominant society trying to quiet restless women, to make them more cooperative. Another person suggested that most of us, men and women, have been given the impression that doctors are omnipotent, and it is only in our best interest to follow their advice. In the early part of this century, restless women, women suffering from stress or extreme emotional upsets were sometimes given hysterectomies in an attempt to quiet them. Even the name indicates its purpose was not to combat disease, but to control a hysterical woman by removing what the medical profession considered at that time to be the source of her hysteria – most of her reproductive system. Modern women are no longer given hysterectomies as a cure for emotional problems. Instead, we're encouraged to drown our problems with Prozac or other mood-altering drugs. Is this a conspiracy by the medical profession to control uppity women? Hardly. It is a natural tendency by mankind to take the easy way out of a difficult situation. Instead of doing the hard work required at the root of the problem, you give it a quick fix by treating the symptoms. What's even worse is that women are allowing this to happen. Most women in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century didn't have much control over their own lives, but modern women do. A century ago, women couldn't vote, couldn't own property -- they were treated as chattel. And if a doctor told them their problems were hysterical ones created by diseased organs, they, out of ignorance, believed it. Modern women though, have the education and the power to not simply accept that the answer to their problems is to throw a drug at it – they are in fact allowing this to happen. And truth be told, isn't that the basic message of our "feel good" society? If life is difficult or painful, we should take a tranquilizer, a sleeping pill, anything that will help ease the discomfort rather than face or cope with it. What is the root of the problem? Why is modern woman so stressed? Well, I think the answer lies in what society as a whole expects from the woman of today. And again, it's something that women are doing to themselves: they are buying into the fiction that they are supposed to do it all – not only go out and earn the family's bacon, but come home and cook it too. Yes, trying to be a superwoman is frustrating and extremely stressful on a day-after-day basis. There seems to never be an end to someone or something needing our attention. Relaxation time, time to just sit and think, is rare for most women I know. We're expected to be on the go from the moment our feet hit the floor in the morning to our turning out the lights at midnight. The stress levels get even higher when a crisis or emotional difficulty is added to the mix. But what women are doing, aided by the medical profession, is masking the problem by medicating their frustrations, instead of facing them. I think the basic problem is that while women's roles in society have changed dramatically over the past century, men's roles haven't adjusted correspondingly. A few more men may be learning how to change a diaper or two, a few more men may know how to turn on the vacuum cleaner – but for the most part, they still expect to come home from their stint at the office and relax for the rest of the evening while the "little woman" drops her briefcase and gets busy in the kitchen. Women don't need drugs to become
better people, instead they need to take the remote controls away from
their sons and husbands and teach them how to peel a few potatoes!
Copyright 1999 @ Arkhobbit |