Prozac Nation - Elizabeth Wurtzel
... (She) "wanted to have an abortion, that she'd gotten as far as the gynecologist's office and was all set to have a D and C, and that he physically restrained her to prevent the process. Later, when I told my mother about that conversation, she began to cry and said that the opposite was true" (p. 28). Upbringing is an important piece of your life, primarily the most important piece, but when you don’t have a good up bringing; your future is pretty much ruined… This is how Elizabeth described hers "My parents are divorced, I grew up in a female-headed household, my mother was always unemployed or marginally employed, my father was always uninvolved or marginally involved in my life. There was never enough money for anything, my mom had to sue my dad for unpaid child support and unpaid medical bills, my dad eventually disappeared" (p. 33). Another ‘cause’ of her depression, was the curse of high expectations: regarding this she said "I somehow managed to win the school Brochos Bee, the Jewish equivalent of a spelling bee, five years in a row. ... As a child I was completely convinced that I could do anything on earth I wanted to" (pp. 39-40). At this point the story directs itself to when she was a Harvard student, since she was a student here; her expectations of succeeding were even greater which threw her even deeper into this black hole of depression. From the title of the book, you would probably assume that her depression was cured by Prozac, but that’s not what the story reveals. She does claim that “Prozac was the miracle that saved my life and jump-started me out of a full-time state of depression" (p. 343) also that “Prozac [is] a pill that doesn't make you happy but does make you feel not sad" (p. 340). Then she admits she didn’t think that Prozac really worked for her. Elizabeth had only had one suicide attempt ever, which was when she began taking Prozac and to that she stated “The secret I sometimes think that only I know is that Prozac really isn't that great" (p. 343). Next, we learn about her lithium… "I am not just on Prozac but lithium too" "lithium ... is a draining, tiring drug to take” "At times, even on both lithium and Prozac, I have had severe depressive episodes, ones that kept my friends in a ...