Title: PROZAC MONOLOGUES: A Voice From The Edge
Author: Willa Goodfellow
Year: 2020
Category: Personal Stories
Author Website: www.shewritespress.com
Premise: Willa, the main character in this memoir, is depressed. When she is put on antidepressants she becomes hypomanic but it is not recognized by her doctors. She is switched between several antidepressants with the results being undiagnosed mixed episodes where she writes a whole book in under a week.
Review: This memoir reminds me of the book MANIC by Terri Cheney, with each chapter being a tangent around a central purpose. (This is not a critique, I rather enjoyed the style.)
I was really moved by some of the revelations in the book, specifically:
"The thing about Effexor is, if it works, it is a miracle, ad the psychiatrist is a genius. And if it works for you, I truly am glad. If it doesn’t, the person taking it quits the psychiatrist who prescribed it. I was one of the latter, at which pointmt this psychiatrist no longer observed me. But she still believe she got great results from Effexor, based on her observation of the patients who told her she was a genius." – pg 89
where Goodfellow discusses the bias that presents the medical professionals. They often don't see the cases where it didn't work, so they assume it did work. This skews how they view the effectiveness of an intervention (not only medication).
Goodfellow also discusses some of the feelings of, and towards, people with depression and how confusing they are:
"So sad. Actually, that's good. Telling the bad news builds trust. Unless I know that you know the bad news and I are brave enough to acknowledge it, I don't trust you when you say there's good news. When you try to cheer me up, then I think you haven't a clue. At best you think you cheeriness will help me snap out of it. Snap out of that delusion, yourself. More likely, you're cheering yourself up, because my depression makes you feel bad period it's about you. “Depression hurts” is about me." – pg 93
however, it's very true. People who try to cheer up someone who is depressed just don't understand depression and how it feels and that it's not as simple as cheering someone up and making them smile. When I'm depressed I can, and often do, smile. It's more of a mask I put on to protect others because I don't want to bring them down.
All in all, this book captures the essence of antidepressant-caused hypomania, helping those who have not experienced it to understand the feelings, thought patterns and dangers that come with it.
Recommendation: Overall, a must-read it if you liked MANIC by Terri Cheney, and skip it if you want something linear that follows time a little smoother.