Prozac or a nice wee placebo? The news was full of it this morning. They all seem so sure that we can do without Prozac. It doesn't work anyway, according to the media.
As someone who lost a huge chunk of my life to depression in the '90s, I want to stand up and be counted. After five years of avoiding the 'D' word and refusing anti-depressants, I gave in, took good old Prozac and after only five or six weeks, I began to live again. A placebo would not have had the desired effect. I had tried all sorts of things - homeopathic, herbal, hormonal, and none of them had worked. But Prozac did and continued to do so and gave me the courage to look at myself and change.
I think, though, that that was the big thing. Prozac alone was not the answer. But without the drug, I would never have had the energy, the health or the courage to do the 'inner work' required to bring me back to health.
It was during my time of depression that I met the enneagram (a personality profiling system) and to discover what made me tick was life-changing. It led me on a journey of self-discovery and helped me to see that there was a perfectly nice individual hidden deep inside me, at a level below the depression. That gave me a handle on myself and showed me the repeated, damaging habits in my life that needed to change. It helped a lot - which is why I trained to be a practitioner and teach it now.
But without the Prozac, I would never have been healthy enough to take on that challenge.
So don't knock Prozac. It's good enough to eat!!!
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