The Prozac Nation (warning! Religious Alert!)

As I have mentioned many times, I sorta checked out of the political and cultural scene in the 90's. Clinton was President, which made me literally sick to me stomach and this was way before Lewinsky. My husband's family is from Arkansas, so we knew all about Bill and Hillary. I was busy with 2 small children and I had two more in the 90's. I had my hands full and I wanted to concentrate on what was the most important thing in my life, raising these children right.

If Jack Kemp had been the Republican nominee in 92' instead of Dole, I would have worked hard to get him elected. I had campaigned for him in 88' and I still think he is a wonderful man who would have made a great President. His 'empowerment zone' idea, which was later put through in a very watered down form, would have truly changed things for those stuck in the vicious cycle of poverty in this country. Just like so many good people, I think Kemp saw that it wasn't worth it to stay in public life. It was too mean. And that is a crying shame for all of us.

Anyway, I missed the national bestseller "The Prozac Nation" by Elizabeth Wurtzel. It was made into a movie as well. If you hadn't read it , it is an autobiography of Wurtzel from childhood to her late 20's and her struggle with depression, drug abuse, her father's desertion, being sexually used, and suicide attempts. As you might expect, not an easy read. I had been meaning to read it forever and I finally did this weekend.

Even through her decidedly pathetic and sad personal life, she manages to graduate from Harvard. When she wrote the book in her early 20's, even she was shocked by the reaction to it. She had been one of the first to be on Prozac when it came on the market. Just a few years later 6 million people were on Prozac. Now there are 20 million of Americans on some type of anti-depressants. She has an "afterword" in her paperback about how shocked she was by the number of depressed people in the country. She wonders (as I do) how many are truly clinically depressed and how many are just sad about life.

As I read about her childhood and life, I kept thinking that if my Dad had left me and ignored me for most of my life and I had the kind of life she had, I would be depressed too. Not to downplay her real depression, but I wonder if it would have developed if not for her circumstances? She does touch on some subjects of her experiences with broken kids from broken homes. She sees a pretty clear connection between the broken home and the broken child. At one point she miscarries without even knowing she is pregnant. She brings up abortion and how she would of course had one if she hadn't miscarried, but she says that saying it is a "choice" is a lie. She feels that for women like her, there really is only one choice. A sad telling statement. We live our lives in such a way where we see no other choice but that which we know to be awful. So isn't the choice made long before we become pregnant?

Anyway, let me get to the heart of my point here. At the same time I was reading this book, I heard a homily where the Priest was speaking of the sin of adultery. What he said touched me deeply. He said that when Christ came upon the woman about to be stoned for adultery, he did not condemn her, he did not tell her she was going to hell. He said to the crowd, "You who are without sin, cast the first stone." Christ himself could have cast that stone, because he was without sin. But he didn't. He didn't because he knew that what the woman had been looking for was love. He knew she had been looking for Him.

I see that in so many people. They are looking for love, and as the country song goes.."in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces..." When the one face that they will find that love, THE LOVE, they ignore. They ignore because the culture makes it seem as one has to be like Pat Robertson or TammyFae Baker to love Christ. But that isn't true. It is a false picture of Christianity.

So my heart went out to the little girl that Elizabeth Wurtzel had been. The pain she felt as her father ignored her most of her life. My heart broke for the teenager and young woman she became, so damaged and hurt by life that she turned to drugs and sex and fell into the pit of despair. When the Father she had been looking for and needing was right there all along.

Toward the end of the book, she is in England and at the end of her rope. Her soul is twisted with despair and grief. She feels she can hardly hold on any longer. She meets a couple who are going to Israel for Passover and she asked them to leave a note for her in the Kotel, in the cracks between bricks of the Wailing Wall, because she had been taught that God answers all prayers that are deposited there. She scrawls on a piece of paper, "Dear God, Please send me a miracle that gets me out of this depression because I can't go on this way."

She doesn't believe in God, but she reaches out this way in her desperation. Almost as soon as she returns to Harvard from England, her Doctor decides to try and give her this new drug called Prozac that finally, after a lifetime of sadness, lifts her out of the black wave of depression. But for some reason, she doesn't seem to make the connection that God had answered her prayer in the Wailing Wall.

And that, to me, was the saddest thing of all.