Tag: Antidepressants

Posted in coping skills, insomnia, Mental health, recovery, Uncategorized

The Uninvited Guest

Posted on by Rose

Symptoms they don’t talk about are a lot of times the minor ones that can go unnoticed or even ones that don’t appear to be a symptom at all. There is the nail biting, the foot tapping, or maybe even head scratching, but those are just habits not symptoms of anything. Well with such habits being that minor it can be difficult to even recognize your own symptoms or even recognize  the onset of an anxiety attack.

In all of my years dealing with mental illness it was a friend who lives nearly 10,000 miles away to help me recognize my actions as symptoms and that I was having an attack. I wasn’t hyperventilating, or sweating excessively, or nauseated. No, I was up in my mothers apartment at 3 in the morning cooking and cleaning. I don’t mean just your standard tidying up. I was full on sweeping, moping, and scrubbing. I was making food as if preparing for a dinner party. By the time my attack was over I had managed to make tacos, chicken, deviled eggs and apple sauce from scratch. As I reflect on this incident I can feel the budding tension in my chest rise. (So apparently just thinking about attacks brings on attacks too noted. )

So this observation that had been pointed out made me pause and think, this can’t be a panic attack. I just cant sleep so might as well get some tasks done, that will tire me out. Then once I’m tired I’ll have to pass out. But that’s just it. I am so restless that I have decided to do these tasks to force my body and mind to shut down. In a way this is just my mind and body’s way of distracting me and avoiding the real issue of what has me up. In all my distractions I was not able to even fathom there was a problem till it was brought to my attention. Sometimes it takes a person from the outside to put your actions into perspective so you can clearly see the problems you’re not ready to face because you’re up at 3 in the morning preparing for a dinner party.  It’s also pretty eye opening on how the mind or body will come up with actions to cope or protect itself or cry for help. I can see why you wouldn’t talk about a symptom if you don’t even know there is one.

Posted in Mental health, Uncategorized

Friends Like Mine: Mr. Wonderful

Posted on by Rose

A friend is what the heart needs all the time. – Henry Van Dyke

Now that you have been formally introduced to Zac it is fitting to get a bit of his origin story.

During the late 1960’s doctors were working on different treatments for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). One particularly thing that continued to come up was a decrease of  Serotonin levels in patients. 

Serotonin has many functions and jobs, one being a neurotransmitter (messenger). As we all know messengers in many cases are very important, (please refrain from shooting), Serotonin is that messenger which communicates anything from, mood, eating, sleeping and digestion. Which sounds like a lot of opportunity for things to go left. 

Imagine your body and nerves like the pony express. There are various riders at a particular checkpoint to get messages to its final destination, i.e a message to the brain to put you in a good mood. Well what happens if one of your riders or many riders gets lost or stuck ? Your brain won’t be getting the message bye bye good mood.

In the case of patients having a down mood as well as low levels of serotonin what could happen if that level was increased? 

This is where Zac comes in. The extra force needed to unblock the dammed river. or be the increase of needed riders to deliver to deliver happy messages to the brain. On the flip side unblocking a dam can cause a major increase of messengers/serotonin flowing in and that has its own set of  problems.  

“Dam Destroyer”
By 1987 a concentrated form of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI ) [1] would be approved by the USFDA.

Zac hit the market and was quickly seen as a “wonder drug”

Zac was introduced at a time where the pharmaceutical industry was shifting how they market their products. Previously pharmaceuticals usually went to doctors and health providers to market their products in hope of getting more doctors to use their products for prescription and treatment. The 1980s saw a change to Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) advertising. Now potential patients were seeing what products could be made available to them instead of solely relying on their doctor for treatment options. 🚩

The introduction of Prozac into the mass market also opened up opportunity for people to speak publicly  on mental illness especially in regards to depression or anxiety. In some respects Zac became “trendy” (he had a book and movie deal talk about a Hollywood star.”) Because Prozac was believed to work so well patients as well as the public put a lot of faith into the drug to easily cure these issues. With such rave reviews pretty hard to imagine any downsides to something so wonderful.


Esherick, Joan. (2007). Prozac: North American Culture and the Wonder Drug. Mason Crest Publishers Inc