Prozac Nation

Tom Cruise has been in the news lately spouting off about the evils of mood altering drugs. I don't know the whole history but it apparently started when he criticized Brooke Shields for using them.

I'll tell you right now that I firmly believe these drugs to be overused and pharmaceuticals are over-prescribed. Our nation has become one of pill pushers and pill poppers. Whatever your ill, take a pill. But Tom Cruise is taking the wrong approach.

I have been down that lonely, dark road of depression. Thankfully, I managed to come back but I have to pass that road almost every day. Some days I still get lost and find myself on that road but now I know how to get back.

When I was first diagnosed with clinical depression, my doctor prescribed antidepressants. There was a time that I didn't want to live without them. Then, I realized what I think Mr. Cruise is trying to get at. These antidepressants are not really mood elevators... they are mood levelers. I basically had one mood. I wasn't happy, nor was I sad. I was there. I existed. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't gorked out and drooling I just no longer had a broad emotional range.

Even though I knew I would be under great emotional stress, I finally decided to come off of them. I had been putting it off out of fear of ending up right where I started. "When the situation gets better," I kept telling myself... but it wasn't going to get any better any time soon and I needed to stop taking these pills.

Six months later, I was back at the doctor's office telling him, "I can't take it anymore." I didn't want to go back on drugs but I kept going further and further down that lonely road and I absolutely did not want to be there. I needed his help to pull me back. And help me he did - without drugs. He told me to exercise. I needed it anyway and it would help me alleviate stress.

It worked. It worked better than the pills. It worked better because it let my body and my mind heal themselves. But understand that I don't think it would have worked the first time. The first time, I was too far down that road. True, exercise, a change in diet and vitamins would probably have worked, but how quickly and how effectively?

What I'm trying to say is that antidepressants are being handed out like tic-tacs and then aren't being managed properly. There are those who need them - I would much rather see someone taking medication than a bullet - but it should only be a temporary solution.

Antidepressants are like putting pressure on a bleeding wound. Imagine you have a bleeding wound on your left shoulder and you grab a bandage and hold it to the wound with your right hand. Sure, you stop the bleeding and save yourself but you're eventually going to need to correct the root of the problem which is the wound, not the bloodflow. And holding that bandage on the wound handicaps you as long as you do it so you really want to do it only as long as absolutely necessary.

Plus, I have to say that Mr. Cruise does not know enough of what he is talking about. In the Today Show interview, he said to Matt Lauer, "You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do." Now, how the hell does he know how much Lauer knows about the history of psychiatry and when did Cruise become an expert? I understand that scientology shuns medication and medical science (at least that's my admittedly oversimplified understanding) but how dare he.

Then, if you look at the Entertainment Weekly article, Cruise makes several factual mistakes. Here are some excerpts from that article:

"People go for help but their lives don't get better because of these drugs. They get worse. They feel numb and they're told that's a good thing." Agreed. This is part of the point I was making above.

"Yeah, but Scientology textbooks sometimes refer to psychiatry as a ''Nazi science''... Well, look at the history. Jung was an editor for the Nazi papers during World War II. [According to Aryeh Maidenbaum, the director of the New York Center for Jungian Studies, this is not true.] Look at the experimentation the Nazis did with electric shock and drugging. Look at the drug methadone. That was originally called Adolophine. It was named after Adolf Hitler... [According to the Dictionary of Drugs and Medications, among other sources, this is an urban legend.]" Tom, get your facts absolutely straight before you go spouting them off or you'll be seen as a gullible fool.

"Well, Freud wasn't a Nazi, but the point I'm getting at here is that expressing these views isn't necessarily a public relations bonanza for you. What choice do I have? People are being electric-shocked. Kids are being drugged. People are dying." WTF? I'll give you kids are being drugged but who's dying?

I guess my point is that Tom Cruise had better watch himself. Fame is fleeting and fans are fickle.