Making Peace with Prozac

The first time I took Prozac I was standing in a hallway of a mental hospital in Olive Branch, Mississippi. Twice a day, we lined up to take our pills in front of a nurse, who made sure that we actually consumed the medication. We were a motley crew: some of us were bipolar, others were detoxing from drug addiction, others were receiving treatment under court order after violent outbursts, and some--like me--were here for suicidal ideation. We were ragged, broken souls, like sheep gone astray.

When the psychiatrist in the ward told me she was prescribing Prozac, I was uneasy. I told her I didn't mind taking medication if my depression was the result of a chemical imbalance. But what if it isn't chemical? What if it's just my fault...the result of bad thinking? She said it didn't matter how it started. The end result of prolonged depression is changed brain chemistry: I needed the medicine.

Thus began my uneasy relationship with antidepressant medication. Prozac is not an instant fix for a sad heart and mind. It takes a little time to build up in one's system, so it is not immediately noticeable if I skip a dose or two. But I took it religiously when I first left the hospital, and my family told me a few weeks later they could see a difference in my attitude about the world.

My week-long stay in a mental hospital occurred almost five years ago. The story behind the depression and what led me to suicidal ideation is far too long to cover here. But the years since have been gracious to me.

After I left the hospital that summer, I started my master's degree and moved in with a delightful and feisty ninety-year-old lady who needed a companion. That year I became chair of my department and was named Teacher-of-the-Year by my colleagues. I accepted a job offer to teach in Athens, Greece, the following school year. Oh, and my now-husband came back into my life. It was as if God himself was laughing as one beautiful event after another unfolded. The words of the twenty-third Psalm captured that year perfectly:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: 
he leadeth me beside the still waters. 
He restoreth my soul...

The one-year anniversary of my Prozac prescription arrived the summer before I left for Greece. Both my doctor and I decided that facing the stresses of moving overseas while ceasing to use my medication was not a good idea. So the prescription was renewed another year, and I left for Athens with a twelve-month supply of Prozac.

I have returned to the doctor every summer since, and each time--for one reason or another--we agree that I still need Prozac. I have been on Prozac for almost five years now.

But I have not always taken it consistently, and there were times when I wished that I could stop taking it with medical approval. I am not alone in this. It is the story of many sufferers.

Depression medication can seem like a defeat. I would venture to say this is particularly true for Christians, who have often been told that right thinking will fix their problems, that they aren't following Christ as they should. Mental illness is almost always knitted together with shame. I sometimes felt that I couldn't claim to be entirely over that episode in the hospital until I no longer needed the Prozac. As long as I was taking it, I was still standing in the hallway with the broken and dejected.

It is true that the responsibility for recovery from depression lies partially with the patient. When I was at the hospital, I heard over and over again: it's fifty percent you and fifty percent the medication. I have since learned "mental hygiene" habits. I try to keep from thinking negatively and stop myself as soon I as I feel I'm spiraling down into a circle of gloomy thoughts.

But despite these habits, mental health for me is still fifty percent medication. My brain chemistry isn't right without it. I began to accept that this summer, a few months after my daughter's birth.
We were back in the U.S. for a couple months, and I had managed to get my prescription renewed, but hadn't had time to fill it. Or rather, I had not made filling it a priority. For the month of July, I didn't take anything. Our life was quite stressful at that time. Monica had to be fed with a syringe; some days I spent six to seven hours feeding her. We weren't sure if we were returning to Greece. I was worried about finances. And, despite my best efforts to think positively, a gloom descended on my brain.

One Sunday at the end of July, I was overwhelmed and  in tears before we arrived at church, and when we did arrive, I was in no condition to go in. Benjamin and I sat in the car and talked for a few minutes; he was trying to comfort me, and I was a sad mixture of tears and anger. We agreed that he would stay for church and I would return home with Monica. Before he got out of the car, he begged me to fill my prescription. I agreed, and I went to the pharmacy on Monday.

The reality of my mental health became clear to me then in a way it hadn't before. I needed to take Prozac. Benjamin needed me to take it. Monica needed me to take it. The imbalance of brain chemistry was still real, and for the first time, it didn't seem like a defeat to be taking medication. It was, instead, a relief.

In the months that followed that Sunday, I have been consistent in taking Prozac, and it has come to mean something quite different to me than the shame of that line in the mental hospital.

There is a two-fold blessing in this antidepressant: first is the relief from unbalanced brain chemistry. I rather like not having a dark, gloomy cloud hanging over my head. Life with a healthy brain is far easier, and I can be the mommy and wife I want to be.

The second blessing is equally as sweet, perhaps sweeter. There is a kind of permission in Prozac--permission to be imperfect, to not have it all together, to not be Superwoman. It was the pressure of perfectionism that played a large part in my depression in the first place. Now when I take Prozac, it's a reminder that I don't have to be perfect. Someone has this all under control, and that someone isn't me.

The twenty-third Psalm, whose verses were so meaningful to me in the year following my hospitalization, is not so much about the sheep, as it is about the shepherd. The shepherd is the one leading to green pastures and still waters. It is not the responsibility of the sheep to restore its soul. Sometimes the sheep needs to be reminded of this. Sometimes that reminder is in the form of a pill.

So I still take antidepressant medication. I no longer yearn for a time when I won't need it, not because I have given in to negativity, but because even if I have a current prescription for Prozac when I die, I will still know this:

Goodness and mercy followed me all the days of me life. 
The Lord was my shepherd, and I did not want.