Few medicines have been welcomed with so many exultations as Prozac in American history. The green-and-white pill originally introduced in 1988 became a wonder drug that would improve the lives of millions of Americans during that period. With millions of miraculous stories involving psychological turnarounds of the drug, Elizabeth Wurtzel was not left behind. Her book, Prozac nation, tells how the drug improved her life from previous stress and depression. Born in a troubled parent-child relationship after an acrimonious divorce of her parents, she was raised by her mother and lived on the upper west side of Manhattan. The onset of puberty led to acute depression, which led her into spirals of despair, hysterical crying, and catatonic despair. She admitted that she would cut herself and had recurrent episodes of emotional angsts. Her teenage years were characterized by fights with family members, bad relationships, drug abuse, and constant struggles with depression. Even as a gifted student who later went to Harvard College, the struggle with depression never ended until she found the ‘happy pills’ – Prozac ( Bell et al., 1999) . According to her confessional memoir, depression was a struggle in many American teenagers, and only a few would talk about it because it was a taboo. After Wurtzel tried many different psychiatrists and medication, Prozac was the only medication that helped her rise above her despair. Many psychosocial concepts were covered in the book; however, psychological disorders, cognitive development, and culture reflected more often and would be discussed more in this paper.
Cognitive Development
According to Erikson's psychosocial development theory, an individual has to go through eight stages for them to become successful and complete. During each stage, an individual experiences a psychosocial crisis, which brings either a positive or negative personality. After completing each stage, an individual acquires the basic virtues whose characteristics strengthen an individual's ego, which they can use to resolve other crises. Failure to complete a stage, an individual, reduces their ability to complete the next stage leading to a more unhealthy personality, which could be resolved at later stages in life ( Mukherjee, 2020) . The first stage of psychosocial development begins between birth and eighteen months, according to Erikson's theory. At this stage, the infant is uncertain about their environment, and they look up to their caregivers for consistent care and stability. If the infant receives proper care during this stage, they become more reliable and predictable developing trust in other relationships. However, if the care was unreliable, the infant develops negative traits such as mistrust, anxiety, and suspicion, which will affect their confidence in later stages in life.
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In Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel experienced a sense of mistrust while she was young. Her parents divorced, and her father failed to take responsibility for the family. According to Erikson's theory, failure in the first stage of development leads to fear and anxiety. Even though Wurtzel was smart, scored A's, and even accomplished writing children's books, her social life was faced with anxiety and depression. She exhibited chronic feelings of emptiness and sometimes imagined abandonment. According to Erikson's theory, at puberty, the stage of identity and role confusion, Wurtzel failed when she started experimenting with various lifestyles, including drug and substance abuse. Even after the constant use of drugs, which led to recurrent suicidal behaviors and self-mutilating traits, it is interesting that she still finds a spot at Harvard College. It seems that she was struggling with identity and exploration of personal values. She led a life full of chronic feelings of emptiness and patterns of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships.
According to Erikson's psychological development theory, the eighth stage involves forming intimate relationships, and failure leads to isolation. In the late 1980s, there were millions of depression cases, but society failed to talk and address the medical condition. Usually, clinical signs of depression involve persistent feelings of sadness and loss of interest in basic activities such as hobbies and even sports. A depressed individual has trouble concentrating and sometimes feels hopeless, and life seems worthless. They are anxious and sometimes experience episodes of death contemplation. For someone like Wurtzel living in that condition during the period, life was becoming like torture and hopeless agony. She did not have to prove that she failed suicide attempts to make the readers understand her situation. Since we cannot understand everyone's position, Wurtzel’s parents divorcing was the cause of her mental depression. When she became a young adult and started dating Rafe, she felt isolated, clingy, miserable, and insecure. Sometimes even her crying seemed like a deliberate action. Growing up watching her parent's marriage fall apart and fighting through a bitter divorce, she could not run away from depression. She tries to go to New York to find some hope in the city's bustle, but she cannot run away from the pain of her childhood. She travels to Dallas to try new business and also to England, but all was in vain. Her adolescent years were miserable, and misunderstanding of her identity was her daily struggle. Since it was a taboo, depression was treated as a simple problem that required easy quick-fixes even though the huddle was more of a daily battle in Wurtzel’s life. She hated herself and wanted to die. At the beginning of her memoir, she had felt that something was wrong in her life. All the drugs she consumed – lithium, Desyrel- put together could no longer combat what she was dealing with. She felt like a defective model and wished her parents would take her back for repair, but that could not happen. She could not maintain the façade any longer and thought that happiness was an ongoing battle and depression had no cure. While most of these symptoms occur during Wutrzel’s teenage years, she manages to find solace in Prozac.
Culture
Various theories have been formulated to presume the cause of depression. Others stress psychological issues, while others assume depression to be caused by biological dispositions. While most of the theories lack succinct evidence, the biopsychosocial approach has proof and is applicable in Elizabeth Wurtzel’s life in the Prozac nation ( Mukherjee, 2020) . The model considers various systems that affect a depressed person's lifestyle, focusing on the experience of both inner and outer systems. Since it’s a confessional memoir, Wurtzls focuses on her experiences of depression when she visits hospitals during her studies at Harvard when mental illness was stigmatized. During that period, over 3.1 percent of Americans were affected by anxiety, which caused muscle tension and headaches, among other symptoms ( Bell et al., 1999) . Around 6.7 percent had experienced a major depressive disorder ( Bell et al., 1999) . Wurtzel was entitled rude, mean, and generally vulnerable after a mental breakdown in her first year at Harvard; after being overwhelmed with symptoms of bipolar disorder, society, including her friends, alienated her. She later made repeated terrible decision mistakes, suicide attempts, and eventually hospitalized and misdiagnosed before she found Prozac. During that period, the community had devalued individuals with mental illness, often leading to inequitable treatment of individuals with the illness. The cultural inequity impacted the overall mental healthcare system in such a way that culture influenced how people understood symptoms of mental illness. There was a lack of community support towards families and individuals with mental illness, and resources were limited. Despite such shortcomings, Wurtzel was able to become an icon to be emulated while combating mental diseases. After her publishing her book, she broke the cultural ceiling of alienation of mentally ill patients, which was a taboo in everyone's conversation. The implications of the book were evident through Paris Review journalist James Scott who revealed that Wurtzel would receive thousands of emails written by young women expressing their gratitude and opening upon how the book has helped them tackle their challenges.
Parent-Child Relationships
Mostly, depression is an internalizing problem that society views simply as disappointments towards specific life events. However, depression is significantly associated with hostile or negative parenting traits in society. Research findings from Yale Child study center found out depression disrupts a parent's ability to work and participate in other activities ( Mukherjee, 2020) . It affects not only the parent's perception of the community but also the child's internal and external experiences. In the Prozac nation, Wurtzel's father was majorly absent in her life and was raised by her mother after a painful divorce. When children haave a growing disconnect with their parents, their feelings of alienation increases, thereby decreasing their trust levels and quality of communication. Wurtzel felt disconnected since she was young, making her lose trust and connection with friends at Harvard. Children’s natural inclination to their parents gives them self-sufficiency and independence to combat mental illnesses ( Mukherjee, 2020) .
Therefore, to change character development in Prozac Nation, Wurtzel could have started with a stable parent-child relationship. With a long-lasting relationship and parental support, Wurzel could not be experiencing a mental breakdown in her first year on campus. Furthermore, if the community could address mental illness without stigmatization, the support system could be less dependent on Prozac since fewer mentally ill patients could be diagnosed. However, the medical sector improved the experiences of depressed individuals by introducing Prozac, which has helped millions of Americans living with mental illness.
References
Bell, R. A., Kravitz, R. L., & Wilkes, M. S. (1999). Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising and the public. Journal of General Internal Medicine , 14 (11), 651-657.
Mukherjee, S. (2020). Post-Prozac Nation (Published 2012) . Nytimes.com. Retrieved 16 November 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magazine/the-science-and-history-of-treating-depression.html.
