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Prozac Diary
 
 
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Prozac Diary [Paperback]

Lauren Slater (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (24 Feb 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140263942
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140263947
  • Product Dimensions: 19 x 13 x 1.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 519,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

Lauren Slater
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Product Description

Product Description

In 1988, at age 26, Lauren Slater lived alone in a basement apartment in Cambridge, depressed, suicidal, unemployed. Ten years later, she is a psychologist running her own clinic, an award-winning writer, and happily married. The transformation in her life was brought about by Prozac. Prozac Diary is Lauren Slater's incisive account of a life restored to productivity, creativity, and love. When she wakes up one morning and finds that her demons no longer have a hold on her, Slater struggles with the strange state of being well after a lifetime of craziness. Yet this is no hymn to a miracle pharmaceutical. It is a frankly ambivalent quest for the truth of self behind an ongoing reliance on a drug. Slater also addresses Prozac's notorious "poop-out" effect and its devastating attack on her libido. This is the first memoir to reflect on long-term Prozac use, and reviewers agree that no one has written about Prozac with such beauty, honesty, and insight.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Ten years into her relationship with Eli Lilly's breakthrough antidepressant Prozac, Lauren Slater contemplates the cost her dependence holds. She notices tremors in her hands. Her memory, once a point of pride, fails her in subtle ways. Is she just getting older or is her cure exacting a physical toll? Then, there is the loss of her sex drive.

There is a tradeoff here, however. For while these symptoms are troubling, and open profound questions about a drug that has no long term track history, there is the patient herself to consider. Hospitalized five times in her teens to early twenties, she was unable to hold steady employment. Ms. Slater becomes one of the early Prozac users in 1988 as the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) begins to haunt her. She has carried the burden of unrelenting depression as well as a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.

Contrast this with the Dr. Lauren Slater who appeared on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation in early 1997. She has earned a master's degree in psychology from Harvard, and completed her doctorate in just two years. Her first book, Welcome to My Country, published in 1996 was critically acclaimed. Her essays have merited national recognition. Listening to her talk eloquently on the struggles of mental illness one can't help but be awed by her achievements. Clearly, the cream and green capsules Slater writes so effectively about in Prozac Diary have had a stunning impact on her own life.

The 204-page book offers depth and color to arguments that have often been hardened in black and white. From press coverage earlier in this decade that once surrounded Prozac in negative controversy to recent literature that painted it as a miracle compound, rarely have we visited the subject from the middle. Slater's account is of the give and take, a wondrous return to normal life followed by the disappointment of the drug suddenly losing effectiveness. It never again has the same impact, yet she realizes she is bound to it for each time she tries to stop using it symptoms recur. At the same time one realizes in reading her moving account, that maybe the true turning point in her life is when she realizes that even without Prozac she can exert some control over her condition.

The questions she digs at from so deep a personal level are fundamentally unsettling. As research into brain chemistry yields ever more effective pharmacological compounds, several issues creep into the picture. What is gained and what is lost from tampering with chemicals so closely linked to a person's sense of self? Do we lose in creativity what we gain in function? Ms. Slater finds herself concerned over an inability to write easily and by her own indifference to that fact early in her experience with Prozac. She is on the other hand amazed by her ability to perform at a level she has rarely touched beforehand. She wonders if when the drug is it yields unfair advantages. Where does a personality begin and chemistry end? Are the traits that make us who we are easily changed by advanced pharmaceutical design? Can we separate ourselves from the science?

While there are no easy answers here, Prozac Diary offers a funny and touching memoir about life changed forever by chemical interaction. Its strength is in Lauren Slater's ability to write so poetically about a struggle to emerge from the darkness of a life lived on the edges of mental illness. That she has the insight to ponder the price and meaning of her experience make this a provocatively engaging read.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I have read reviews that call this a great book and I think that's a bit of an overstatement but it is worthwhile as an honest and very well-written account of everything they don't tell you about Prozac in those magazine ads. Slater did write a great book, her first one, "Welcome to My Country," and this follow-up seems a calculated attempt to capitalize on the first bit of acclaim she won with something sexy like Prozac. Still, she can pull it off because she has so much insight and writes so well.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Lauren Slater is a gifted writer. Prozak Diary is a rich girls tale of prozac with a somewhat successful ending, but Slater battles with the dependent aspects of the drug. We are all dependent on something in life and she is not different. Slater is now a productive human being and is not afraid of displaying her quite admirable talent in this book. I say hooray for Eli Lilly, because if this were the dark ages honey...youd be in trouble. If you are curious but not crippled enough to be able to take prozac, Ms Slater will take you through the journey. It is somewhat strange that the word"suffering" hardly shows its face...being that it is surely a part of humanness and life.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Disappointing
After reading Welcome to my Country and really enjoying it, I was expecting Prozac Diary to be of similar quality. However, it is not. Read more
Published on 16 April 2007 by amelieriis
COMPLEX
I dunno if it's just dumb old me but I found this book quite complex to read. Lauren is very talented and it's excellent from a depressives point of view (If that makes sense). Read more
Published on 16 July 2004 by "rainbobutafly"
A Change of Perspective
Lauren Slater's tale of the rollercoaster ride of depression, recovery and relapse makes powerful reading. Read more
Published on 30 Aug 2002
Flowery writing distracts from her message
I have been perplexed by the many positive references to Ms. Slater's writing style. While she has some interesting insights into the relationship between Prozac and the self,... Read more
Published on 28 April 1999
A clarification of a life
Interesting positive account of the 90s drug of choice, this personal, truthful journey out of madness is well worth the read. Read more
Published on 4 Jan 1999
Thank you
As a 21 year old who was given Prozac at the age of 18, I was more than happy to read a book chronicling the 10 year journey Ms. Slater has had with drug. Read more
Published on 29 Dec 1998
A chemically-induced coming of age story.
The transition from obsessive-compulsive disorder to a peacful life of shopping, falling in love and finding a job is told with poetry. I wanted much more, however. Read more
Published on 6 Dec 1998
Mesmerizing
Lauren Slater writes with a hypnotic brilliance. She's one of those writers who can make any subject fascinating, and this one is particularly interesting to begin with: How much... Read more
Published on 24 Nov 1998
Prozac poetry
A deeply thoughtful meditation on what it means to have one's mental state altered by a pill, written in the same subtle and poetic voice that made Slater's earlier book... Read more
Published on 1 Oct 1998
A memoir at once level-headed and profoundly moving
I found Lauren Slater's PROZAC DIARY to be both level-headed and profoundly moving. Slater writes beautifully, in rich, lyrical and sometimes comic prose, and her language leads... Read more
Published on 4 Sep 1998
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