by Lauren Slater
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Product Description
A dazzling and powerful account of a life profoundly altered by Prozac-- "surely among the best on the long-term effects of the drug" (The New York Times)
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.
* 12 million Americans take Prozac regularly
* Prozac Diary appeared on the Boston Globe and Independent bestseller lists
* Penguin Readers Guide Bound into Every Book
"Powerful. . . . The chemistry of Prozac Diary is beautiful." --Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
Amazon.com Review
When the author began taking Prozac in 1988 she was 26 and had already struggled for over a decade with hospitalizations, suicide attempts, anorexia, and self-mutilation resulting from a variety of mental illnesses, obsessive-compulsive disorder the most recent among them. The newly released drug liberated her from debilitating anxiety and pain even as it raised unsettling questions about her own identity, as she had always been defined by her afflictions. "The world as I had known it my whole life did not seem to exist," writes Slater in a characteristically incisive sentence. She was happier, but she found it difficult to write without the inner voices that had sparked her fevered creativity; even the philosophy books she had once loved now seemed irrelevant to her newly healthy state. With utter candor (even about her dampened sexuality) and a surprising amount of humor, Slater chronicles the ups and downs of life on Prozac. A nightmarish relapse when the dosage suddenly proves inadequate ("Prozac poop-out") ultimately helps her discover inner resources to combat her illness in conjunction with the medication. She finds new love and a better understanding of her past; she avoids the equally unrealistic extremes of Prozac boosters who ignore the drug's costs and doomsayers who depict it creating a generation of zombies. Slater's balanced final assessment is voiced, as usual, in exact, lyrical prose: "This is Prozac's burden and gift, keeping me alive to the most human of questions, bringing me forward, bringing me back, swaddling and unswaddling me, pushing me to ask which wrappings are real." --Wendy Smith
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Brief Diary, 2008-06-28
This book was just okay. It was somewhat interesting to read about her experiences with Prozac, but she did a lot of whining about the things that it took away from her, rather than focusing on the fact that it gave her her life back. Her writing is also tangential when she tries to become poetic. Something seemed to be missing. The book felt incomplete or rushed. It is a quick, easy read, but I can't say that I would recommend it.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Honest, weird, worth reading...., 2008-02-22
Dr. Lauren Slater woke up one day to discover that Prozac had eliminated one of her most closely held realities - Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This book is a journal of her experiences for the ten years that would follow.
Slater documents her fear of losing that comfortable reality, her ability to write creatively, her disciplined reading and eating habits, her inhibitions and her familiar internal voices. Having survived multiple hospitalizations for anorexia and other medical interpretations of her behavior, Slater agrees to begin therapy with Prozac during the drug's infancy. Her physician, overtly wooed by the pharmaceutical's manufacturer, supplies an ever-increasing dose of the wonder drug without mentioning its side effects and its temporary efficacy. While the author refuses to become the Prozac poster-child, she does experience a significant amount of success with the drug and is forthright about her satisfaction as well as her fears.
Lauren Slater is inspirational on many levels. Not only does she treat the status of her psycho-emotional health as something to be embraced as worthy, she regards this unique piece of her identity as something normal for her in this place and time. Slater acknowledges the need for caution when it comes to safety and well-being without negating the value that an alternate psychological reality can present. In addition to her open-minded views on psychic illness, Slater channeled her experiences into motivation and earned her PhD in psychology. She now sees patients of her own and writes professionally regarding subjects in her field.
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
 Prozac Addiction? , 2007-01-07
Lauren Slater was prescribed Prozac in 1988 when the pharmaceutical first came out. She recalls having an almost immediate and "blissed out" feeling. Slater says that Prozac made her "high" and goes on and on about it obsessively as she describes her reaction to Prozac as, "the single most stunning experience of my life." This is rather melodramatic. I have tried Prozac and I have been depressed throughout my life. Taking a pharmacetical like Prozac does not make a person "high."
I have a real problem with the way Slater portrays Prozac as her "drug." She pontificates as if taking an anti-deppressant for DEPPRESSION is shameful, secretive. Slater becomes an intern at a half-way house for "boozers" and is informed that staff member's sign waivers allowing the administration to do random urine screens. Athough Slater does not use any illegal drugs, she panics at the thought of "being revealed." Slater compares herself to the addicts who live at the half-way house. Describing a client, she says "he stared straight at me, one junkie to another..."
It insulting to those of us who have struggled with addiction to have Slater describe herself as a "junkie" because she is over dramatizing her experience with Prozac. It was persribed to her for the treatment of a disease and she was NOT abusing the medication.
(I am in recovery and have been clean for 3 years). Slater later also considers herself "drug-dependent" and tries to convince the reader of her claim with her interpretation of what The DSM IV calls addiction. I don't buy it, and I don't think anyone who has struggled with drug or alcohol addiction will either. Maybe a reader without a history of addiction and/or depression won't notice that Slater is a phoney and an alarmist. Nobody is buying the "addicted to Prozac" crap.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Inspirational story, 2006-02-24
This book follows the story of learning, recovering, and adjusting of a woman, confused
and feeling alone. Chronicling a young woman's experiences of the late 80's, being one
of the first to take Prozac, it focuses on the changes and mixed emotions associated with
taking the new drug. Reality and psychology blend together to form an inspirational story
for those that can relate. Recommended age 16 and up due to sexual content, adult
themes, and language.
Based on a true, biographical story, the story behind the author (Slater) is very intriguing.
Being a somewhat difficult read, following the ups and downs, the story details the life of
a depressed, suicidal-prone young woman trying to survive in society. Setting up the
story, it details doctor's visits, past attempts to regain a grasp on her life, and her
prescribing doctor. Upon actually being prescribed Prozac, the story details the tough
decision and thought process about being one of the first to take the new psychotropic
drug. Once making a decision to proceed with the medical treatment, a focus is paid to
the effects and results. Although changes are felt within the author's attitude and outlook
on life within very few days, questions are provoked about whether these changes can
appear in such a short amount of time. A diary-like feel is given to the story when the
author accounts her days on the drug. In going from depressed to a never before
experienced happiness, the question of truth behind these feelings is proposed. 888 Over
the course of her first few weeks on Prozac, Slater personally tests her true happiness and
ultimate truth behind this happiness. Throughout her treatment period, the author makes
large progression toward her final goal of happiness, seeking help along the way and
receiving it where hands extend. Struggle and strength are themes throughout the
chronicle, displaying conflicts associated with taking a somewhat controversial and
amateur market drug of the time. Now a large name drug, the unknowns behind it in it's
early stages are marked within this diary of a young woman pleading for her happiness-
something she has never truly known.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
effective, honest, scary, 2004-12-09
well written. scary details about mental illness. both scary w/ respect to what i might see in myself and what exceeds greatly in a dystopic fashion what i see in myself. is a testament to how well prozac can work, and in that fashion, this memoir is quite effective and honest, although some may call it "over salted" (as Hamlet didn't want his plays to be like over salted dishes.)
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