No More Prozac or Ritalin Jokes

Posted on January 13, 2009 in Psychotropics Stigma

I think I heard the most-dumbass-possible response to an objection that I have about people making cracks about psychotropic drugs. Fellow makes a lame joke about needing Ritalin to get some job done. Do you need it? I ask. Uh, duh, no. That’s insulting then. Long silence. Then (actual quote): “Well I feel the vast variety of drugs I’ve taken gives me right to make light of them if I see fit and not be judged by you.” ((Guess what bubby? Living in this world you are constantly being judged. Get used to it.))

“You’ve shown your cards,” I respond, “and they are not good.”

Damn, I’m kickass between 3 and 4 a.m.

Let me tell you what kinds of problems I have with making drug jokes when you don’t have the disease. First, it adds to the prejudice we struggle against anytime it comes out that we have an illness. “Ha ha ha. Some people are so freaking pathetic they need Ritalin to function.” Yes, some people do have a hard time because of their brain chemistry. So what? It’s the classic positioning of the sane over the insane, those who are lucky enough to not suffer organic brain dysfunctions and those who aren’t. Stigma. Bigotry. The moral equivalent of making remarks about black people eating watermelons ((If you want to see watermelons like you have never seen watermelons in your life, go to Greece in August and September. Piles and piles of watermelons at every crossroad, rolling down the hills of street markets. Yet no one makes jokes about Greeks and watermelons because they are not interested in tying the diet to a notion of racial or cultural inferiority in this case.)) .

Second, it is usually the case that the people who make the cracks have no clue what the drug is used for. The classic that I have often hear is people telling others to “take some Prozac” for their delusions or their alleged hallucinations. This is simply precious. Prozac is used for major depressive episodes. Doesn’t do a thing for delusions, paranoia or hallucinations.

Third, by making light of mental illness, it can lead people not to take their disease seriously. Actually that is not it. It has more to do with people being afraid to use the drugs that might help them. They’re afraid of what people might think or losing control or losing their personality. The last was, for me, the biggest reason why I avoided seeking professional help for years. I feared erasure of the soul. What I learned, as I followed the course that brought me to my current cocktail, is that there is a diversity of responses to medications and a diversity of medications. Yes, the road can be hard, but it is a damn sight better than what I tried to live through before.

Because of these fears, I’ve known people to seek desperate self-cures to calm the moods. Alcohol, drugs are all commonly used to curb the symptoms in the name of not taking that dreaded step of getting on psychiatric medications. The sad thing is that these things worsen the condition. Many times have I watched bloggers with mental illness turn to these and make things worse for themselves — force themselves to live in constant depression — because they fear that they will disappear or become slaves of psychiatrists if they take medications.

My finding has been that once I found the right pharmaceutical cocktail, I was better equipped to be myself than ever before.

Finally, and perhaps the most dangerous, cosmically-funny-tragic thing jokes about psychotropics can wreak is that such jokes confuse medications with street drugs. I’ve spoken about the folly of self-medicating. Let me tell you another story. A friend of mine who came to visit asked me if he could try some of my Prozac. Uh, why would you want to do that? “I’ve heard all about this Prozac and I just have to find out for myself what it is like.”

Say what? Excuse me?

As I explained to him, Prozac is nothing like street drugs unless you happen to be bipolar. Then taking it can put you into a dangerous mixed state, but psychiatrists are now trained to look for that. For most people, the only thing you will notice after being on Prozac for many weeks is that you’re no longer depressed. You don’t get the fireworks of LSD or the rapidity of thought of amphetamines or the smooth, somambulence of narcotics. You get to feel pretty much like yourself.

I only take one medication that has street value. My antipsychotic ((That’s what you need to be on for delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations.)) would ruin the party for most people since what it does it eliminate much of the stuff that people take street drugs for. The purpose of my medications isn’t to help me have a party or experience altered states of consciousness but to be able to live my life without interferences like semi-visible coyotes jumping into the road in front of me or incorporeal razor blades slicing my tongue or the voices that tell me how awful I am or fears that my former employer has called every possible person who might have a job for me with the news that I am going to start a union at their company or the moods that cause me to go on spending sprees. The results of all of these aren’t fun and I suggest to those who feel the need to do street drugs, you are really trying to shut down things like this or make things worse for a little while so that when you get back to your weird sort of normal, you can say to yourself “it’s worse the other way.”

Having a mental illness ain’t for sissies. I take a dim view of those sissies who take cheap shots at the expense of those struggling to feel the world as it is instead of awash in the badly measured soup of imbalanced neuroreceptors and neurotransmitters.