Posted by torchgrl on November 9, 1999, at 19:45:15
I'm not sure if this bothered me because I'm not in a good place mentally/emotionally right now, or because David E. Kelley is becoming increasingly insensitive in his storylines, but did anyone else see the prozac episode last night? I don't really watch the show much anymore, because I always find it really depressing by the end, but just happened to tune in last night, and my reaction was that he just cranked up the stigma factor for depression/mental illness/anti-depressants in a really obnoxious way. Maybe I'm over-reacting, but if I hadn't spent most of my life dealing with this stuff and was just starting to feel depressed and saw this episode, I'd feel even less like seeking treatment and more like I was just a total freak. Actually, by the end, I *was* starting to feel even more dysfunctional than usual. As usual, there are too many ideas flying around in my head to be able to distill a list of reasons for my feelings on this... It just seems like we have enough problems with depression or any kind of mental illness being taken as a serious problem, but one that can be treated, and one that does not necessarily include hallucinations of Al Green on every street corner. And enough perceptions of antidepressants as some kind of evil, brain-mutating cousins of LSD that are only taken by the freaks of society... It seems to me that part of the reason mental illness goes untreated is because many of those who might consider treatment have a completely inaccurate picture of what it would entail and what kind of person they would be if they sought it, and that those of us who are actually being treated have enough problems dealing with everything without being constantly branded as wacked-out sociopaths. I wonder where all these bosses who treat their employees with contempt when they need some time to pull themselves together get their ideas... I guess I just feel like they went too far with this one...
End of rant.
poster:torchgrl
thread:14903
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991108/msgs/14903.html