Fluoxetine

I haven't really been using my brain proper for quite some time, so I hope this line of thought comes out coherently.

It has come to my attention over the past few years that women, as per the stereotype, seem to be more prone to hysterical bouts and astounding leaps of illogical thought. This is based on anecdotal stories from friends whose mothers always seem to be the origin of such things, never the fathers (well maybe just 1 father to 5 mothers). This behaviour manifests itself in a few different forms, from incoherent thought with hysteria to suicide attempts on reunion dinner nights to verbal abuse and even physical abuse. Most of the famous (or semi) autobiographical novels written about depression and such have also been written by women. These are The Bell Jar, Girl, Interrupted and Prozac Nation. This of course beckons the question, why so many women in particular? (Of course I’m not going to be able to answer it here; this isn’t a thesis essay but an observation.)

 

The question about why so women are affected makes me think of Prozac Nation. In the early chapters of the book Elizabeth Wurtzel observed that her depressive episodes started only with the onset of her menstrual period. This also brings to mind how whenever any female is displaying ‘bad’ behaviour, people say she’s PMS-ing. It makes me wonder then if the hormones that cause the menstrual cycle also affect women by affecting whatever part of their brain that processes human behaviour. If so, then medicine targeted at hormone regulation would be better than anti-depressants like Prozac which could then be viewed as affecting only the result of this hormonal imbalance rather than stopping it at its origin.

Kay I think I’m typing rubbish now about a subject I only have a layman’s knowledge and interest of. Sometimes though, I wish I could do more scientific research on this topic. Then I remember how much Science and I don’t really get along.