Prozac Nation | 
pickVery little about prozac. I read this to try and understand my P addicted 2nd wife but it ended up being more about narcissistic, n'er-do-well me. I'm sad she's gone. I wish there were more people like her. I think she gets it. We hate being depressed. We hate being narcissistic. But no one will show us the way out. Don't get me wrong. It's a terrible piece of writing. But if this is where you are, it's very comforting to know you're not alone.
so-soA lot of this is good, a lot of it is..Trite? Narcissistic? I think this is a study on the psychological terror of life during the Reagan admin - not politically, but culturally. A great case for the form of memoir, an interesting voice, but she‘s so annoying. And I could be missing context 30 years later, but so much of what she says about the details of her life just don‘t make sense.
panOne of the worst, unrelenting, disorganized lot of drivel I‘ve ever actually finished. I audibly laughed when I noticed the 30-page epilogue, as if the rest of the content wasn‘t inordinately verbose enough. One reviewer highlighted a small fragment of a silver lining: while the book itself may be described as rambling/incoherent, Wurtzel proved how imperative it is to tell your truth, even if it makes you unlikable or embarrasses your grandmother
On the fence about this so far...someone described her writing as “rambling and incoherent,” and it kind of made me laugh. I don‘t understand about 90% of the references, partly because in the publishing year of 1995, I was a tot. Hoping it gets better.
bailedI feel bad for bailing on this cos so many people say it's a great important influential book, but I just found it annoying and self indulgent. And I know that it's ridiculous and unfair to criticise a memoir about depression for being self absorbed - that is, of course, a big part of what depression is - but it felt like there was no empathy for her family and friends and no acceptance of responsibility for how she treated them.
I'm halfway through and finding this quite a slog tbh. I know it's harsh but I'm getting annoyed at how crappy she is to her friends and family and how selfish and irresponsible she's being. I appreciate that she's at least honest about that and seems to have some self awareness about melodramatic and self absorbed she's being, and I know it's all part of her depression, but I'm still finding it hard going.
I mean, if you were to find a shattered mirror, find all the pieces, all the shards and all the tiny chips, and have whatever skill and patience it took to put all that broken glass back together so that it was complete once again, the restored mirror would still be spiderwebbed with cracks, it would still be a useless glued version of its former self, which could show only fragmented reflections of anyone looking into it.
My husband had a poster of Oliver North up in his student house. I make terrible, terrible life choices.
RIP Elizabeth Wurtzel
The fourth book of readhaton (of female narrators, stories of so-called 'problematic' women)🤓
#24B42020
“Rock bottom is everything out of focus. It‘s a failure of vision, a failure to see the world how it is, to see the good in what it is, and only to wonder why the hell things look the way they do and not—and not some other way.”
#Riotgrams #MentalHealth
I read this not long after it was first published, and this book, along with Katherine Graham‘s Personal History, got me hooked on memoirs!!!
I found this old pic of my mom. Most will look at it and simply see a woman at #work. I look at it and know that behind her smile was a woman who suffered from severe depression, schizophrenia and was battling alcoholism. She was in and out of mental health facilities - always after a suicide attempt. If you ever feel hopeless or helpless - know that others care and please talk to someone about it ❤️ https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org ❤️❤️❤️❤️
My newest acquisitions from the book store. I'm not supposed to be buying books right now because most of mine are packed away but I just can't help myself. #bookaddict
This week's haul. (There's good and bad living close to a book store.)
I remember Prosaic Nation when it first came out. Everyone was reading it. I didn't but I'm rectifying that now.
#AnEeyoreKindOfRead #AprilBookShowers
Look, I'm just saying, Prozac would have helped him.
@RealLifeReading
pickFull disclosure: I'm an attempted suicide survivor, and I suffer from depression. I've wanted to read this book for a very long time, but I feared that it would be too triggering. I'm so glad that I finally picked it up. Elizabeth's story resonates with my own, and her writing is engaging and interesting.
#1994 for #birthdaychallenge
#birthyear for #aroundtheyearin52books
Spring break means that I don't have to work in the morning. Which means that I get to stay up late reading and enjoying this nostalgic playlist! #thesims
#springbreak #tbr!
Apparently I'm feeling ambitious. #teachersoflitsy
'we still walk home together sometimes, which can't be any fun for her because all I want to talk about is the oncoming apocalypse in my brain'.
Just as my classmates at school no longer expected me to be at lunch, had come to accept that I would be hiding in the locker room, carving razor cuts onto my legs, playing with my own blood, as if that's what everyone else was doing between 12:15 and 1pm.
Full of promise is how anyone would have described Elizabeth Wurtzel at ten... By twelve she was cutting her legs... and listening to scratchy recordings of the velvet underground. College was marked by a series of breakdowns, suicide attempts, and hospitalisation a before she was given Prozac in combination with other psychoactive drugs, all of which have worked sporadically as Elizabeth's mood swings rise and fall like the lines of a sad ballad.
You know you've completely descended into madness when the matter of shampoo has ascended to philosophical heights.
I don't often re-read books because there are just too many to get to, but I must have read Prozac Nation at least 5 times in high school and early college. Elizabeth Wurtzel is messy and real. It was a moment of true connection for me. Every so often I think about re-reading this book to see how I feel about it now.
#Rereads #Booktober @RealLifeReading
"That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful."
Today is #WorldMentalHealthDay. As both a mental health professional and someone who has had anxiety and depression since childhood I encourage you to educate yourself about mental illness and help decrease the stigma associated with it. This is one of my favorite raw autobiographies about what it is like to experience severe depression.
so-soDown at the bottom of the world. Indulgent and brutal but sometimes brilliant 🌟
