Unwelcome Careers

I know I m better on medication. . . [but] there s been a persistent confusion about the real me since I started taking Prozac. 

I m no longer.. . thinking that there is something around the corner that I can try and that s going to give me a normal life.. . . I put myself in the category of treatment resistant after a while. 

Just like they said, after about fpe weeks I was feeling fantastic. I was back to like my normal self I was feeling super. Yeah, I felt really great And I said, These drugs are great —Emily, educational administrator, aged 51 

To judge from the television advertisements touting their effectiveness, antidepressants would seem virtually infalli- 

In this chapter I will present the accounts of three of my interviewees, whose stories illustrate three broad and persistent patterns of response to psychotropic drugs. Naturally, it is problematic to generalize from three cases after all, no two individuals face precisely the same contingencies as they try to work out the puzzles generated by their illness and the medications prescribed for it. Nonetheless, these cases preview my thinking in later chapters about commonalties in people s thoughts, feelings, and actions toward medications. 

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