Two weeks ago, I was swimming in a pool and decided to halt my forward crawl by using my face against the concrete side. As some older Southern people say, I "knocked a big-ass goose egg on my head." After this unfortunate accident—which will most assuredly ruin my future career as a nose model for the Home Shopping Network—I immediately headed to my mother's house for pharmaceutical consolation. I do this because any woman over 50 seems to have a prescription for some sort of pain killer and usually an anti-depressant.
Now, my battered head didn't particularly need an anti-depressant, as my 30th birthday brought on its own bout with malaise, requiring a milligram of Lexapro for every year I've been on this Earth. This lovely pill ensured I didn't get put in jail for murder the next time someone asked me if I planned on getting married. Since my own neurotransmitter needs were handled by a lovely doctor early last month, I headed to Mom's for a good dose of something I simply refer to as "the pink." I'm not quite sure what the pink pill is, but I do know it makes me sing like Whitney Houston before all the crack. My cats will attest to this. As a result, they hate the pink with a passion. The Lexapro, they love. I often find one of them chewing on the foil package when I stumble to the coffee pot in the morning.
One of my friend's doctors recently told her, "Everyone who is anyone in Jackson is on Lexapro." This seems to be true in more places than Jackson—Forest Labs, the distributor of Lexapro, touts it as the No. 1 drug in America. And I'm not just talking the No. 1 SSRI. I'm talking the Number One Drug In America. Meaning more people are taking Lexapro than anything else. I'm willing to bet most of these people are middle-aged women.
It seems that older women can get a doctor to write a prescription for almost anything, as quickly as they can finish saying, "I've been married for 20 years." Twenty years? Sweet Baby Jesus, she must obviously need some narcotics and serotonin.
My mother blames it on the fact that most doctors are male, and horribly frightened of an upset middle-aged woman. In fact, they are so frightened, they are willing to give her whatever she wants just to get rid of her—whether that "whatever she wants" is half his sh*t in a divorce or a prescription for happy pills. For this reason, I crave middle age.
I have also begun calling my mother "Mama Elvis," and seek her out for medicinal purposes anytime I decide I've had a bad day. She happily acquiesces, as she assumes that if she gets me groggy enough I might get knocked up and accidentally give her a grandchild. So far, no luck. But the collection of pink pills in my medicine cabinet is a testament to her unending hope for a bundle of "Ali" joy.
What I want to know is this: If Lexapro is the No. 1 drug in America, and the majority of people taking the drug are women, why aren't we talking about why the hell we are so sad? Why do we act as if everything is fine and swallow our terror with a cup of coffee in the morning, grasping tightly to the hope that we might smile a little easier? Why? Why? Why? I know that question can be horribly annoying to people, but it seems to me that if we are so upset that a large percentage of us need to be drugged, someone needs to ask.
I mean, it used to be chicken soup and one good stiff drink were the only things we needed to get through the hard days. Hell, until recently I only needed the one good stiff drink. Screw the chicken soup—too much sodium. Age also brings on a little- talked-about side effect called "swelling." This swelling seems to be happening in body parts I wasn't quite sure I owned until the past year. Thank God gin is a diuretic. I often tell people I'm not drinking to make myself feel better—I'm drinking so my shoes fit.
All that aside, it seems that for years we have made it through the worst of times with only a good cry session and an even better martini. I have to wonder who has sold me the idea that instead of these two very natural coping strategies I need to pop a few milligrams of SSRI.
I'm not saying depression is a farce. I'm saying that the way we deal with non-clinical depression is a farce—a large farce. This farce is promoted by mammoth companies who pay our government lots of money to continue running commercials that list symptoms of a disease that are simply symptoms of life.
Being a woman is hard. Half the population of this Earth will never know how hard. It just so happens that the people who run the entire world are from the half that will never understand exactly how difficult it really is. Men don't have to wake up one day and throw their tits over their shoulder just to roll over in bed. I believe that just like my mama said, they're scared sh*tless. Both by the slinging tits, and by the bad attitude brought on by waking up one day and seeing those tits hanging down around your swollen ankles.
So what does all this mean? Should men not freak out when women get upset? Should we learn better ways to deal with sudden urges to throw heavy objects at them instead of popping a pill? Should we just throw our tits over our shoulders and saddle up to the bar?
To tell you the honest truth, I'm not positive and will leave you to your own conclusions. The two main things I seem to take from this are: 1) My prescription for an anti-depressant must mean I'm well on my way to middle age, and 2) now, we all know that we can thank Forest Laboratories for mothers everywhere always knowing how to make you feel better.
But all this could just be the Lexapro talking. Someone bring me a martini.
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