Re: no, but seriously
john v. omlor (omlor@packet.net)
Sun, 05 Apr 1998 16:17:27 -0500
A discussion is taking place.
>> Would holden be as intersting to us if Carl Luce had simply used his dad's
>> perscription pad and given Holden some prozac?
>
>No ... and I guess that's what got me into this now-absurd loop, when I
>mentioned the doctor who said Catcher would have been a short story if
>Holden had been so treated....
>
>The debate about madness (or insert some favorite word) and creativity is,
>in my reader's eyes, fatally fascinating, but I sense that this is not the
>arena to discuss it. There are so many nuances to the issue, it does
>nobody justice to dismiss it flippantly, and it would keep us busy for ages.
>
>--tim
Hello.
I thought I might toss in a small account of experiences at least in part
to answer the hypothetical question asked above. Actually, I think
Holden's story might have been just as interesting, though clearly quite
different, if he had gone the Prozac route. I'd like to think that his
experience with the drug might be similar to mine (though admittedly we
would have been taking it for different reasons [OCD here]). I took Prozac
and after that Anafranil (supplemented with Ativan for other problems) for
a few years. It helped with my symptoms, it levelled me out, it did to my
brain what it was suppoded to do to my brain. It was, by all clinical
standards, a successful treatment. Let us suppose that would also be the
case with Holden. Still, the short story would not have stopped there;
another set of questions would have arisen, as they did for me. Even
though I knew I was better able to deal with problems and I had my OCD
habits more under control under these drugs, I also new that I consistently
and noticeably *felt* less. I was, as some have written before me, wrapped
in padding 24 hrs. a day. As a teacher and a writer this became more and
more difficult to bear. And so a decision had to be made. A question of
priorities. Was I willing to go back to the struggle with my misbehaving
brain and to the ups and downs of life with what I had, for the sake of
getting back my feeling, my emotion, my ability to be moved and to care and
to be deeply passionate in all senses of the word? Clearly this was not
entirely an either/or problem (there were degrees of medication options and
different combinations etc., of course, but they all implied some degree of
coating my sensory endings -- something at times devoutly to be wished of
course, but at other times a nightmare of gradual, excessive peace and
numbness). How much covering did I need, how much did I want to feel?
These are emotionally and philosphically staggering and fascinating and
complicated questions that I think Holden, even at his age, would have had
to face and struggle with both in the abstract and in terms of everyday
life and its battles. It would have made, I think, for a different, but
also an interesting novel. Myself, I dropped the medications almost
completely (now it's only the ocassional Ativan during specific attacks)
though I confess to sometimes using alchohol and or codeine and or
literature and or movies and or television and or this machine for similar
purposes; but these are immediate and short term coverings that do not stay
unshakably in my system the way the Anafranil did. It is a question of
control of course, and management and the constant decision making that
faces us all as we hurry towards the end of our brief gift of time
hereabouts.
Anyway, Holden might have faced a new set of problems as he followed his
doctor's orders, but they would have been, for him I suspect, serious
problems just the same and it might have been fun to watch him battle them
out. It would certainly have meant at least another novel.
Enjoying a lovely Spring Sunday on an island in Florida,
--John