Re: Is it just me (and meds)

I am sorry but this is just a perpetuation of the myth that medication interferes with the creative process. I can assure you that the meds I am on now do nothing to inhibit my creativity. if the mixture you were on had that effect it was because you had not found the proper medication for you, not because you were on the meds at all
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Omlor@aol.com
  To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
  Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 6:23 PM
  Subject: Re: Is it just me (and meds)

  Hi all,

  Just got home and enjoyed all the posts (and drat, I knew the trivia question, too).

  But Jim, I think it's a mistake to too quickly conflate Esther and Sylvia. Of course the novel is certainly autobiographical. But the narrative and the character are both pretty specific in how they are drawn on the page and I think they should be thought of that way as well; and in that case, I think judging Esther the way you do Sylvia (solely on the basis of agency and personal responsibility) is simply too easy and finally both too harsh and too simplistic. In the novel, there are a number of things being discussed, including contemporary social taboos, professional expectations, personal responsibility, the culture's dealing with the mad and other such issues, and Esther's problem is not strictly one of self-involvement or even simple depression (clinical or otherwise). In fact, there's a certain amount of Holden in Esther and I think she demands our concern and even our respect, in places, even as she is swallowed up by glass.

  Also, I think it is important to hear just how this novel, written so long ago now, still resonates powerfully among a young female audience, even in this allegedly cynical generation Z age. I taught it again only a year and half ago and it certainly prompted some very useful and very worthwhile discussion among a number of interested young women (and men) between the ages of 17 and 21, many of whom who became very thorough and very passionate and very creative in their readings and in their use of the work. I don't think it can be too casually dismissed, even if you are willing to criticize the author's life as simply self-indulgent (which I also think is too simplistic, but for other separate reasons that needn't be discussed here).

  I think it is, finally, still a powerful book.

  Also, on the subject of writers and anti-depressants, etc.... it is a road many of us have traveled I am sure. In my earlier days, sometime after college, I saw a professional for a disorder I had long had and which I don't feel the need to discuss here. I was prescribed, almost automatically, first Anafranil and then Prozac, with Xanax on the side (for sudden attacks). As the level of Anafranil (and later Prozac) in my system reached functioning levels, the symptoms of my disorder certainly subsided; but as anyone who has been on these suckers will tell you, so did my ability to feel much of anything or care very deeply about anything. I gradually came to feel as if I was walking around encased in bubble-wrap. It sucked. And I certainly couldn't write anything like poetry (which I had been doing for some time).

  So, despite knowing that the symptoms would return, I weaned myself off all of these things. And it's been nearly ten years now and I have learned to live with what I do and made some appropriate and necessary arrangements and adjustments, but I have not wrapped myself up in the gauze of the pills and although there are certainly times when I care way too much, it's better than not being able to care at all.

  Just a thought from a member of the army of the once medicated here in the States.

  --John

  PS: tina -- nice rant, and I'll the other JD you said hi. :)

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Received on Wed Jun 25 00:16:13 2003