Book 1: Prozac Nation Quotes

As I was reading all 311 pages of Prozac Nation, I marked a lot of quotes to use in my paper and this blog. The full list of the quotes is on my Google Docs, but I wanted to post some of them on my blog.

“Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I’m always missing someone or someplace or something, I’m always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing” (Wurtzel 71).


Wurtzel has been depressed for so long that she doesn't know what she wants, what she's looking for, and she can't remember what "normal" is. Her "missing" everything is her trying to fill the depression void with a temporary solution instead of addressing the real problems.


“What I’m thinking is how nice it would be if my problem were drugs, if my problem weren’t my whole damn life and how little relief from it the drugs provide” (Wurtzel 106).

Instead of facing her problems, Wurtzel avoids them with drugs and alcohol; she abuses these substances, but that is just a little problem. While she is under the effect of the drugs and alcohol (she takes everything at once usually) she feels a lot better, but of course, the relief is short-lived.

“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key” (Wurtzel 168).

Wurtzel is feeling trapped in her disease; she can't find a cure, a treatment, a pill that will make her better. There is not exact time to when her depression will be cured; she had been depressed for over 8 years. There is no cure, no guarantee to make her feel any better.

“I tried to remind myself that [he] was not the problem. The problem…was that I was fucked up. [He] was merely a makeshift solution I’d come up with, a pill I took to make the bad feelings go away…Story of my life: I am so self destructive, I turn solutions into problems. Everything I touch, I ruin” (Wurtzel 207).

Instead of providing temporary relief with drugs and alcohol, Wurtzel uses men and relationships to feel less depressed sometimes. The effect isn't permanent for any of them: she sobers up, and she breaks up. Her "solutions" are just makeshift solutions, and she avoids addressing the real problems in her life that are affecting her depression.

Book 1: Puppy Prozac

In Wurtzel's final part of her memoir, Epilogue: Prozac Nation, she begins to describe a situation with her friend's cat; the cat was brought to a vet because the friend had noticed some strange behavior. The cat was chewing her fur off and the vet attributed this "excessive grooming disorder" to being lonely in it's apartment. This condition is treatable in humans with Prozac, and the vet gives the cat Prozac in a "feline-size prescription" (Wurtzel 295). Not only is Prozac approved for people, it is used to treat some animal disorders. Has this gone too far, or are we helping pets by giving them antidepressants?

Book 1: Family Problems

In her younger years, Wurtzel constantly talks about her parents, who divorced when she was a toddler and now, as a teenager, she barely sees her father. Of course, she can't blame her parents, their divorce, and her lack of a father for her depression, but it definitely contributed to it. She is being pulled between her mom and her dad; she is an only child of divorce who just needs simple love but can't find it. Her dad abandoned her family, her mom is a single mom struggling to make ends meet, and Wurtzel feels like she is causing problems for her parents, like she is a burden to them. She reflects on this, realizing that, "“I am just one of a whole generation of children of divorce whose parents didn’t handle their personal affairs very well and who grew up damaged. Could family dynamics possibly account for all this trouble?” (Wurtzel 114). Wurtzel's family issues play an important role in her memoir, they affect her greatly. This is one of the very few ways I could relate to her; my parents are also (almost) divorced, and I know exactly what it's like to live with your mom and not have a father around. Below is a graph that polled 99 college students whose parents had been divorced for at least 3 years.

Book 1: Prozac Nation

The first book that I am reading is Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America. Wurtzel describes her journey through depression, starting from the young age of about 12, to her later college years at Harvard University. Not only does Wurtzel suffer from depression, but she has substance abuse problems, namely drugs and alcohol. Her memoir includes passages from her diary and her reflection as she writes her memoir. Clearly, she is in a bad place, as her first of many suicide attempts takes place when she is 12 years old. Wurtzel chronicles through many counselors, therapists, and hospitalizations until she encounters a helpful drug: Prozac. This brand new, recently FDA approved pill helps Wurtzel gain control over her life and find a better place. She ends her memoir with an epilogue that talks about how so many people have begun to take Prozac; pets also have been diagnosed with depression and they take Prozac. She reflects on her own situation, and relates it to society.

English Project

My new blog is dedicated to my Final English Project; I will be reading 3 books and watching the movies. The books, Prozac Nation, The Virgin Suicides, and Girl Interrupted, all portray characters suffering from depression. My final project will be this blog, almost like journal entries while reading the books. I want to analyze the books, give my opinion, and connect the situations to the outside world. Also, I plan on comparing the movies to the books to see which is better, and are the depression and the characters accurately portrayed? Why do people become depressed; what is the exact cause? Finally, my research paper will be about depression: what causes it and and what is the exact cause, if there is one? This project will be my alternative assessment for English.