neuronal healing

That's my play on Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing, the irony being that prozac has a frequent side effect of sexual dysfunction. Say what? Well let me back up a bit. I'm always catching snippets of Fresh Air between picking up Oona driving over to Owen's school to get him and finally heading to the gym. The whole cycle takes an hour but I miss quite a bit between running in and out of schools and trying to discern what's being said over the din of my tyrannical three year old, who believes I should pick up anything she drops as soon as it falls, never mind that I'm busy driving. I'm reading The Manipulative Child to learn how to deal with her but I haven't reached the part of effectively handling her yet. So, a while back I heard Terry Gross (does that woman ever sleep? how does she know so much!) talking to this guy Jonah Lehrer who seemed completely fascinating, he has a science blog called the frontal cortex, what's not to love?! Anyhow, I was reading one of his articles on prozac which, in a nutshell, says that current research points to the drug actually helping to heal neurons. I found this quite interesting given the stigma around taking antidepressants. I have been on an off various antidepressants since college, aside from a 6 year stretch without during my pregnancies and toddler years with my children. I finally went back on Prozac last June and I have to say I felt like kicking myself for waiting so long. It wasn't like I suddenly morphed into a social supermom. The main thing it did was turn down the volume of the constant worrying in my head. I still get little anxiety pulls watching my kids do certain things, I get nervous seeing strangers children riding shopping carts in the ways that are clearly banned with a slashed through icon on the plastic seat. And I'm a complete geek in social situations where I don't have a clear role, I don't worry about the social aspect of nursing because I'll have a purpose, but parties with a lot of people I barely know? I'm not confident enough to feel comfortable in those situations. But this craziness no longer sucks at my soul, seeing every disaster that could possibly happen to your children in your mind is like masochistic OCD, and I'm happier as a result. Let me know what you think about the story. He's so darn young. It's odd to me when I read or hear about people and they're much younger than me (Dick Gregory is two years younger than me?). I can go to the gym but I can't stave off the inevitable, I'm getting older. sigh.