Better living through chemistry!
Sunday journal, 9/7/25
That’s what my mom always said before she popped something from her stockpile of tablets and capsules—an old DuPont ad slogan co-opted by boomers as a cheeky way to say “drugs rule!”
My mom’s a drinker and a child of the ‘60s but she never had a drug problem (as far as I know), just the practicality to ask, with all these tools, why suffer? Better living through chemistry.
Last week I had a riveting psychiatric experience. I keep telling people it felt like a movie. Young male doctor. Bald with dark, inquiring features. Burgundy sweater over an Oxford shirt. His bedside manner was warm, but he still possessed the off-putting clinical edge needed to hypnotize you into sharing the dark matter. No smiles. Minimal inflection. Eyes on the pocket watch. You are getting veryyyyy sleepy.
It was my first legitimate evaluation. I’ve been in talk therapy for years (s/o Sean who’s stuck with me forever), but I’d only ever gotten prescriptions from primary care providers at my request—trial and error by self-diagnosis. Amazing cultural phenomenon, by the way. Medically irresponsible but who’s got time for questions when the sun is swallowing us whole and eggs are like, $13? Docs are all like, “OK WE’RE DONE. NEXT IN LINE???” Poor things. I have tried five different antidepressants with no formal diagnosis. :-D
