"I know I can do so much more than this, I know that I could be a life force, could love with a heart full of soul, could feel with the power that flies men to the moon, I know that if I could just get out from under this depression, there is so much I could do besides cry in front of the TV on a Saturday night." - Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

Her words are true to me. I can't count how many nights and days I sat still and cried while the TV was on, or off. While the radio played, behind the wheel of the car, in the darkness, in the daylight, during a rain or a snowstorm, into my bowl of Cheerios or Fruit Loops. I have yet to cry at Disney Land - the happiest place on earth. Why doesn't somebody prescribe that for depression? Depression doesn't have an answer to "Why are you doing this?" It just does what it does and we have to try to survive it all.

I can't talk about schizophrenia without first talking about depression as it is a symptom of the depression that I battle day in and day out. My depression doesn't have a common face and doesn't look like what you see displayed in television shows. It's not cool, hip or fashionable. It is not popular - meaning, something that everyone will boast about having or want.

It is not typical, it is severe and it has given me more than my fair share of pain in this life. There is no specific name to my depression other than Severe Depressive Disorder. I have manic days and depressed days - but it isn't what is categorized or diagnosed as Bi-Polar. It is severe in that there seemed to be (in my mind) no way out for me other than the permanent solution (death). It is something different for everyone but it definitely is a chemical imbalance or situational thing for those who experience it.

You often hear that people are "battling" depression. That is correct. They are. No one wants to succumb to it.

You hear that people are "up under it". That is also correct - it feels as if you are bogged down or that the depression is prominent, if you are even aware that you are depressed at all.

And you hear that people are "going through"...This is correct as well. The storms that pass into our lives are exactly that. No one chooses this. No one wants it - it is what happens when you find yourself fighting for so long and the fight in you just isn't enough.

Sometimes the depressed person can easily change their situations or circumstances by simply leaving a person, place or thing behind. Easy enough, the problems that have caused the depression are no more but when it's something deeper - even hereditary - you have to do your best to deal with it. Medicine and therapy - hand in hand work wonders for people like me. Something to balance the imbalance of chemicals in the brain to help give us clear thoughts and a person to tell those thoughts to - talk therapy have helped me - dare I say Saved Me.

I had to put my trust into the hands of doctors that I didn't know to get the help I needed. And if I am perfectly honest with you - the choice wasn't mine in the beginning but that of my family. I was beyond being able to make decisions for myself and they had to put up as much trust as I did when seeking out professionals to help me. Not every doctor knows how to handle YOU. That's why it is extremely important to seek out professionals that you can connect with - those that do know their field and know it well. I have a psychiatrist, therapist and a social worker. Three different people that help me manage my mental illnesses. And I thank God for each and every one of them. We may not always see eye to eye but I do know that they only want what is best for me and not just my money.

The mixture of medicine and therapy has helped me come out of my depression and try to do the things that matter to me most...like living. Having said that ....there are still issues. There is no one medication that fixes the issues you have. Sometimes the side effects outweigh the benefits of the drug.

I'd been on Prozac (fluoxetine) for five years (in August) and it has both helped and hindered me; brought me peace and heartache, triumph and misery all while painting an indifferent expression on my face. Through my lowest of lows I have pondered death to the point of attempts at suicide and through the highest of highs where I sought to look beyond the limits of the universe itself. On a pros and cons list - I found that my cons won and that Prozac, for me, was a bittersweet demise to the person that I am. The person that could be living her life to the fullest and loving every moment of it ...wasn't living at all.

For the last six months I'd been on a personal campaign for my psychiatrist to try something different. Something that didn't sap my energy, steal my desire and kill my relationships with my lack luster attitude. The medicine wasn't working the way that it should for a person that has been on it for five years. I've had too many hospitalizations, bouts with depressive episodes and hallucinatory visions for it to be "effective". I wanted something different and the Prozac was causing me to sit back and be a spectator in my own life, never quite participating. Just watching....until I forced myself into action.

There used to be a game that I played when I was a kid - later I learned that this was an experiment in inertia but in this game, I'd stand still and my friend with all his might and strength would hold my arms down while I tried to force my arms up against his strength. Now, this would go on for about a whole minute and then he would remove his hands and I would relax my arms to find that they rose in the air by themselves.

This is what my new medication is doing at this very moment to the oppressive force of the depression on my senses.

A slow release but when the feeling of anxiety or depression sets up, it is bled off due to a change in my dopamine levels. No more fighting against the force of depression...I'm letting the medicine do its job and it's working just fine for now.

Where Prozac stole my energy, want, need and desire but gave me so much control that I didn't want to do anything this new medicine is kind of the opposite. It's replacing my energy, restoring my desire for things and it will even help me lose a few pounds (side effect). I already feel a lot "lighter" having been on it for a little while.

Five years is a long tie for trial and error experimentation with someone's mental health, I hope to never go through it again. I guess though...this is subject to the same. My doctors and I are monitoring its results closely.

I don't want to give Prozac a bad rap. It helped. Like I stated before, it gave me control - it took me out of mania and gave me calm and a sense of peace. That upset feeling I had all the time managed to go away on the medicine and that was a huge plus for me. But the side effects were just too much to handle and whenever I took them to my psychiatrist, he'd tell me to wait to see if it would even out - it never did. Instead, it just got worse and I gained some weight on top of it all!

I had to fight to stay in the present (my mind would dwell on the hallucinations or on the trauma I survived). I had to force myself to remain in a better mood rather than naturally being there. My default facial expression always looked of sadness rather than the intense thinking that it usually is. My energy was gone. Doing anything was a chore...anything. For a solid three months, I forgot how to breathe. Breathing for me is writing. I didn't even have an inkling to do so.

But this is my life - I'm not saying every person will experience these things. It is my sincerest prayer that they don't. Know your doctor, know your medicine and know yourself. Never jump into anything blindly - always know the facts as well as the risks.

Prozac is a popular drug that many doctors use to treat different types of depression. I was never one that wanted to be on it. I had to be - if things don't go well with this one, I may have to return to it but for now...for a while at least....I am leaving Prozac Nation in the pursuit of my happiness.