history in pharmaceutical drug ads

this is a collection of vintage ads run in medical journals. some of these are terrifying to think of the lives ruined, the addiction created and the loss of dignity taken by medicine. i know they didn't know then what we know now, but it's still such a clue into how trying to anestitize a generation from their emotions and facing their past has brought us here. fascinating.

vintage_ads: Drugs

via

i always wanted some letters after my name...

well, it's official - i have adhd. do you think anyone would notice if i added those after BSc? he also said he suspected that i am in a mild depression. interesting. i knew this winter was harder than it should have been. he said he didn't have a lot to compare to, since he's only seen me for 3 appointments, but he said to mention it to the treating psychiatrist he's referred me to. he also mentioned the term 'affective spectrum disorder' so i'm looking into what that means. new studies seem to indicate that there is a generational link that is possible. i know i've seen it in both liam's and my heritage, and poor pink and buck seem to be as similar to our afflictions too...

i'm excited to get into treatment. hopefully the woman he recommended will take me as a patient. if not my options aren't that great, so if you remember and have the time please pray i can get into the one he recommended (and that the medication and life management will help get my focus back).

thanks!

going underground

one of the things about the 'onion' of recovery and dealing with our pasts is that the pain and memories sometimes become so great and overwhelming that we choose to stop the process. it's a little disappearing act we play with ourselves and it seems so innocent at first. my self talk goes something like this... 'this is too hard, i just need a break, one week won't hurt... i'm so busy anyway... they don't really understand me anyway...' you get the picture. whether i'm avoiding my recovery group or my therapist the whole point is because i've gotten too close to the issue/memory/cause and it's terrified me.

quick fixes are also tempting. miracle pills, wonder drugs, surgeries or cold turkey, white knuckle abstinence all look more attractive than the work of truly getting to the real pain, uncovering the skeletons in the closet or exposing the family secret. allegiance to the code can sometimes become so ingrained in our psyches that we don't even realize how programmed we are.

liam and i were talking on our walk the other day and he said 'your mom would have loved recovery' or something like that. i started to think about it and realized that i have been freed from much of the family bondage because she died so early. she probably would have come around, but it would have been through much kicking and screaming. her early death in my life, while painful, did free me from her influence and secret keeping.

she and her siblings are masters of it. it used to be my goal to expose that family secret, to root it out and shout it from the roof tops. my mother's older sister, and her younger brother are still alive and tortured by the secrets - but they are the vault. we moved pretty close to my aunt, and things were going well for a year or two, until i started asking questions. it was like she and her daughters went on red alert. the signal went out and they truly have created a wall of silence. the shame is too great.

i finally realized that i didn't need 'the secret' to recover. they did, i didn't. i was able to deal with the truth i had been given and allow the rest to be, and die with them if necessary. but i see the damage it reeks in their lives. the physical manifestations of a life that has decided to say no to recovery.

at group a couple weeks ago we talked about denial, and how truly easy it is to convince ourselves that something true is actually not. the woman giving the talk then went on to explain that denial left unchecked turned mercilessly into delusion. living a life where the truth becomes a lie and life becomes a charade.

this is most tempting when the truth isn't our own, but the truth of one we love. codependent denial seeks to protect, even the dead. when in truth it looks more like shame and slow burning hatred and resentment. if you loved me you wouldn't force me to bear your secrets. one of my best friend's here is slowing creeping out of that tunnel of delusion. she is very close to understanding her mother's addiction to prescription pain medication. watching someone you love deal with pain is truly horrible. but where does the emotional pain start and the physical pain stop? that line is so blurry that denial and delusion seem to be our only line of defense.

this was the state were my mother (and aunt and uncle) lived. my mother-in-law 'visits' frequently. she's in her late 60's and has just finally admitted to me that her beloved father was 'probably' an alcoholic. this is about a man in ireland who heated shoe polish to drink it because they were so poor. 'probably'. it's like that monty python song 'always look on the bright side of life'... this is what delusion looks like.

i have met a couple, i don't know them well, but they shared at group that they both were compulsive overeaters who were at their top range over 400 lbs. each had gastric bypass and look like anyone else you'd pass on the street today. the next words they shared terrified me. they spoke of this past year of how now because they didn't deal with the roots of the problem that got them there they had both been secretly drinking. food could no longer be a comfort because of the surgery. but alcohol wasn't painful for their new stomachs to digest. it had only been recently that they admitted their alcoholism to each other and are now seeking help.

i don't know exactly what david was talking about here in psalm 22 , but i have my suspicions. his secrets and lies had caught up with him, his sins and his disobedience were taking a physical toll on his body.

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

i have to keep telling myself that going underground is going backwards. father, please keep me from walking away in denial. help me to own my secrets, face the truth, even when it's horribly ugly and take things one day at a time.

decade of pain - part three

the medication and prayer began to do some maintenance on the outer person i had divided myself into. i was able to return to public life, but still kept much of the inner person hidden and divided away in safety.

i got to the point where i realized that the prozac wasn't only keeping me from the negative emotions - it was flattening even the good ones. i felt zombie like. so even - almost flat lined. i hated it, and convinced liam that i was 'all better' and that i had to be off the prozac to be able to have a baby. so i went cold turkey, without the supervision of a doctor. BAD IDEA...

to say it is always darkest before the dawn slides over the length and depth of the darkness. i crashed. my 2 jewish angels had found me a receptionist position at their accountants and i spent my days dressing up (which i abhorred) and working in a windowless office being poorly treated by far too many accountants and their assistants. i hated that job more than anything i have ever hated in my life (with the exception of honors algebra). i was suffocating, infertile and crashing from the lack of mood stabilizers. it got so bad i was 'let go'. instead of being sad i was thrilled. i didn't have to go to that corporate prison any more.

the other thing that happened at that time was that we got internet service. now i no longer had to go looking for pornography and sexual stories, they came right into my home. no shame (yah, right) involved...

there were days i wouldn't get out of bed, except to eat and pee. it was also at the time i became physically violent with liam. he was avoiding being home by working as much as possible, and when he did come home he found a lunatic, a very angry lunatic. i didn't realize that his choice to work more was exactly the way my father solved problems in my family of origin. i began to resent him and my one friend became my greatest enemy.

you can't get pregnant if you don't have sex, but the sex was awakening a distant voice that i had silenced for years. it was this long loud howl of pain, and i did everything and anything to bury it back away where it came from.

it would not be silenced. the medication was given again and that flat-line persona re-surfaced. i didn't know which i hated more, the lunatic or the zombie. at least the zombie didn't scratch, bite and kick my husband. so we settled for the zombie.

i received a call from my jewish angel pharmacist and he asked me to open a dollar store for him at the old closet store location. i was thrilled. zombie girl could do that. it was fresh and new, and fun. he loved my ideas and i loved being back where someone respected me again. things were looking up. the fantasy suicide took a back burner to life again.

i can't for the life of me remember how i got off the anti-depressants, but i know i did, and it was slowly. with doctor approval, step by step weaning myself down dosage and then days between. it was a much safer place for me to be.

then came another angel on the scene. my doctor finally asked me 'how long have you been trying to get pregnant?' i told her 6 years and she about dropped her teeth. 'we'll get you into an endocrinologist and get all the tests done'. that angel in the form of an endocrinologist became jesus to me.

she looked at me and said 'bobbie, it is no longer your job to get you pregnant, it's now mine.' i was pregnant in two months. i loved being pregnant with my daughter. i had never felt healthier or happier. i was judged fit by god somehow and it validated so much of my female-ness. redemption was near.

we tried again to open doors to ministry, and each slammed shut, so we decided to purchase our first home and invest ourselves in our community. our daughter was born and within months we had an invitation to ministry. god's timing was 'off' again.

i'm not going to re-blog that ministry time again, if you haven't read it before you can find an explanation of it here.

but what i want to finish this with is the redemption that i found last summer. we were taking our youth to canada for a work project. on the way there and back we stopped at niagara falls to show them all the sites. we parked far away in the cheap parking and walked about a mile to the falls. the whole time i am having a spiritual experience, interrupted many times by my own children, and the youth trying to include me in their excitement. i explain to liam that i'm going to need a bit of space to feel whatever spiritual experience god had planned for me.

he engaged the kids, and i fell behind the group. i remember walking up to that coke bottle green water, feeling the mist on my face and thinking 'i'm free, i no longer want to die anymore. i want to live.'

we went into the tunnels below the falls and my journey continued. i had on my little saran wrap poncho and headed out to observe the thundering water as it hits the floor of the canyon. my tears were hidden by the drenching i received by the falls and i heard 'i baptize you in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit'. i wept. i no longer wanted to die. i knew i wanted to live. i knew i had much to live for.

on the return trip we took them on the maid of the mist, and again, knowing the experience of the previous trip through i stood on the bow with my arms spread wide and worshiped god with my tears and hope. i left my hood down so that i could feel the cleansing water wash over me. it was the beginning of the next stage of my life. i knew i wanted more, that i was made for more. i knew that i had gone through those things and that they weren't going to be wasted. god was going to allow me to help others who were where i had been. i truly wanted to live.

thank you for bearing through this long journey with me. it was cathartic. i'm glad i'm through it though. i knew i couldn't let it go until tomorrow or i'd never finish it, or the emotions would poison the weekend. i feel wiped out, but like i've run and completed a marathon of sorts. i had been avoiding this are of my life for a long time and needed to 'go there' and get it all out. thanks for 'going there' with me. you make me stronger.

decade of pain - part 1
decade of pain - part 2

decade of pain - part two

well, it sounded like a good idea at 4:30 this morning to begin this journey... i have since had a nap and a cup of reheated coffee and know that if i don't keep going i will probably never get part two blogged. so here it goes...

liam exited the car sales business and finally entered an industry that allowed him to use his brain and talents. he started working in an open custody group home for young offenders. it suited him well. unfortunately it left me feeling highly unfulfilled. i was jealous, not only of the fact that he had a good, well paying respected job, but also that he began to spend a lot of time at work. double shifts and over time, writing reports and attending training.

i sucked as a telemarketer, i refused to guilt people into computer training and as soon as my grace period of guaranteed pay went to commissions i got very restless. the owners of the company really liked me and could see i was a good worker, just ill suited for the position. they found me a retail position in a new little closet store where i was able to use some of my creativity and engage my mind.

i worked for two jewish south african men who respected me for my mind, something i had yet to experience in my short life. it was salve to my soul, and i decided at that time i would do anything for them, their respect and license fertilized a small seed in my soul and allowed it to grow and flourish. i loved them and their families and supported their businesses to the best of my abilities. i began to reconstruct a life for myself.

those first two years were the most stable i had ever been in ages, and the most professionally satisfying for me. it was then that liam and i decided that it was time to begin our own family.

our plans, for god's plans, for our lives didn't pan out like we thought they would. each and every month i became a failure. my own body was turning on me. the high expectations that come from a late period and the crashing low that follows were unbearable. my reconstructed person was too fragile to withstand this difficult time.

we had moved out to care take a farm for my step-father-in-law. his romanian orthodox church had purchased the property for church picnics and as an investment for the future. my country girl heart was thrilled. very low rent and 3 acres to mow and a pond for liam to fish. we got a golden retriever and even found a church that had a youth group to work with. it seemed like things were turning to our favor. all except for the fact that i just couldn't seem to get pregnant.

it was at that time i remembered a dumb prayer. one of those you pray at a time of terrible pain and loss. i prayed 'god, if i'm ever going to get sick and die on my children like my mother did then i don't want to have children at all'. yuck. did that mean i was going to die on top of this?? liam working crazy hours, being out in the middle of nowhere and the infertility all conspired to bring me to a place where i was living a life divided.

in public i was able to maintain the appearance of some semblance of sanity, but alone i began to isolate, complain of physical symptoms and my addictions shifted into over-drive. i gained weight at light speed and began a routine of renting dirty movies when i knew liam was working. my binge on food, and purge with smut began a cycle that spun me down into a big black hole. no one at the time had enough love or ability to care or help. i was alone, and becoming very miserable, and very suicidal, still trying to think of a way that was foolproof.

this coupled god slamming the door shut every time we attempted to open any to enter into ministry. . it seemed we were not only unfit to be parents, but unfit to serve in the kingdom of god too.

the church youth group we were devoting all of our free time and money to got really weird. one of the deacons, a very unhealthy man, both physically, emotionally and spiritually decided that he didn't like me very much. i was mentoring his daughter and her best friend, and i guess i was getting too close to the family secrets. i don't know why really, but he made it his goal to oust us from any involvement with the youth of the church. it worked, he won and we slunk away to lick our wounds.

the icing on the cake was 3 months later his 17 year old daughter was pregnant, and i was still infertile. it was at that time that i finally had it - a sure way - no question about it - i finally knew how i was going to kill myself.

we were about 40 minutes away from niagara falls. every time anyone would visit we'd take them there. i remember standing on the point where the edge of the falls is closest to the barrier and watching that coke bottle green water flow over the edge. i knew one day i would launch myself over that edge. fly first and then be surrounded by that great and powerful water.

i knew i had to be alone. i would drive my little mazda 323 to the exact point on the street where the falls met the edge and leave it running, with my suicide notes on the passenger seat and run full blast to the edge, climb the barrier and swan dive into the big deep green.

i stroked that wonderful plan like gollum stroked the ring. it became my precious, my solution, my way out. i even wrote my notes many times.

i couldn't admit that i was ruining myself on my own and because of my continued hypochondria i became convinced that i had epstein barr, or chronic fatique, or even worse lupus like my mother. i had symptom upon symptom and i started to use that wonderful free health care to my advantage.

those old testament verses about bones rotting and being consumed was true for me. i was having physical manifestations of the emotional pain i wasn't dealing with. home depot moved into town and shut down my little store. i now was unemployed and had even more time to isolate myself. we didn't need the income, so we gathered it was finally that time and god was preparing us for pregnancy. we were wrong.

it was because of the hypochondria that i finally got to some doctors who identified my real problem, depression. i was sent to counseling. a psychiatrist confirmed the diagnosis and prescribed prozac and i was told that i was 'angry and needed assertiveness training'. i scoffed at them. i am laughing now, but at the time i truly argued with the nurse - 'i am not angry, i never get angry, and you can see from me telling you this that i am assertive enough not to need the training'.

i took the prescription and began my first shaky steps toward emotional health. the drug helped stabilize me to the point where i was at least able to begin to address some of my emotional pain.

one of the benefits of our volunteer youth ministry was that we came in contact with a man who began to pastor us from a distance. his influence was felt deeply in our lives. he recommended good books to read and began a thirst within me for healing. i hadn't prayed in years and he told me to just start to yell at god - tell him everything. so on my little lawn tractor i would yell and scream at god and no one could hear me. i told him everything. how much i hated the silence, how much i hated him for taking my mom, for making my body not work for me, for judging us unfit for kingdom or family and for making me so weak. so very weak.

i never expected when i began this this morning that it would be so long. it's more for me than you i guess now, but if you've made it this far i am appreciative. thank you for journeying with me along this path. i guess part three will continue later.

decade of pain - part 1
decade of pain - part 3

decade of pain - part one

ragamuffin diva is someone i just found, i don't know how i missed her, how our blogging paths had not crossed yet, but she is a rare gem, a heart of gold and a very talented, deep soul-d writer.

she blogged a week ago about her scars and her brush with suicide and it got me thinking about my own decade battle with that horrible demon. her story put me back in touch with my own and i hope i'm brave enough to face it now with words.

the psychology world will tell you that life changes, even positive ones when they link together can become overwhelming to the psyche. 1987 was a year that threw me into the richter scale of change very quickly. liam and i were engaged, we graduated from college, my mother was very ill, she still encouraged me to travel to canada to work with liam at a camp for the summer, she got close to death many times that summer, but i wasn't told until camp was over, we rushed home by plane to find her hospitalized and very sick indeed. she was granted remission and was sent home.

liam and i (by the advice of an ins agent - a long story for another post) eloped later that month. we had dated for 3 years in college and because of work visa issues had no dinero for a real wedding. god gave us one himself anyway. (another even longer story for another post). i was never a wedding dreamer, all i knew was that the only thing i really cared about was that my mom was there.

a month after the wedding we had a celebration party to invite the friends and family who weren't at the wedding to join us. according to my mother's version it was the fact that i didn't send out the thank-you's in a timely fashion that put her in the hospital again.

she became very ill again, and bedridden. and this time she becomes mean, but only to me. i begin to care for her during the day, when my father is at work, no one knowing how mean and nasty she has become. she is the queen of manipulating my emotions - go away, come back, go away, come back - she used that little piece of elastic she had installed in my back long ago effortlessly that winter. the guilt cards and emotional issues were played secretly when no one was looking. i felt trapped, guilty and alone. this wasn't how it was supposed to be.

one day my aunt happened upon my mother's abuse and sternly reprimanded her (gosh this is harder than i knew). the doctor tells me later it is a 'prednisone induced psychosis' and she has broken with reality in many areas. the abuse was a bit better after because i now had the freedom to talk about it and we had moments of bonding and sweet times in and amongst the dying and the pain.

liam and i retreated for a weekend away and returned to find her hospitalized. we walked into the room. she was on a vent tube so she couldn't speak. through her mouth anyway - her eyes said it all as she looked at me with hatred and yanked the iv tube out of her arm. it was her way of telling me it was my fault she was hospitalized. she had instructed us that she was never to return to the hospital - she wanted to die at home. my father just couldn't bear it though and called the ambulance while we were gone. they kept her there.

after that night she became unconscious. i never again saw her eyes, or heard her voice. they took her to madison to the real doctors and proceeded to try any and everything to save her. we were there for weeks - liam and i staying overnight in the waiting room, relieved by my father the next day, we'd take the car and return to try to work, to then return and relieve my father. it was a 2 1/2 hour commute one way and we were doing that for what seems like an eternity.

then they transferred her to the even bigger hospital where she became a lab experiment and they started to study her instead of treating her like a human. brain surgeries and anything they could think of. her body was shutting down. my poor father allowed them to try anything and everything to save her. finally my grandmother and aunt came in - i knew it was the end. her neurosurgeon told me that he had never seen anyone as sick as my mother was.

we decided to tell the doctors to turn off the machines that were keeping her alive. she was retaining so much fluid that it was seeping out her feet. the whites of her eyes had become little waterbeds. she was drowning in her own body.

because there was no 'living will' the only way the doctors would turn off the machines was if we had 'permission' from the patient. everyone thought that she was still responsive, though i knew better in my heart. they voted and elected me to be the one to ask her if she wanted to die. somehow at the time i took that as a compliment. 'she responds best to you, you ask her'. her own mother, sister and husband are there and they ask her child. i didn't know it then but that decision would haunt me for years.

i held her swollen hand and said 'mom, we need to know if it's okay if we turn off the machines. squeeze once for yes, 2 times for no' - she 'squeezed' once. they finally turned off the machines. we all sang hymns and cried and waited for her to die. she didn't cooperate. as usual my mother's timing was her own. i could stand no longer, so liam and i went into the waiting room and i stared at the television. i think a mash re-run was on when they came to tell me she was finally gone.

i re-entered her room, kissed her, held her hand again and told her i loved her and said goodbye. and i left her room and entered a bubble that surrounded me for nearly a decade.

that bubble insulated and isolated me from the world. it was then that my addictions shifted into drive. they had always been my friends before - but now they were my lifeline.

i was told not to be sad, 'she was in a better place' and both my father and my sister seemed to be strangely unaffected by her death, somehow their lives went on like before. i seemed to be feeling the emotions for the three of us. poor liam had no clue how to deal in this situation. my mother's funeral was the first he'd ever attended. he supported me through the whole episode like a rock, but had no idea of the storm he was headed into.

the shame that awoke after the loss of my virginity during my first year of bible college (not liam) created a deep desire within me to kill myself. it became my secret fantasy. the summer between my first and second year of college was filled with blackness and pain.

re-entering my second year i met liam and things seemed to calm down a bit now that i was able to self medicate with food and spiritualize the blackness away i was functional, and even happy. since i had 'learned my lesson' and liam and i had 'recycled our virginity' my shame turned to pride during the remainder of our college years. there was a darkness around the edges of my memory, but i managed to keep it away through sheer determination and activity.

after my mother's abuse and death none of that determination was left. i was empty. no drive, no activities, not even a desire for them. liam was scrambling. he is a fixer by nature, and he couldn't 'fix this'. so if you can't fix it, relocate it.

the move to canada came at such a bad time in my mental health. moving in with my in-laws until my green card arrived was a really bad idea and i spent months watching the soap operas my mother watched while bed ridden, crying and eating anything i could get my hands on. no one was home during the day, so i had hours and hours of nothing to do and no where to go. at that time depression wasn't the watch word it is today, it was 1988 and prozac hadn't even entered the market yet. so i sunk deeper and deeper into the darkness. television, naps, masturbation and binge eating became my way of life. my step-mother-in-law tried to shame me into any productive behavior, it didn't work. we had no church, no support and no friends.

planning my suicide became a game i played in my head. trying over and over to figure out a sure way to die. i knew that until i was sure i'd really die that i would actually try it. i just couldn't come up with 'the' plan. but i'd spend hours thinking about it. it was my new hobby.

finally my green card arrived and i was able to enter society again as a responsible adult. liam was selling used cars, and i was telemarketing. can you think of two more undesirable jobs? all we knew is it allowed us to rent our own place. getting out on our own was enough of a kick start for me that i was able to function again and keep the wolves of depression at bay.

i'll blog part deux later...

decade of pain - part 2
decade of pain - part 3