Better living through chemistry ...

I wrote a poem several years ago with this title, using an injectible drug as a metaphor for my current lover at the time. (As it turns out, she was as illicit and addictive -- not in a good way -- as most abusable, injectible drugs, so good imagery choice on my part.)

Today I'm thinking about all the folks I know who are on antidepressants. There are so many people taking pills. I think my first reaction to taking medicine is to avoid it. It seems inorganic; it seems fake and even toxic in some ways. But so many people benefit. How can something so helpful be bad?

I have taken antidepressants myself, and there's no doubt there was an improvement in my mindset. I saw options where before I'd seen none. I stopped thinking about the overpass buttress I'd picked out the smash my car into and started thinking more about how I could fix the situation I was in without taking my own life. So I have direct, firsthand experience with how "Happy Pills" can indeed help create happiness, or at least banish suffocating shadows.

I guess it is just hard for me as a writer, as someone who does more writing when in angst over something than I do when I'm content and complacent, to see how chemically altering yourself can do anything but hinder the creative urge. At least for me.

The old adage is that "Happy people don't create." I have to say I agree with that view. It certainly has rung true for me. But I don't run with a large set of other creative types, so maybe I don't know what the "norm" is for creative energy. I'm willing to listen to alternative viewpoints, if anyone wants to offer one.