Lost Connections

Lost Connections

Adult nonfiction
"I was eighteen years old when I swallowed my first
antidepressant. I was standing in the weak English sunshine, outside
a pharmacy in a shopping center in London. The tablet was white and
small, and as I swallowed it, it felt like a chemical kiss."
Johann Hari had gone through stretches in his life marked by
unbearable pain. One day when he couldn't stop crying a friend
suggested that he might be depressed.
"This will sound odd, but what I experienced at that moment was
a happy jolt--like unexpectedly finding a pile of money down the back
of your sofa. There is a term for feeling like this! It is a medical
condition, like diabetes or irritable bowel syndrome!...and there is,
I suddenly recalled in that moment, a solution to depression:
antidepressants."
For thirteen years Hari took his meds. He became an evangelist
for better living through legal drugs. Of course it wasn't all smooth
sailing. There were side effects including excess weight gain. Every
now and then recurrences of depression required raising his dosages.
But a diagnosis and chemical management provided a narrative for his
sadness--one he felt comfortable with until...
...he hit a considerable stumbling block. A therapist helped
him realize that even though he was doing the "right" things, taking
the "right" pills, he remained depressed and anxious. How could that
be? His quest to understand led to the epiphanies contained in Lost
Connections.
I must provide one caveat. He never says that drugs are never
wrong and brain chemistry is never implicated. What he says is that a
number of other factors could be involved. Therefore, a number of non
drug measures could be effective in place of or in addition to the
chemical intervention.
Drug companies want us to believe it's all about medicating
chemical imbalances because that nets them billions of dollars. They
have scads of research to prove their pills really work. They fund
most of this research. Can you say conflict of interest? But that's
only one of the questionable aspects of this branch of science.
(You'll learn about all the rest).
Psychiatrists like this way of thinking. Psychology was a
relatively recent addition to the pantheon of the sciences. Critics
scorned it for being softer, fuzzier, not as legit as, say, chemistry
or physics--a Little League team sneaking into the Major League. A
physical problem with a chemical cure seemed to bestow hard science
legitimacy.
Inconvenient evidence began to appear. Researchers in London,
studying 114 women who had been diagnosed with depression and 344
women who hadn't through in depth interviews, found that the depressed
group had experienced more traumatic events and chronic sources of
stress and enjoyed significantly fewer social supports than the
controls. Other research projects in diverse parts of the world
backed these findings up. Innovative non drug interventions proved
effective.
The part of the book I like best is where Hari describes seven
disconnections created by our modern society that lead to anxiety and
depression. An increasing number of jobs disconnect us from
meaningful work. Job stress is described as "work [that is]
monotonous, boring, soul destroying; [where] they die a little when
they come to work each day because their work touches no part of them
that is them."
We're becoming disconnected from each other. Lonliness has been
proven to be as deadly as heavy smoking. Connection involves not just
presence, but meaningful involvement. When people were asked how many
close friends they had in 2004 the most frequent answer was none.
We're disconnected from meaningful values, being oversold on
money, possessions, and status.
And those are just three. There are four more. If you're
dismayed by these cruel trends and the brutal toll they are taking on
people individually and collectively you will find Lost Connections to
be a must read.
Back when the kids were old enough for me to reenter the work
force I was having no success finding a job. People suggested
retail. The thought terrified me. A lot of women in my situation
were signing on with the real bottom feeders. I knew that would
disconnect me from values (I felt like I'd have to turn Catholic and
confess after every shift), meaningful work, human connection, and
belonging. Also my eating disorder was not under control. I know
what can happen to anorexic girls and women when the numbers on the
scale are all we have control over in our lives.
On a personal note, graduate school and my dining services job connect
with my deepest values and provide me with super meaningful work,
connection with wonderful people, and belonging. I am truly living
my dream.
A great big shout out goes out to all who are helping me be where I
need to be, especially my partner who covers living expenses, and the
best little cat in the world.
jules hathaway



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