“Prozac Blues” Addresses Social Implications of Depression
A professor of Women’s Studies at Virginia Tech created a skit called Prozac Blues to tackle the social issues of depression around women’s roles and expectations.
Using those stories, Kilkelly and the other collaborators pulled from their own experiences and those of others to create a theatrical performance addressing issues surrounding depression and the use of prescription drugs to treat the illness. Through the use of images and small skits, “Prozac Blues” hopes to instigate discussion among the Blacksburg community on the issues surrounding the diagnosis of depression, gender differences of the illness and living with someone who is depressed.
In general, women are twice as likely as men to suffer from depression, and social factors that may contribute to propensity for women to become depressed may not be discounted. However, women may be seen as “just being emotional” when they talk about feeling depressed. While women’s roles have broadened, the expectations of women being “superwoman” - maintaining a career while nurturing a family with demonstrable success in both arenas - can create pressures. This may in turn lead to a reliance to prescription medications for different sorts of mental discomfort and disorders, and a skit called “Depression Jeopardy” as described in the article suggests the confusion around overlapping symptoms that many different psychotropic drugs are supposed to address.
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