205. Brooke Siem on Medicating Unhappiness and SSRI Withdrawal

That time God streamed through Brooke’s window during the pod

Brooke Siem is the author of the 2022 memoir, May Cause Side Effects, about the decade and a half she spent on anti-depressants (prescribed after her father died when she was 15) and what happened when she ditched them. Sarah is currently on anti-depressants, though she wonders whether she needs them. Nancy is not on SSRIs, though she was part of a gentle brigade who nudged Sarah to increase her dosage last year. This is a complicated knot! The ladies talk about over-medication, how cultural taboos migrate, and the problem with treating sadness, anger, frustration — very human emotions — with a pill.

Also discussed:

• Nancy suddenly cares about the Navy; Sarah questions this

• That time Brooke wore a foxy denim jumper

• “Chemical imbalance” is a hoodwink

• The “Come Out of the Dark Campaign” meant to eradicate depression stigma leads to an explosion of SSRI prescriptions

• SSRIs and orgasm

• The opiate epidemic tracks with the anti-depressant era

• “Chemical castration” didn’t start with puberty blockers …

• 70s-80s Ritalin vogue

• Related: Does Ritalin suppress male growth?

• Hold up: a link between transitioning genders and SSRIs?

• Drinking and depression, a tangled saga

• “Headaches are caused by an Advil deficiency”

• Beware Wellbutrin

• Gothic SSRI withdrawal

• “I never boned a cabbie … that I’m aware of.”

• That time Sarah went hypomanic …

• 1 in 4 American women are on anti-depressants

• The hormones and menopause of it all

• “Fuck you, person at Whole Foods!”

• Big Pharma / Big Food = same playbook, different expression

• “Do you bake with yeast?”

• WTF with Pol Pot?

Plus, boozy cupcakes, a coyote sighting, was Tom Cruise right about pharmaceuticals — and much more!

Brooke’s mom, who offers a quote so moving and true and poignant about her daughter’s medication that it rendered Sarah and Nancy silent