The best part of my occasional medication-checkup visits to the psychiatrist’s office is the brochures. No, really. The drug companies produce these things, which don’t mention any specific drug but urge you to deal with your problem. I’ve posted some pictures of swag and brochures before. Today’s offering is “Balanced”, a look at one housewife’s indoctrination in to the proper way to handle her problems. It seriously looks like that comic strip “Baby Blues”. Also, note older male psychologist authority figure and emphasis on Women Problems.
Be My Blog 
The ones the school couselor would give me were black and white. Depression-genre comics have gone way up in standards.
LikeLike
Does not compute
I originally read that as Depression-era comics, so you could imagine my confusion.
LikeLike
Re: Does not compute
hahaha no.
These were the “It’s ok to be different, but lets make it easy on others by being socially passive.” Leaflets I’d get after doing something audacious like sticking up for myself.
LikeLike
Re: Does not compute
Hello, handsome.
LikeLike
And to think I almost took a position that would have run the teams that produce these wonderfuly creative stealth marketing tools. That would have been so much fun. Almost as fun as chicken!
LikeLike
I have a guilty love of drug company paraphernalia. Two of my prized possessions are my Risperdal clock and this inexplicable other thing from, I can’t remember, Haldol or something–looks like the thing you hang on a hotel room door saying “do not disturb” or “maid service, please!” except one side has the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, the other the negative. It baffles me to think what its intended context was. It lives on my bathroom door. And then there are all the pens…
LikeLike
My favorite drug company paraphernalia, neither of which I have any longer (both were lost long ago), were brought home by my mother who is a doctor:
1. clear plastic lucite-ish mug with the name/logo for some sort of vaginal cream on the side
2. either a potholder or a rubber jar opener (can’t remember which now) for a bowel motility drug that said: “Take an LM in the PM for a BM in the AM”
LikeLike
Oh you know what else I always meant to walk off with for tacking on a wall somewhere, for yuks? The packet of microwave popcorn with the logo for an antidepressant on it, and then a sizeable disclaimer letting the popper know that the corn does not contain said antidepressant. In case you were thinking it was popcorn that would regulate the reuptake of your serotonin…there was also hand creme with a similar disclaimer.
LikeLike
I forgot to steal the prozac kleenex box once and still regret it.
LikeLike
Drug-company swag rules! I keep my pens and pencils in a Zoloft coffee mug, and my brother-in-law hooked me up with not only the Serzone pen but also the Risperdal microwave popcorn!
LikeLike
Risperdal popcorn! Can I come over and watch a movie?
I forgot about another one of my pens my mom got me. It’s a Levitra pen that’s folded in half and when you push a button, the ink end slowly rises up into its erect position.
LikeLike
I don’t think I’d want Risperdal popcorn
You are making this up.
LikeLike
Oh, but I’m not.
I was going to make you a little movie, but the pen opens a lot faster now – it’s kind of old and I’ve used it so many times that it shoots right into position. Not the slow rise of times past:
LikeLike
I couldn’t resist.
And that’s pretty much the opposite of the way the other thing goes.
LikeLike
thank heavens.
I figured you couldn’t. I left that one wide open (HAR HAR HAR), hoping somebody would stoop as low as me.
PS – I made you my friend.
LikeLike
Re: thank heavens.
has a viagra alarm clock where it POPS UP. GET IT? POPS UP?
LikeLike
Positive?
Does that mean the symptoms that indicate schizophrenia (and the negative would be symptoms that negate a diagnosis of schizophrenia) or does that mean the good things about being schizophrenic?
Because I would like to know the good things about being schizophrenic. I would like to know the silver lining on that particular cloud.
LikeLike
Re: Positive?
No, it’s not the sunny side of schizophrenia. Positive symptoms are, like, added behaviors. Delusions, hallucinations. Negative ones are (and I’m pretty sure I’m not wording this well) behaviors of withdrawal or lack of action, like catatonia.
LikeLike
The thing that always got me in shrink offices was the poster that says: “People with Mental Illness Enrich Our Lives” and it’d list all these writers, thinkers, actors, and artists, over half of whom committed suicide!
A lot of folks do need a “proper way” to handle their problems, it’s just a damn shame that psychiatric medicine is in its barbaric stages in a lot of ways.
LikeLike
Well, and the rush to use psychopharm as a first line of defense is, in my opinion, a mistake. For people that need it, it’s incredibly important. But now everyone who has a bad day thinks they need iv paxil, stat.
LikeLike
Express yourself through art and self destruction!
Maybe we should issue brochures like “So You Cut Your Own Ear Off”, or “Living with Bipolar Disease as the Tsar of All the Russias”, or “An Elliott Smith Depression Workbook for Kids”.
LikeLike
Re: Express yourself through art and self destruction!
When Sylvia Plath is held up as a role model for those suffering from chronic depression we’re not far off
LikeLike
Antidepressants give you powers of levitation. Apparently.
L.
LikeLike
Apparently
In Dry, Augusten Burroughs writes about going into rehab and being given controlled amounts of Librium to keep his blood pressure under safe limits. He says it gives him a feeling of floating just above the ground.
LikeLike
Re: Apparently
Apparently Librium is just the thing for alcohol withdrawal, yeah.
LikeLike
Ethnic fun
ALL THOSE CARTOON PEOPLE ARE NAVAJOS.
LikeLike