A recent study released in USA Today reported,
“Use of antidepressant drugs has soared nearly 400% since 1988, making the medication the most frequently used by people ages 18-44. Women are 2.5 times more likely to take antidepressants than men, and 23 percent of women aged 40 to 59 take antidepressants, more than in any other age/sex group.”
Almost 1 in 4. That’s devastating. What’s even more telling is that this study finds that most don’t seek counseling to discover the roots of their pain and emptiness. These high-functioning women simply don’t have time for therapy.
We are all susceptible. We tell ourselves a quick fix will do just fine. Whatever pills can keep our head above water, allow us to keep making lunches, paying the bills, getting through sex, carpooling, working out, pursuing that career and so on will just have to do. We don’t want to be the crazy lady at the bus stop. We think to ourselves, “Just give me the meds that she’s having. I’ll be fine.”
Recently, a friend confessed through tears that she is struggling with deep bitterness. Her life doesn’t look the way she imagined it would. She couldn’t reconcile how her life-looking so successful on the surface-could disguise the aching void that brings her tears the moment she lets herself feel any deeper.
What is most alarming is that many women don’t see past their manicured lives, a grasping for society’s definition of being “put together.” We have pretty ways to mask it, don’t we? We use all kinds of retail therapies and beauty products. We have homes to furnish and decorate, then redecorate once we tire. We have styles to keep up with, parties to throw and attend, and a rigorous pace to maintain. While these things are all delightful and beautiful and worth celebrating, the danger comes when we use them to conceal a desperate identity crisis.
So we compromise. We say, This life I lead ought to be enough. I ought to be content being a mother. The dreams I had in my youth were simply that-dreams. Let it go. And we push down any hope when we see it flair up. The desire for change uncovers that which we are most terrified of-failure.
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