The biggest problem that women have is being ambivalent about their own power, ... We should be comfortable with the idea of wielding power. We shouldn't feel that it detracts from our femininity.
Elizabeth WurtzelRead
Just as our parents quieted us when we were noisy by putting us in front of the television set, maybe we're now learning to quiet our own adult noise with Prozac.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote compares how parents used television to calm their children to how adults may use medication to manage their own anxieties and noise.
Elizabeth Wurtzel's quote suggests that just as parents used television as a tool to calm their noisy children, adults today might resort to medications like Prozac to manage their own inner chaos and noise. This reflects a deeper commentary on how society has evolved in its approach to dealing with emotional discomfort, raising questions about the reliance on external solutions for internal struggles.
Themes
Mental HealthMedicationAnxietyStressCoping Mechanisms
In practice
Example use cases
During a mental health awareness event, one might say this quote to discuss the societal impacts of medication.
More from Elizabeth Wurtzel
All quotes →The men have piled up in my past, have fallen trenchantly through my life, like an avalanche that doesn't mean to kill but is going to bury me alive just the same.
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Whenever I talk to anyone I care about, I am always seeking approval. There is always a pleading lilt in my voice that demands love. Even the people I work with, the ones I am supposed to have a professional relationship with, all business, get pulled into my need. I can't help it. I want to be adored.
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Getting help for substance abuse can be reduced to the deceptively simple focus of ‘keeping away from the dope.’ But what does getting help with depression mean? Learning to keep away from your own mind?
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Taking a hypersensitive approach to life had come to seem so much more pure and honest then joining the ranks of the numb masses who could let it all slide by. What I stopped realizing was that if you feel everything intensely, ultimately you feel nothing at all. Everything registers at the same decibel.
Elizabeth WurtzelRead
It's being a grown up, which I never figured out how to do, scrubbing the tub, and remembering to eat and shampoo my hair. It's the basics: I can write a whole book, but I cannot handle the basics.
Elizabeth WurtzelRead
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