Prozac Nation is based on Wurtzel’s memoir of her depression, which she
traces from the age of 11 to her senior year in college in chapters marking
different phases or manifestations of her illness. The book situates her
illness squarely within her family dynamics where she found herself the
“battlefield on which [her] parents’ differences were fought,” and describes
in excruciating detail her inner life that at any given time was marked with
a “free-flowing messy id” to nihilism, numbness, rage, and fear, ultimately
leading to a suicide attempt. The last few chapters chronicle her slow
“recovery,” due to her conflicted relationship with psychopharmacology and an extraordinary psychiatrist.