Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was published in 1932, sixteen years before George Orwell's 1984. These are classics that are becoming more relevant all the time- who knew?
In Brave New World the citizens are given a drug called Soma, a medication with all up and no down. It's not unlike the drug many of us went looking for to deal with our depression and anxiety- a happy pill. When I look back at that dark corner of my life, a happy pill was truly what I needed and wanted.
The citizens of Brave New World become mindless drones, and that's not unlike the mindspace in which many of us landed-- lurching unsteadily on sea-legs, out-of-focus, half-in and half-out, emotions flat-lined. But unlike Soma, Cymbalta did NOT give us the lovely long-day swooning high; rather, it took us down a blind passage in an underwater cave!
Here's where we leave Brave New World and enter the World of Cymbalta Withdrawal. Unlike the delirious strata-cruising of Soma, we crash into the trenches of withdrawal where we are tortured by unknowable demons. We're filled with rage. Some of us become violent- we end up on CNN and in every newspaper. Primary school teachers fearfully whisper our names.
We are now immersed in a Brave New Crisis, and since Cymbalta went generic on December 11, 2013- sales of Duloxetine have skyrocketed!!
You know, and I know that we need to have a Brave New Conversation to find a solution.
