That figure has risen steadily over the past five years. They're overwhelmed and they want a pill to level them out. While hard numbers are difficult to come by, physicians in and beyond New Jersey say they are writing more antidepressant prescriptions for moody, short-tempered patients than ever before. More often than not, these patients are women. They are not patients with classic depression, too blue to get out of bed.
Patients are less interested in the philosophical debate.
What they want is relief. Consider the case of one Tenafly woman, a single mother of three who asked her doctor for medication this year after her fiance pointed out how often she was yelling at him and the kids. It felt like there wasn't enough time in the day to do what everybody wanted from me. My ex- husband didn't help much. I was yelling at the kids to pitch in, I was nagging my fiance, and we were all miserable.