This whole issue is one of great consternation to me for the following anecdotal reason: Had a very close friend, known for 20 years, who had accompanied me on the search for truth, professed faith, was baptised, came to a reformed view of scripture over time, but endured many struggles. He had lost a leg to cancer at 18, and had been exposed to some pretty powerful chemo, and also had real insanity in his family. The man would come under the blackest clouds of depression for which he had no explanation. The conditions of his life would be relatively good, then he would just end up on the couch hiding from everyone. Finally, about 2 years ago, he came to the conclusion that there must be a chemical component to all this, and with mine and his family's encouragement, saw a psychiatrist who put him on Prozac. It seemed to help him immensely. He was no longer frozen by dark clouds, was able to interact well at work, and became very positive in his outlook. Then he became increasingly confident, even conceited, began to seem to think the world was his oyster so to speak. First real bad event was that he stole a large amount of money from me through deceit and connivery, then revealed that he'd been having an affair at work, pretended to repent of that to convince his estranged wife to take him back, regained her confidence and tricked her into signing on to all kinds of new debt for cars and such, and walked away leaving her and their 4 kids (3 still at home) to fend for themselves. All along he has blamed his behavior on the Prozac.
I don't know what this event says about Prozac, if anything. It may be that Prozac had nothing to do with his sudden complete turning from all that he claimed to care about. Perhaps this was simply what Paul was talking about here:
Quote:
|
1Ti 5:24 The sins of some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.
|
But I can tell you that I would never have expected this behavior of him in the past, and the changes in his personality occured after being on Prozac. Perhaps he had always despised God, but had feared the consequences he would face if he were to do the things he really wanted. Maybe the Prozac just numbed the fear. At any rate, it has made me very leery of all these seratonin-affecting drugs.
