Antidepressants and medications for bipolar disorder can be life-changing and even lifesaving, but journalist Lauren Slater warns that the long-term side effects of these drugs are “cloaked in mystery.”
Blue Dreams
The Science and the Story of the Drugs That Changed Our Minds
“As a nation, we’re consuming them; we’re gobbling them down,” she says. “And we don’t really know what we’re taking into our bodies.”
Slater, who suffers from depression and bipolar disorder, has firsthand experience with psychotropic drugs; she has been taking medication for 35 years. Her new book,Blue Dreams, dedicates separate chapters to drugs such as Thorazine, lithium and psilocybin.