Peg Kerr's Journal

I don't believe in the whole concept of "overreacting" -- your reactions are your own, and you have a right to them. That said, I think this article is a great conversation starter -- not ender. I have had some value from times when I was down. (I got my heart seriously broken in late 1975. This prompted my moving to Los Angeles, making numerous new friends, trying out things that might help my musical career, and healing pretty well without medications. On the other hand, I think a combination of things -- moving to Los Angeles *and* taking an antidepressant -- might have worked even better.) I have also found out that I write far more songs, some of them quite good, when I am not medicated. The problem here is that there are other, more objective, measures -- it is incontrovertible fact that when I tried for 5 and 1/2 months to get by without drugs, in 1990 and 1991, I missed far more work than during any comparable period in my life. And that's not even counting the stresses on my friendships, though I am not inclined to go into more details right now. So I think that the right thing for me to do was and is to look at the article, say, "Hmmm, very interesting," and then use the drugs I was using anyway. My marriage matters; my day job matters; my career as a bar-band musician matters. I am simply not willing to sacrifice those things in the name of hoping I will be as musically productive as Beethoven. Maybe at some point you and I can talk in person, and I will tell you a bit more about why I think going off drugs threatened and in some cases demolished my friendships. (Note, though, that several of my songs were indeed written during this stretch.)

Nate