The Waves: Live. Laugh. Lexapro.

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News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this week’s episode of The Waves, Slate senior editor Shannon Palus is joined by the managing editor of Future Tense, Mia Armstrong. This week is all about selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of drugs commonly used to treat depression and anxiety. Shannon and Mia discuss their own experiences with their mental health and SSRIs. Then they dig into the cultural narrative around using medication for anxiety and depression,a recent study disproving an old adage about depression, and why SSRIs might be overprescribed to women. Why Has the Misleading “Chemical Imbalance” Theory of Mental Illness Persisted for So Long? by Sahanika Ratnayake In Slate Plus, is marrying young feminist? Recommendations: Shannon: Guided meditations from UCLA Health. Mia: Counting backwards from 100 by seven to help calm down while you’re feeling anxious. Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Shannon Palus, Alicia Montgomery and Daisy Rosario. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Waves, Slates podcast about gender, feminism, and this week, Medication.
0:22.1	Every episode you get a new pair of women to talk about the thing we cannot get off of
0:26.2	our minds.
0:27.2	And today you've got me, Shannon Paulis, a senior editor at Slate.
0:32.0	And me, Mia Armstrong.
0:33.4	I'm the managing editor of Future Tense, which is a partnership between Slate, Arizona
0:37.0	State University, and New America that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and
0:41.8	society.
0:42.8	I also work on State of Mind, which is a partnership between Slate and ASU that explores
0:46.7	mental health.
0:48.7	And I'm so excited to be talking with you, Mia today, because we're going to be talking
0:53.0	about SSRIs, aka selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
1:00.0	These are a class of drugs commonly used to treat anxiety and depression.
1:04.4	They've been in the news recently for a couple of reasons.
1:08.8	First of all, there's been this right-wing idea floating around, promoted by the Tucker
1:13.3	Carlson's of the world, that they have something to do with school shootings.
1:18.0	But if you take SSRIs, that could lead you to do really terrible things, which is just
1:25.8	not true.
1:27.1	There's also a big new paper out talking about what serotonin has or doesn't have to do
1:32.9	with depression, which has led to a lot of conversations about whether SSRIs, quote-unquote,
1:38.8	work in the first place.
1:40.2	We're going to unpack that in the second segment of the show.
	...

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