In the summer of 1996, I tried on a pair of new eyes when I took Paxil, a cousin of Prozac, for eight weeks. For the first few weeks I had only side effects: some nausea, difficulty sleeping through the night, and a variety of physical sensations that I did not know my body could produce, including a feeling I can describe only by saying that my brain felt dry. But then one day in week five, the world changed color. I woke up one morning and no longer felt anxious about the heavy work load and uncertain prospects of an untenured professor. It was like magic. A set of changes I had wanted to
...more
