I came off Prozac using Self Help

by Lisa Helene Liinangi

As a teenager, I seemed to be able to do nearly anything.

I rarely thought about failure. I was a little fat, but I didn't let it stop me if I really wanted to do something.

I was an above average student, a published poet, and a distance bicyclist.

And above all that, I had my own "rebel yell"—a statement that would guide my life and cause me to search the libraries of Michigan and Florida for an answer...

I wanted to believe that there had to be something more, that this could not possibly be all there was to life.

But July 2005 was an awful time for me. I had failed yet again.

I had been laid off from a job I loathed—and had no desire to try to find another job.

I was alone—no one seemed to want to be around me.

I was fat—and getting fatter.

I was on Prozac, and I was miserable—so very unhappy.

I decided on my own to stop taking Prozac. I was miserable anyway, how much worse could it get?

I found it didn't get worse, but it seemed like I was stuck mid-air. I wasn't going further downward, but I wasn't moving upward either.

Around this time I met a fellow named Ken. He started telling me about Scientology and Dianetics in little bits that I could look at, evaluate, and work with.

Eventually, he talked me into going to a lecture on "The Human Mind" at a friend's house. I went on to do two short courses at the Tampa Church of Scientology, the "Overcoming Life's Ups and Downs Course" followed by "The Anatomy of The Human Mind Course" and the rest, as is frequently said, is history. (In my case, it's "her-story"!).

Today, I am drug free and alcohol free.

I am still fat, but I'm not obsessed with it or food.

I am looking for work once again, but I am not afraid of it or reluctant to do it.

However, the course that I think really helped me the most was the "Personal Values and Integrity Course". It worked so well for me that I decided to repeat it just a few months after completing it the first time.

What was so cool about it was that I was in a positive (i.e., safe) environment, looking at my own wrong-actions, and not being made to feel degraded for them...for the first time in my life.

It was so incredible feeling safe, wanted, and valued for myself!

It was what I had searched my whole life for.

I've been able to look at the things that I do (or did) that were slowly and quietly destroying myself and my family and find a way—with it being my choice, not someone else's demand—to fix myself and my life—real self help.

I found that the choice truly is your own.

It is your life, your body, your mind.

What do you want to do with it?