Depression Mental

Most high-level White House aides believed that President Reagan was so depressed, inept and inattentive in the wake of disclosures about the Iran-Contra scandal early in 1987 that the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office was raised in a memo to Howard H. Baker Jr., then Reagan's chief of staff.

The Food and Drug Administration has granted marketing approval for a liquid form of the antidepressant Prozac, the drug's maker, Eli Lilly & Co., said Thursday. Lilly called the FDA approval "another affirmation of the safety" and effectiveness of Prozac in treating clinical depression, and used its announcement to lash out at critics who have put the drug at the center of a legal and medical hornet's nest.

Brian Kurza made a triumphant swimming comeback Friday, but it was nothing compared to the return he made four months ago from the depths of a severe depression. The 100-meter freestyle champion in the Los Angeles Invitational at USC, Kurza had left UCLA 14 months ago to live in Chicago, where he underwent psychiatric treatment. "I had to tap into what had been bothering me the last 15-20 years," said Kurza, 21. "It had been gradually getting worse since high school. I couldn't function.

Antidepressants are now taken by tens of millions of Americans, and many people credit them with changing, or even saving, their lives. But they're not for everyone. The most-prescribed medications, SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) such as Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft, have a host of potential side effects, including loss of libido, insomnia, restlessness, weight gain, headaches and anxiety. Little is known about the effects of long-term use.

Cats are proud to the end. So, as most of them will do, Gatita crawled off to hide to await death. But her owner could not bear to let Gatita spend her final hours alone. "I curled up beside her on the floor, and stayed with her all night," Jeannine Mackin-Ocampo said, breaking into tears at the memory. "She always slept on the foot of my bed. I didn't want for us to be apart on her last night." The next day Mackin-Ocampo, 31, would have to say goodby to her companion of 14 years.

At 21, Jennifer Holliday brought Broadway audiences to their feet when she sang as the tortured Effie White in the musical "Dreamgirls," for which she won a Tony Award. But after every eight-times-a-week performance, the young actress went home to an empty apartment. She had no boyfriend and no room for a social life amid her fame. Food was her friend, and weight became her enemy.

In the middle of the journey of our lives, I found myself upon a dark path. --Dante When Terrence Real was a boy, his father routinely threatened to beat him within an inch of his life. And on any number of occasions, that is apparently pretty much what he did. But it didn't occur to the boy that his father might have been suffering too until he was 27 and, as a therapist-in-training, found himself sitting with his father, prepared at last to understand. Now the son is himself middle-aged.

It happens this way: The 7-pound bundle with the soft, spiky hair and fingernails like tiny pearls lands in your arms--the greatest gift of your life. Emotion No. 1: You will throw yourself in front of a train to spare this child a single moment of pain or despair. Sleepers have to be changed after one spit-up; crib sheets laundered if a single drop of pee comes into contact with the 100% cotton. Babe has to be held if he so much as whimpers.

A popular honors student who played on his varsity high school basketball and baseball teams in rural Washington state, Corey Baadsgaard nevertheless would come home complaining that no one liked him. His family physician prescribed Paxil, a popular antidepressant. But Baadsgaard, then 16, sunk deeper into depression. The doctor switched him to a different antidepressant, Effexor, and stepped up the dose over a three-week period from 40 milligrams to 300.

As the popularity of antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil has increased, so too have some little-known problems associated with the medications.