It's been tough all these years, watching my green-and-white pal get slammed by the media, talk-show hosts and, of course, good doctors such as Glenmullen. Although each critic has a different theory on why Prozac is poison -- be it medical, social or emotional -- I'm certain that the drug stirs deeper fears. Psychopharmaceuticals threaten our moral belief in earned contentment. They challenge the deeply held assumption that exercise, prayer, long-term therapy and, best of all, suffering, are the righteous path to salvation. To the horror of Prozac's naysayers, happiness can indeed come in a pill.

Several books have embraced that pill. Peter Kramer's "Listening to Prozac," envisioned a nation of happy-go-lucky folks. Lauren Slater's "Prozac Diary," examined a life as crazy and miserable (before Prozac), and life as productive and content (after Prozac), taking almost 200 pages trying to decide which was better. But Slater and Kramer's optimistic voices have been drowned out by the critics.

There was Peter Breggin's "Talking Back to Prozac," a point-by-point dismissal of Kramer's book, and Ann Tracy's "Prozac: Panacea or Pandora?" (Answer: Pandora). "Prozac Backlash" takes up where Breggin left off, attributing even more deleterious side effects to antidepressants. Besides the well-known loss of libido, Glenmullen claims these drugs can also rot the liver and trigger something known as "tardive dyskinesia;" involuntary tics that include grimacing, sucking and darting one's tongue in and out. Not only does this make you look like a frog catching insects, it also appears to be a symptom of brain damage.

While Glenmullen is busy scaring the bejesus out of us Prozac-prone folks, the media has taken up the moral stakes. Television yap-fests trot out experts to bemoan the overmedication of America, the overdiagnosis of the Average Joe. The complaint is that we have pathologized everything from grief to shyness (now called "social phobia") and have an appropriate pill to take off the edge.

As a society, we are committing the most grievous of spiritual sins -- "We just don't feel like we used to." That is, we no longer feel the spectrum of our emotions. Could someone give me one good reason why we should?

Although the human-potential movement began in the '60s, it took about 20 years for guilt, anger, shame and grief to be elevated to sacred status. Before the age of Esalen, most civilized folks learned to keep the darker shades of the palette hidden. Or, at least, they had the decency to pretend they walked on the sunny side of the street.

But with the self-help explosion of the '80s, we not only put every unhappy nuance under the microscope; we also cherished, even revered, them. We fueled the flickering hope that unhappiness was the key to -- who knows -- fulfillment? Freedom? Whatever it was, it somehow followed the twisted logic that the worse one felt, the better one would eventually be.

Maybe a religious awakening can be achieved by living life like a bleeding wound, feeling as if someone turned your skin inside out, and desperately wishing a slow death for everyone who shares your planet. If there is, however, I missed the thunderbolt.

In retrospect, I was not a worst-case scenario before Prozac came on the scene. But life pretty much sucked on a daily basis. Only my pre-Prozac vices -- alcohol, cocaine and bulimia -- made it bearable. Therapists, 12-step programs and a slew of well-wishers insisted that life would be better once I gave up my bad habits and began really "feeling."

They were wrong.

If I was manic-depressive instead of just depressed, at least I would have had the occasional bouts of euphoria. If I was manic-depressive and extraordinarily talented, I would have had the euphoria and a published book before I stuck my head in an oven like Sylvia Plath. But being a garden variety sad sack, I was stuck with a half-empty glass (non-alcoholic, to boot) and a world teeming with morons, losers and crapheads.

I could have held out for spiritual rebirth or a good Amana oven, I suppose. Fortunately, Eli Lilly delivered before God or suicide.

People are once again allowed to share the Earth with me. I'm a little less inclined to swear, sob or scream uncontrollably because I got off on the wrong freeway exit. One or two Prozac a day is the chemical equivalent of my beloved chenille throw and a hot cup of soup on a rainy day. It is the sense of comfort replacing almost a lifetime of dread. And glory be, my brain works again. I can now read a menu without bursting into tears over the pressure of having to make a decision.

Over the past 13 years, I've been subjected to numerous "success" stories from self-help junkies. The screed runs roughly like this: A wisely spiritual person is experiencing a profoundly dark night of the soul. In desperation, the person reaches out to a health care professional, who foolishly or cavalierly diagnoses the problem as depression and prescribes Prozac. The person takes it, then feels awful for feeling better because of a chemical. He or she quits the drug, ends up feeling like shit, but revels in the triumphant decision to "face it down."

I don't get it.

Perhaps, in the absence of dragons to slay and fierce carnivores to hunt, facing down a chemical imbalance is as close as this generation will get to doing battle with frightening creatures -- seen or unseen. Well, call me a spiritual fraidy-cat, but I'll choose the chenille throw over the demons, not to mention the black hole of hopelessness.

While I'd prefer to avoid looking like Kermit the Frog snagging houseflies, I'll take brain damage or a shriveled liver over life without Prozac. Feeling bad is neither spiritual nor character building. It's just bad. It's certainly worse than feeling good or even feeling nothing at all.