Sexual dysfunction has turned out to be one of Prozac's hidden extras. Sarah, a 36-year-old stylist from London, who takes Prozac for panic attacks, has had a fairly typical experience. 'It has cured me and calmed me, but I haven't had an orgasm since the day I started,' she says. 'I still want to cuddle, but beyond that, I feel no physical arousal at all. Nothing. It's a trade-off. My partner can't decide which me he prefers. The neurotic, weeping basketcase who still enjoyed sex a few times a week or the calm and collected one that's completely frigid.'
The implications go beyond mere sex. According to Helen Fisher, anthropologist and author of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, SSRIs could seriously impede our ability to fall and stay in love. The bliss we feel when we're loved up - that elation, exhilaration and slight insanity - are the result of high levels of dopamine. SSRIs increase serotonin and curb dopamine. The result is that anti-love feeling, a contented, non-discriminatory 'well, whatever'.
The artist Stella Vine (right) named her 2004 exhibition, which featured such troubled subjects as Sylvia Plath and Courtney Love, after the drug. Vine - the former stripper now famous for her vivid, haunted portraits of Princess Diana, Kate Moss and the heroin victim Rachel Whitear - has herself yo-yoed on Prozac, finding it has both enabled her to function but blunted her painting.
'I remember when I was working as a nightclub hostess, one of the girls showed me her writing and it was really incredible. I asked why she had stopped and she said she started taking Prozac and couldn't write any more,' says Vine. 'I thought I'd never make that trade-off.'
In 2001, though, Vine did ask her GP for antidepressants. 'I've always been a highs-and-lows person, but this time, I was very, very depressed, just about doing the basics, the whole world collapsing, and when I started on Prozac, there was an incredible rush,' she recalls. 'I ate less, had more energy, I was speeding around the park with my dog, ecstatic to talk to the other dog walkers. It breaks the cycle of sitting on the sofa thinking about suicide, but in a way, it's a waste of time. Nothing is being sorted out and healed.'
Vine describes herself on Prozac as a 'la-di-da, hazy version'. 'I can paint the outline of a person, but I can't engage with any emotion in it,' she says. 'The really good work takes place when I'm not on Prozac. It's hard to describe, but it's more vivid and intense, a heightened awareness. I may have finished several undercoats and I get this great moment of absolute clarity. Suddenly I know what will make the whole thing work. That never happens on Prozac.'
Prozac's effect on creativity has been much debated - usually with the starter question 'What if Van Gogh had taken Prozac?' Perhaps he'd have given up art and become a life coach. Another possibility is that we'd now have more of his paintings.
