Even if that's a true and accurate account of their medication (which sounds like rather a lot to me, but I'm not a pharmacologist), it also serves as a Hunter S Thompson reference. Which seems deliberate when you're writing a 4k word essay with 28 references in. Especially when you're referencing Negri.

This must be hyperbole. The 450 mg of Buproprion alone is hard to believe.

For something pressed in the 5mg to 30mg range, it seems very ludicrous a dose indeed.

It's a bit higher than that. 150 mg for anti-smoking (as Xyban), 300 mg for severe depression or Bipolar 1 (as Wellbutrin) is not uncommon, but with all the others (esp. the Adderall and the mood stabilizer) and coffee to chase, yeah, that would wake up a mummified corpse.

That shrink should have his license pulled.

(That said, Buproprion is a miracle drug. As far as antidepressants go, it's in class all by itself.)

> As far as antidepressants go, [buproprion is] in class all by itself.

I'd like to emphasize that this is literally a true statement. It's what's called an atypical antidepressant [0] because it doesn't act in a way similar to other antidepressants.

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[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atypical_antidepressant

The word "literally" is misused, unnecessary and annoying.

Unnecessary? Only in the sense that my sentence works without the word. It's a rhetorical device.

Annoying? You must be easily annoyed.

But, misused? Not if you agree with definition 3 on dictionary.com: "actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy." [0]

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[0]: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/literally

I should have know better than to use THAT word on the internet. How silly of me.

Except in this case, where it is required to distinguish the sentence being true in a literal, as opposed to figurative, sense.

No, they make pills that are 150 mg. I was on 300 mg of daily Welbutrin XL for several years, though more often I was on 150 mg. I also took about 20 mg of Prozac, which seemed to have a smoothing effect. My only side effects on the stronger dosages was an acid stomach, and I could mitigate that by eating half a bagel or muffin in the morning.

I remember asking my psychiatrist about the dosage because it seemed high to me. He told me that up to 450 mg was the recommended maximum, and that he did have a few patients who had been on stronger doses. I believe he said he knew of one patient on 750 mg, though he may have said 600 mg.

Just based on my personal experience, psychiatric drugs are highly variable. I did very well under Welbutrin, while even the smallest dosages of Effexor had me waking up with constant nightmares and a non-euphoric, altogether unpleasant "buzzed" feeling not unlike a hangover without the headache. I also know people who swear by Effexor.

Edit: Today I almost entirely mitigate my depression with natural light therapy.

It sounds like a recipe for anticholinergic, Parkinsonian-like tremors, nausea, vertigo, sweating and other dysfunctions.