Young Writer Tackles Mental Illness in Humorous Novel, Wet Dreams and Zoloft

At only twenty-two years old, Jason Madsen has published his first novel entitled Wet Dreams and Zoloft. When asked why he chose such a…unique title, his response was, “Well, you know what they say: Write what you know.”

At the age of fourteen, Madsen was diagnosed with agoraphobia, a mental illness that all too often leaves its victims housebound. While Madsen was lucky enough to avoid becoming a prisoner in his own home, he did come close a few times.

“Right around fifteen or so it hit me really bad,” he says. “I could go to school, and drive in a car if somebody I trusted was in it with me, but any place else I just didn’t feel safe. Then, while I was writing the book I decided to stop taking my medication. I had this dumb idea in my head that since the main character stopped taking his medication at a certain point, I should too so I could really know the experience before I wrote about it. I pretty much freaked out, and even ended up in the emergency room.”

For years Madsen tried to take control of his agoraphobia and panic attacks through traditional therapy methods, but he says in the end it just didn’t work.

“I don’t want to knock psychology,” he says, “but all the exercises and crap they gave me just flat out didn’t help me at all.”

Finally, at age eighteen, Madsen decided to try medication. His doctor prescribed him Zoloft, an anti-depressant known to help suffers of panic attacks and agoraphobia.

“I’m not really sure why I waited so long. I think mainly I just had a personal goal of wanting to beat it on my own. I guess I thought that if I had to take a pill that I was somehow weak. That I wasn’t strong enough to do it myself.”

Having written since he was eight, Madsen decided he’d try his hand at writing a book about his experiences with agoraphobia. At first, his plan was to write a memoir, but he quickly scratched that idea.

“My life was too boring to write a memoir,” he says. “Nothing interesting happens to people afraid to leave their homes.”

So, a novel it was. Only, Madsen did something very unexpected, he wrote a book on mental illness, panic attacks, and psychiatric drugs, and made it funny.

Madsen says the most rewarding experience of the book has been the response from fellow agoraphobics, most of whom he met through the online networking site myspace.com. He even went so far as to e-mail free e-books to would-be readers too afraid to leave their homes to buy the book.

“At first I thought I shouldn’t,” he says. “I mean, that sort of just rewards their behavior. But in the end, I just wanted people to read it.”

Wet Dreams and Zoloft is currently available now. Madsen can be reached through his myspace page, www.myspace.com/wetdreamsandzoloft, or at jasmadsen@cebridge.net.