Around Christmas of 2002, I broke my arm. I told everyone I did it while I was wrastling a bear, but, in actuality, I slipped and fell on the icy steps of my front porch. Had there been a bear on my front porch that particular morning, though, I would have wrastled him but good.<\/p>\n
Anyway, they prescribed Vicodin for me to help with the pain. I dutifully took my prescription according to the doctor\u2019s recommendations, until three or four weeks after my fall, I asked Mrs. Cornell:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long should I keep taking these?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to keep taking them for as long as you have pain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t had any pain for a long time,\u201d I answered. \u201cI just like how these make me feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
She made me stop taking them after that. Dang it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a big fan of drugs. With my hacking cough\/cold, I\u2019ve been a Nyquil and Dayquil junkie these past few days, and I\u2019d be lying if I said I didn\u2019t enjoy it. It\u2019s a good thing I\u2019m a Mormon, because otherwise I\u2019d probably be a lush.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why the recent article about depression in Utah<\/a> didn\u2019t surprise me much. In case you missed it, it seems Utah leads the nation in terms of diagnosed cases of depression, most notably Utah women. The article concludes that Mormon women are far more depressed because A) they\u2019re expected to be perfect, and B) their education system is underfunded. (Don\u2019t worry, fellow Utahns \u2013 Explanation B didn\u2019t make sense to me, either, and I have a California public education, which was overfunded.)<\/p>\n In my non-professional opinion, I think Utah women are diagnosed with depression more often than the national average because A) non-Mormons self-medicate with alcohol, and B) Utah women are smart enough to get a doctor\u2019s help to treat depression. The only way a good Mormon takes drugs of any kind is if a doctor tells them it\u2019s OK. But a cold beer is available to most folks without benefit of a prescription.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say that the Mormon peer pressure isn\u2019t extensive. But given the tone of the article, it\u2019s clearly an attempt to slam the church under color of objectivity. The article refers to the \u201cMother of Zion syndrome,\u201d as if it\u2019s actually some kind of recognized psychological disorder. I think the author was suffering from \u201cMitt Romney withdrawal syndrome.\u201d We all respond to the syndrome in different ways. I become a political hermit, whereas this reporter finds some other excuse for bashing Mormons.<\/p>\n With Mitt Romney on the sidelines for the next four years, we can reasonably expect the number of anti-Mormon media slams to subside. But only if the media continues to take its medication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AroundChristmas of 2002, I broke my arm. I told everyone I did it while I was wrastling a bear, but, in actuality, I slipped and fell on the icy steps of my front porch. Had there been a bear on my front porch that particular morning, though, I would have wrastled him but good. Anyway, ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4909,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/4909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}