The irony of divorce
Divorce is full of irony, as Wurtzel knows, but ultimately the major irony is this: parents are the tone-setters for a child's understanding of reality. Without any other experience to refer to, a child will view life itself in light of family. To divorce is ironic, therefore, because it constitutes parents setting a negative, horror-filled tone for the life of their child.
Self-love
This book dances around the issue of self love, but ultimately, much of the book is about exactly that. Or rather, this book shows that for many, self-hatred is the default, and self-love takes serious work. For Wurtzel, confidence and self-esteem are difficult to attain, meaning that her relationship to self is ironically wired—as if she is not worthy of self-love. Why does she believe that? Because of the example of her home life.
The irony of stigmatization
The central irony of the book is the fact that its title is stigmatized. Prozac is a medication that helped to de-stigmatize mental health discussions. Wurtzel talks about this at length because it is a helpful reminder that before, those conversations were even harder than they are now that we all know what Prozac is. But that means that hopefully they will get even easier and easier, because after all, the stigma is ironic; sick people need medicine. Sometimes the sickness is in a muscle or bone, sometimes it's in the brain—the stigma is unfounded.
The irony of failed adventures
When Wurtzel went out into the world, it wasn't necessarily to obtain something. Rather, she was running from mental and existential experiences that were so horrifying she wanted to die. But without a way to talk openly about it, she decided to try changing her reality in other ways. When she fails to get the peace and joy she hoped for in her travels, she felt defeated, but it set the stage for her "Deus Ex Machina"—new medications. Now, she has completed a hero's journey. She felt failure most when she was just about to succeed.
The irony of reality
Reality itself is ironic because like Wurtzel well knows, different people experience reality in vastly different ways. If two people are waiting in line, and one is at peace, and the other is anxious, then their experiences of reality are radically different. Therefore, it took a real change in Wurtzel's mind (the introduction of medicine) before she could realize that reality could be tweaked and adjusted. One might argue that medication allows a patient to learn about a new head space that they didn't know about before. Their relationship to reality seems self-explanatory, but since it can be changed, it really isn't a thing to be taken for granted.
