I want you to look good and hard at the above picture.  What would you say is going on here?  At first glance, you may say to yourself, "Oh, that's a malpractice suit waiting to happen."  Or…"Inappropriate physician behavior."  I could proceed with a variety of possible scenarios, but WordPress would probably shut me down for inexcusable adult content.

Truth be told, this is the new ad campaign for Abilify.

ABILIFY® (aripiprazole) is a prescription medicine used to treat depression in adults as an add-on treatment to an antidepressant when an antidepressant alone is not enough.

Okaaay.  So what you're trying to tell me is:

ABILIFY® (aripiprazole) is a prescription medicine that we invented to bamboozle the grown folk into believing Pill #1 is inferior and can't POSSIBLY be effective because we chemically made it that way, unbeknownst to all ya'll depressed jackasses out there.

Abilify's original commercials showed middle-aged adults slinking around the house in rumpled pajamas, crying over stacks of over-due credit card bills and not feeding the cat for days.  Apparently their demographic research was faulty.  So they put their swollen heads together and came up with a NEW commercial.  More kid friendly.

So I decided to try a human behavior experiment.  I muted the commercial and made my 5-year-old kid watch it, then asked her to give me her interpretation.  Here's what she said:

"What kind of pet is that?  She should've bought a cute kitten.  But not a cat-like Tess.  Tess is repressed."

Tess is our cat.  A chronically DEPRESSED cat.  Cali's interpretation of the word is REPRESSED.  (Is there even a difference?)

So in a round-about way, Cali somehow saw "depression" in that commercial.  Was it an intentional subliminal message or just a coincidence?  I shudder to think.  Either way, I struggle to grasp the intent.  Make meds friendlier?  More approachable?  Less scary?

I'll tell you what's scary.  That side-effect guy at the END of the commercial talking 500 mph and the only words you catch are "bloody stool" and "sudden drooling".

I made a little movie about this very subject that will give you further insight into this new miracle-cure for the dysfunctional anti-depressant.

I give you…..Abilify vs. Cocaine!