I understand how certain medications can have a palliative effect on pain. I am myself the beneficiary of that. I think it is possible that the body could for whatever reason not be producing some bodily chemical, or not be delivering it to the needed organ or area, to affect mental attitudes and then perhaps even actions. So I suppose that certain people who have been diagnosed as bi-polar might be suffering quite simply from a bodily dysfunction. But even though I can see that this is quite possible, and even though I want to believe it, I am always suspicious of the doctors when it comes to the things that deal with the mind, and therefore with actions or choices. But let us suppose that’s true—body chemistry manages or affects mental conditions.

So when one is suffering from physical pain, it is a good and proper thing to take medications to palliate the pain. To ‘manage’ the pain, as they say in med-speak. And I suppose that it is a good and proper thing to take your meds if they keep you mentally stable.

However, I just can’t see the difference, other than legal or criminal, in taking medications or any substance to forget your troubles, and the junkie shooting up heroin or the boozer knocking down a fifth, or the pot head smoking weed—to forget your troubles.

I have felt the onset of an anxiety attack. It was when I took a medication to alleviate physical pain. I took some pain medication with the added something that makes it PM. Something—PM. I suppose the PM stands for “post-meridian”, ergo night time, ergo sleep-aid. In the darkest of the night I woke up thinking something was wrong. At first I thought it might be physical, and I sat up on the edge of the bed, in the dark, and immediately concluded that it was not physical. Then my thoughts turned to the possibility of an intruder; but there was no indication of that. I sat there worrying, and soon came to the thought that I was anxious—and therefore I was having an anxiety attack. A few months later I forgot all about that experience and took another dose of Something—PM. And I had the same experience. So I’ve never taken any since. Nothing with PM, and nothing to help me get to sleep (except chocolate milk with a third of it heavy whipping cream).

A medication caused my mental condition. Can a medication do the opposite? Take away your anxiety? I suppose so, since there are many anti-anxiety medications prescribed by doctors. But I suppose also that that’s one way of looking at weed or heroin or alcohol.

Is there a legitimate medication that works solely on the chemical, medical contributors to anxiety, that does not remove you from reality? If not, if the medication is to keep you from having an anxiety attack when the cause of anxiety is behavior or the onslaught of life, the consequences of the actions of self or others—not some chemical condition of the body—then what’s the difference, like I said other than legal or moral, between that medication and self-medication through pot or whiskey or heroin?

I said last year—to myself—If my problems are chemical, my solutions might be chemical. So if I have an imbalance in my body chemistry, I could take some chemical medication to correct the problem, be it physical or mental. But what if my problems are the conditions surrounding me? Exterior, non-bodily, conditions, the choices of others, or my own, or social conditions, or a reversal of fortunes—do I take a medication to relieve the pain of mind and heart that comes from the actions of others? Or to avoid the consequences of my own actions, guilt, sadness, regret? Do I take a pill so as not to have to deal mentally with sorrow and regret, guilt?