I met David in RT and we got to be buds. The first time I went over to his house, I imposed rudely on his friendship. He had been talking about his meds, specifically the head meds for his anxiety. He had a new one and it was working good. So I asked him if I could try it.

He’s a good boy and he was instinctively averse to the idea for good boy reasons. Instead of letting his no be a no, I let the question hang in the air. Finally he went to the medicine chest and came back with the bottle of the old stuff and passed it to me.

In some twisted spirit of compromise I shook out four or five tablets and gave him back the rest.

That seemed to make him feel better; reduced his anxiety a little.

I said something about him being Canadian and getting all this stuff for cheap. Which was of course irrelevant to his actual concerns. A dumb joke. But even though I’d been not quite civil, it didn’t seem to hurt the new underlying relationship too much.

I think this dream was saying something that I’d thought briefly in waking. It’s quite possible that I have some sort of undiagnosed disorder of this kind. Certainly I have had my issues with debilitating worry in the last few years. And going back decades, I can recall a few incidents that are consistent with what I know about panic attacks.

I don’t think I need treatment for it now. I have antediluvian notions about this. When I hear that half the population is medicated for something of this kind, I feel absurdly superior for not being among that half. I also disbelieve that modern medicine has a clue about what they’re doing with these chemicals. I also do believe that modern life is of course going to fuck most people up by itself, and that suffering through these issues builds character, and that I’m a better person, having suffered.

All of these are unexamined notions that have no basis in fact, but I also believe that most people go through their lives being governed by just such notions, and that I’m no different in this particular area.

Other areas though, I examine the hell out of my notions.

Thus in most areas I’m a better person than average.

This notion too is primarily an article of faith, rather than reason. One for the road.