DO NOT ANNOY THE UNMEDICATED PERSON

As August arrives and summer begins its wind down, my thoughts go to the department store aisles. There I view shelves of endless notebooks, highlighters, and the newest rage in “Trapper keeper” designs. I try to resolve the fact that I am about to face another year of home schooling my son. However, when the “I hate school” feeling passes, my heart flickers a little with pride. Pride that I have put so much energy into teaching my son in a wholesome, civilized forum. Whilst pondering these mental images, I was reminded of another educational moment from the past. Flashbacks of my toiling years at law school appeared out of nowhere.

First year law may be one of the most frightful experiences one person can undertake. I was in the lucky half who survived the first year. An invitation to return for a second year is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. However, must I also be one of the liberally medicated ones?

As I returned to the hallowed halls of the legally literate, I noticed many of my fellow colleagues cruising mellow. I on the other hand, toiled frantically to keep up the pace of both home and study. What was their secret? As time went on, the answer was revealed. It was simply that some of my classmates had acquired a “disorder.” Let us see, there were depression, a couple annoying anxiety disorders, a paranoid personality or two, and the nearly dysfunctional. (These are some of your lawyers, folks!) I ask you, who does not suffer from anxiety in the law school setting?Additionally, there were those self-medicating by means of marijuana or alcohol to weed out. (No pun intended).

Now, I admit, having a Chinese restaurant with a full bar within close proximity to the law school was helpful. I am no saint, after all! Inevitably, during our evening break time, many students bee lined it right to that welcoming bar for a “quickie,” (No, not that kind of quickie. Get your mind out of the gutter!) Following that little jolt of courage, we rushed back to the next half of that oh, so exciting Civil Procedure class. Needless to say, the rest of the evening went on smoothly.

Admittedly, I do tend to suffer high anxiety at the prospect of midterms or final exams. In addition, I do appreciate a little nip of something to take the edge off. However, my very mellow medicated ones did get quite annoying at times.

One student quit taking her anti depressants seeking a future pregnancy. God bless her for caring about the chemicals lingering in her body as she started preparing for her hopefully soon to be gestation. Nevertheless, did I need to watch her escalating swiftly into frantic foreboding? She appeared to be far removed from the reality of the classroom at this critical time. Words of warning rattled my brain, “do something quick, you are losing her!” As the professor turned to the black board to scribble down some Latin phrase, I reached over to give her a swift whack on the side of her foggy brained head. Okay, stop crying out “battery,” or should I say the much-misused label “assault,” for those of you addicted to crime shows. She never saw it coming! Well, she perked up, turned to face me, and said, “Thank you, I needed that.”

Following that long week of watching that dear woman spiraling into despondency, she finally sought professional guidance from her doctors. They advised her that the medication she was taking would hurt her future fetus much less than suicidal despair.

Do not get me wrong; many folks such as she really do need the  medication prescribed. Moreover, she is one of the brightest and  most compassionate people one would ever want to meet. Additionally, she has been blessed with a healthy child more than once, and deserves a great deal of credit for the uphill battle reaching that point. My complaint is not with this person, but rather with those who invent a condition, and run to the nearest prescription filling doctor or locally known quack, for “anti-jitter” pills to help them survive a place where we have all been terrified at least once. Mixing in a quick drink at the local watering hole with the various rainbow colored pills, leads to some weird people action. Can you say, stop infuriating me; I have studying to do?

Surviving law school is no easy task; surviving that same place without  medication …priceless!

Therefore my friends, you can set your mind on  that goal and reach it. Sometimes you will falter and give in to some brain anesthetizing help. However, as the day or the week unwinds, you may find you did your best work when you actually remembered what you were doing.

Subsequently, if such a struggle cannot be accomplished sans some little helpers, then please, try not to annoy the unmedicated person.