One of the adverse effects of pain pills is temporarily to take away the ability of the person’s emotions to inform decision-making, particularly, avoidance of harms.
According to neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, for most people, the person’s ability to avoid making harmful decisions depends on the ability of the person to have an emotional reaction to the consequences of a decision—particularly an emotional reaction to imagined or anticipated consequences—that is, a reaction that occurs before the decision is made.
When on pain pills, a person tends not to have (or not to heed) these emotional reactions to consequences of decisions that have not been made yet, if I understand correctly.
The reason I mention this is that you might want to wait till you are off the pain pills to continue this really, really interesting discussion of your sexuality. I do not mean to imply that your decision to comment will harm you—I just thought a warning about pain pills might be useful to you.
I noticed this issue myself, last night—I’d been nervous about posting the information in the second and third paragraphs before I took the meds, and wasn’t, afterwards, which was unusual enough to be slightly alarming. (I did write both paragraphs before my visit to the dentist, and didn’t edit them significantly afterwards.) The warning is appreciated, though.
I’ve spent enough time thinking about this kind of thing, though, that I’m confident I can rely on cached judgments of what is and isn’t wise to share, even in my slightly impaired state. I’ll wait on answering anything questionable, but I suspect that that’s unlikely to be an issue—I am really very open about this kind of thing in general, when I’m not worrying about making others uncomfortable with my oddness. It’s a side-effect of not having a sexual self to defend.
One of the adverse effects of pain pills is temporarily to take away the ability of the person’s emotions to inform decision-making, particularly, avoidance of harms.
I assume that by “pain pills” you mean opioids and other narcotics? I suspect that asprin and other non-narcotic painkillers wouldn’t impair emotional reactions...
I’m taking an opioid, but I suspect that the effect would be seen with anything that affects sensory impressions, since it’ll also affect your ability to sense your emotions.
One of the adverse effects of pain pills is temporarily to take away the ability of the person’s emotions to inform decision-making, particularly, avoidance of harms.
According to neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, for most people, the person’s ability to avoid making harmful decisions depends on the ability of the person to have an emotional reaction to the consequences of a decision—particularly an emotional reaction to imagined or anticipated consequences—that is, a reaction that occurs before the decision is made.
When on pain pills, a person tends not to have (or not to heed) these emotional reactions to consequences of decisions that have not been made yet, if I understand correctly.
The reason I mention this is that you might want to wait till you are off the pain pills to continue this really, really interesting discussion of your sexuality. I do not mean to imply that your decision to comment will harm you—I just thought a warning about pain pills might be useful to you.
I noticed this issue myself, last night—I’d been nervous about posting the information in the second and third paragraphs before I took the meds, and wasn’t, afterwards, which was unusual enough to be slightly alarming. (I did write both paragraphs before my visit to the dentist, and didn’t edit them significantly afterwards.) The warning is appreciated, though.
I’ve spent enough time thinking about this kind of thing, though, that I’m confident I can rely on cached judgments of what is and isn’t wise to share, even in my slightly impaired state. I’ll wait on answering anything questionable, but I suspect that that’s unlikely to be an issue—I am really very open about this kind of thing in general, when I’m not worrying about making others uncomfortable with my oddness. It’s a side-effect of not having a sexual self to defend.
I assume that by “pain pills” you mean opioids and other narcotics? I suspect that asprin and other non-narcotic painkillers wouldn’t impair emotional reactions...
I’m taking an opioid, but I suspect that the effect would be seen with anything that affects sensory impressions, since it’ll also affect your ability to sense your emotions.