Self-analysis: Thinking about your own psychology.

[Joe-(5-HTP)]

Self analysis: Thinking about your own psychology and keeping the mind healthy.

It is simple (although not easy) to exercise, eat well, pop vitamins now and again and generally look after your body. It is not always so simple (or easy) to look after your mind.

So the question is: How does SWIY self-analyse? I don’t just mean watching out for any symptoms of psychosis, I am speaking about self study in a more general sense: What does SWIY do to integrate drug use and all the other aspects of SWIY's life (assuming there are any others) into a healthy (however swiy defines healthy) psychology.

Self analysis is a big issue for me. Drugs can affect family, friends, relationships, jobs, education/learning, and many more, if not all, aspects of life. Subsequently, personality, emotions, beliefs and ultimately, our answer to the question “what does it all mean to me”, when thinking about these aspects, can be affected. Of course, swimmers may use drugs to purposefully change their personality/notion of self. Whatever the individual purpose, Swim would be interested in how other swimmers analyse themselves in relation to the role drugs play in their unique lifestyle.

The psychology of individuals is invariably unique. This is a combination of my experiences and practices of self-analysis, and also some general thoughts not based on my own experiences. My thoughts are by no means objective. If this is nothing but a personal rant, you have my apologies .

Aspects of my own self-analysis:

Friends/family who understand Swim’s lifestyle help by mentioning, if perceived, any developing strange behavioral patterns. Swim’s family knows he does drugs and sometimes mention things to swim, such as new apathy towards things to which swim was previously interested. If your family or friends try to suggest something like this, getting defensive is not only unhelpful; it may mean you have an ego problem (it did for swim). They are only trying to help: they may be wrong but serious contemplation is always required, not just an automatic dismissal.

Social Skills, eg, when meeting new people, swim tries to notice how sociable he can be. This includes noticing if he makes conversation less easily or feel less comfortable. Social skills can deteriorate for a whole host of reasons- perhaps because you only hang out with stoners for example, not necessarily because of drug use itself. As you can see, these factors all interlink. The people swim “hangs out” with are generally users but he feels (hopes) like his social skills are developing properly. Awareness in situations where social skills are put to the test is a must for discerning social capabilities.

Paranoia: Of the many possible problems you might develop, paranoia is one of the most likely. This would inhibit your ability to take advice and criticisms from others or to interpret people’s reactions to you. If you find yourself thinking people you once trusted are keeping things from you, or if you notice that people’s demeanor toward you is markedly different to how you remember it, say a few months ago, then you are most likely to be paranoid rather than there being any truth to your suspicions. Of course, if people change their attitude toward you it might simply be indicative of a change in your personality, such as becoming more edgy, lazy, withdrawn, etc. Of course, it could be that you are simply being more perceptive and alert than you were previously. Such are the difficulties of self-analysis; just bear in mind that there are many possibilities and try to test many different theories you have about yourself and think of all possible sides to an issue.

Drug obsession Swim used to be pretty drug-obsessed and found that he had less interest for things he was previously very passionate about, such as reading philosophy, piano playing and other things. Finding information about drugs, trying and experimenting with drugs with different people in different settings became (and still is although to a lesser extent) a significant obsession for swim. Swim feels, though, that there is no harm done as long as it remains just a phase (and swiy is wary of addictive substances). Of course, swim sees that there are ways to revolve your entire life around drugs and still be psychologically healthy: if you are an ethnobotanical spiritualist or something like that. For swim, however, it was generally detrimental to his interests as he had to work hard, fighting apathy, to get them back. Swim is trying to say that everyone has a different level to which drugs can be a healthy obsession, and that it probably depends on what your general lifestyle is.

Change: If you sense any change or development in your emotional outlook, capabilities, mental stability or connections with others then you have to honestly ask yourself whether or not you are either a) purposefully cultivating this change (in which case it would not be a problem to you) or b) out of control of yourself (which, of course, could be your purpose…)

Exploring your mind. Some people, SWIY included sometimes use drugs for the purposes of exploring the mind and even to try to change it, either to "heal" or to simply change for the better (or worse if thats what you like). SWIM is not going to give any advise as that would be presumptuous because all techniques and people are different. Swim will say, however, that SWIY's who do this should be careful of using spirituality as an excuse to get high. Swim has certainly used that excuse in the past and believed it himself.

Reasons for use: Swim always tries to think about the reasons he uses. At times of depression or emotional pain in swim’s life he is often tempted to lose himself on some dissociative or opiate. Although swim sometimes does this, he realises that it is no replacement for normal emotional healing and simply ‘working through’ sad events which are bound to happen now and again. Swim suspects that using to get rid of emotional pain could lead to an psychological incapability to deal with painful emotions without drugs (And of course there is the danger of addiction…) Similarly, swim also suspects that doing drugs out of boredom, in contrast to using to amplify a pre-existing interest (such as spirituality), could lead to general apathy and more boredom so he tries to keep it to a minimum.

In general Swim tries to think about himself a lot using self-analysis but also in a more simple, life affirming way. It’s hard to keep track of himself, especially as he isn’t exactly sure who he really is.

Hope you found this interesting.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Gives a good base of topics to swimmers think about how their drug use affects their lifestyle. A helpful post.
	Well-formulated and rings true to not only SWIY

[Stationary Traveller]

Hi,

SWIM found your post very interesting and it sure lead him to think about such things a little more, not that he doesn't anyways. He was (and still is) just the way you described swiyself, carrying a lot more interest in drugs and what they can do to people, and having other areas of interest reduced by this. Well for him its more than just the drug or the effect, its a fascination with the human brain and capabilities. Questions as to why we feel the way we do (aside from the chemical explanation), and he sees it as a real peeping hole into the complex human brain (when you notice you're not actually looking at the object but copy/pasting it from memory on a shroom trip for ex.)

He also thought long and hard about appearances, why you would find a particular person more sociable than another one, how much of your inner thoughts can you reflect with your appearance etc.

Swim recently noticed that we have a very simple and basic assumption/expectation from a person (in terms of their personality) and that is coherence. People acting in a similar fashion most of the time tend to have a defining personality to them, stubbornness, cheekyness etc. at most all times. Well he was thinking about how he is; how he would define himself...

Surprisingly he no longer believes that you need to create a solid, predictable and comfortable personality. He noticed (in his experience in life so far) that many things that he had let go because it doesn't fit his "personality". From his musical choice to his hair style to the fucking women he loves he always found reasonable, logical arguments to back up that choice, all at the same time making sure he was a coherent participant of the society. "I'm smarter than that" "I won't go that low" and most generally letting immediate experience escape him for uncertainty later on.

Well, he finally said fuck it. He stopped looking for reasons why he likes/dislikes something, stopped building arguments up if someone asked him why he ate shitty food, stopped analyzing every single thing that comes out of his mouth in consideration to another persons feelings.

It feels good, it definitely feels good to have a solid base for your actions, a rationale behind why you do things the way you do and think what you think. But for him it became unmanageable, this whole web of thoughts connected to each other nice and snug. He feels like he has to have reasons to do something, as if he has to explain every action at the end of it all (ah, the irony).

So lately he has not been giving a shit anymore. He could care less about maintaining a personality and a coherent outer appearance.

On the inside though, things are well. He is content with his decisions and although has no defensive measures in place should things go wrong, he will go with them.

It was a long post but it is a topic that swim has had a lot in his mind lately.

[Joe-(5-HTP)]

Originally Posted by Stationary Traveller

Surprisingly he no longer believes that you need to create a solid, predictable and comfortable personality. He noticed (in his experience in life so far) that many things that he had let go because it doesn't fit his "personality". From his musical choice to his hair style to the fucking women he loves he always found reasonable, logical arguments to back up that choice, all at the same time making sure he was a coherent participant of the society. "I'm smarter than that" "I won't go that low" and most generally letting immediate experience escape him for uncertainty later on.

Well, he finally said fuck it. He stopped looking for reasons why he likes/dislikes something, stopped building arguments up if someone asked him why he ate shitty food, stopped analyzing every single thing that comes out of his mouth in consideration to another persons feelings.

It feels good, it definitely feels good to have a solid base for your actions, a rationale behind why you do things the way you do and think what you think. But for him it became unmanageable, this whole web of thoughts connected to each other nice and snug. He feels like he has to have reasons to do something, as if he has to explain every action at the end of it all (ah, the irony).

So lately he has not been giving a shit anymore. He could care less about maintaining a personality and a coherent outer appearance.

On the inside though, things are well. He is content with his decisions and although has no defensive measures in place should things go wrong, he will go with them.

That's interesting... Swim is pretty much obsessed with analysing his actions and is feeling good at having a "solid base", as you put it. Although his analysis is ordered, it is not regimented: Swim still has room for awe and wonder and in fact spends most of his time in such a state. Swim likes to feel out of control every now and again, however, and self-inflicts himself with panic attacks because he gets a "rush" at feeling out of control. His life philosophy of late has consisted of "if an experience is interesting, it is worth having, and taking into account the fact that it might be painful or cause suffering is closed minded" - He feels that he has certainly had some interesting but painful experiences (usually with psychedelics) and is now convinced that it is not such a healthy way to live as he is currently experiencing derealisation every now and again...

Swim is off for a long holiday soon, away from drugs and society and stress and he is sure he will work out any issues he has given himself.