The idea you need synthetic, mind-altering drugs to "be yourself" is tautologically absurd on its face, and this kind of discourse is pushed by manufacturers of those drugs.
I need mind altering substances to avoid anxiety and depression; I wholly reject the idea that without these substances, I am my "true self." My intrusive thoughts and self doubts aren't mystically good just because my mind produces them in the absence of substances; the feeling of self actualization I have if I use substances and am able to move past that headspace and reclaim my creativity (what I personally call "feeling like myself again") is no less real for having involved substances.
Aren't these selves both just... you though? I get that one state of mind is more desirable than the other, but denying that anxiety is part of your psychology makes it more seem like your "true self" is who you want to be than who you are. To be clear I'm not saying anxiety meds are bad or you're wrong for medicating or for wanting to not be racked by anxiety.
There are many states of mind that are unpleasant. Anxiety, grief, doubt, jealousy, anger, and so on; and many behaviors that we may engage in that we rationally realize we should not, various forms of self-sabotage, unhealthy habits, and so on.
I don't think saying because we don't like these things, these things aren't really your true self is helpful. They don't need to be part of us, but if we can't face the fact that they are, they will remain.
I don't think we disagree. It's appropriate to feel grief after experiencing loss, etc; I'm not advocating some kind of Brave New World approach of popping a soma any time you're in danger of feeling uncomfortable.
I do think it's a helpful framing to say, "my intrusive thoughts are not me; they're weather that passes through my mind, no more meaningful than the shapes I find in clouds or the static between television channels." Like, if I'm feeling anxious, I might get a vivid fantasy of bizarre self harm; that's just some weird shit that happened, it doesn't mean anything more than that I'm anxious and that my mind is capable of producing some whack imagery. Before I had this framing I'd have concerns like, is there some deep dark part of me that's trying to harm me? But no, it's just that I'm a very complex machine, my sensory apparatus produces all kinds of weird signals and some of them are just noise; they can be ignored, I don't have to identify with them, and doing so would be dangerous.
What I was getting at was more that sometimes people invoke a naturalism fallacy, sometimes in combination with a "just suck it up" sort of mentality, which I reject for a few reasons:
1. We don't have to accept things because they are natural; we don't have to accept cancer, or our inability to fly, or depression.
2. There is nothing morally superior about being miserable ("just sucking it up"). Improving your life is a small way of improving the world; I think that's a moral good.
3. Consciousness is a reflexive process between you and your environment. You take in input which changes your inner world and you produce output that changes your environment. Your thinking can't be separated cleanly from that environment. For example, the people you regularly turn to for advice provide feedback you use to regulate yourself; they are part of your process for thinking and coming to decisions. If you take in input in the form of a substance that changes your thinking - that can be dangerous, it needs to be done with care, but it isn't actually "unnatural" in the first place. If there's a failure mode of your consciousness and taking an antidepressant helps you to avoid it, that's just a feedback mechanism you've discovered & adopted from the outside world.
Its only true if we are not only sum of our experiences with bit of genetic modifiers sprinkled on.
Otherwise how the feeling of content on christmas eve with family is more true self than suicidal anxiety of existantial dredd You feel day after when everbody has gone to do their mostly pointless things.
I personalny am not sure which is more true - selecting any of those as nature seems like some some sort of rationalization to fit reality into ideollogy we just want, more or less subconsciously, to be true.
"content on christmas eve with family is more true self than suicidal anxiety of existantial dredd"
Both are true feelings, but my point was, that I don't think a general baseline anxiety is something that is part of ones personality. I feel limited in myself, when fear is dominating and free, if the fear is gone and I am no longer blocked to do the things I want.
I think you’ve tapped into something valuable here - really there are many yous; both in the moment and in the holistic.
We are both our best parts and our worse parts, and to take an analogy further if one felt their ‚best self‘ on MDMA‚ that wouldn’t meant to say that taking it every day would make them feel their ‚best self‘ in aggregate.
If a recovering smoker avoids cigarettes are they avoiding their ‚true self‘? I retort both are their true self, and anyway your true self no doubt changes.
'no man steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man'
I didn't realize I had anxiety and Fibromyalgia until I took a little too much of cannabis bread. My thoughts weren't all over the place, I had better control of my coordination and oh how clear my thoughts were. Math concepts I had struggled with in school suddenly made sense. As the effects of the THC wore off, I noticed a familiar feeling of pain come over me body. Only this time, It came slowly, and its intensity increased as the effects of the THC wore off. Is this pain in my nerves? I was used to experiencing it as irritations, stress, and fatigue. I could make sense of it because I had time to think about it before getting overwhelmed by it. I was fascinated! I discovered the word Fibromyalgia after this.
The second time I ate the bread, I made sure I had no activities for the day, was alone at home, and observed my behavior prior to taking the cannabis. When it was time to eat, I got a timer and took note of when the effects kicked in, which parts of my body became relaxed first and how the general transition from stress, /micro pain/anxiety to peace, and clear thoughts happened. I loved the discovery I was making. After a couple of months I quit the cannabis and switched to meditation, yoga, ice baths, and CBT to deal with the anxiety. It has worked. These days I don't meditate or do yoga daily, but I have better control of my life, and very grateful for the experience that led me here.
Counterexample: I have a friend who was a very happy person and started taking ecstasy in early 2000s. At one of the parties he saw a young colleague die just next to him. Of course everybody interpreted it as an unfortunate coincidence ("if you're unlucky, you can die of aspirin, too").
Then, one day, he went to see his dentist who asked him if he wants to take nitrous oxide. My friend agreed but that day something strange started happening to him. When he was telling me it seemed like serious paranoia. He lost his job, he was seeing things that weren't there, day and night. It lasted more than two years and doctors weren't able to help him. He is more or less normal now but won't even touch anything intoxicating, not even alcohol.
Later I saw some articles about that and it doesn't seem so uncommon:
You'll get no argument from me that both ecstacy and nitrous oxide are incredibly dangerous. I don't do ecstacy and I'm not keen on being sedated with nitrous oxide. I wish things had been different for your friend. I think a recreational drug culture isn't well equipped to understand and respond to hazards like this; I wish we had something different, where use was more mindful and it wasn't driven underground, making it inaccessible to doctors and researchers.
I also used ecstasy to avoid my anxiety (in the early 2000’s mainly) - I’ve found more recently that therapy from a good professional is better for me.
> I wholly reject the idea that without these substances, I am my "true self."
Yes, scare quotes intentional. It seems to me more like the phrasing of "be yourself" and be your "true self" in this comment and parent is the issue. What if that "true vs false self" is an illusion anyway? You can still "be better", be what you want to be, be happier and more capable, be a better self, that you like more.
It doesn't require any claims that "this point on the graph is truly me, and that point is not". That statement might not just be false, but be actually meaningless. Drugs are mind-altering for sure, that's the point of them, but so is learning a new skill or reading a good book.
Good post. Are there any downsides? I use alcohol to excess, a habit I developed in the days when socialising was something I wanted/needed to do but needed help with it.
Let me be clear that I don't use ecstasy to regulate my mood (or, personally, at all) and that I'm not a doctor.
I use marijuana to break out of loops of anxiety and repetitive, intrusive thoughts (blessedly legal where I live), and there are some modest downsides, mostly that it's expensive and only works if used in moderation. It helps snap me out of anxiety attacks and shorten the duration of depressive episodes but it isn't magic, I still have to confront my issues and work towards making my life better.
Virtually everyone I know has struggled with anxiety and/or depression and has had success going to therapy and taking some sort of antidepressant. Many of them had to go through several therapists & medications until they found a therapist they meshed with and a prescription/dosage that worked for them; it's a difficult and frustrating process, but I've seen it really work for people in my life.
Like I said, I'm not a doctor, I can only give the most general advice, but it is my belief that if you want your life to be different, it's a real possibility, it's something worth working towards, and if you feel that you use alcohol in excess, it's worth considering whether a professional can help you to identify a different strategy/medication.
At the same thing I doubt this article is some output of "big MDMA".
I can definitely say the authors experience chimes with my own, talking to people openly at after parties sorted out a lot of things for me - with apologies to anyone that became my adhoc therapist at the time.
Of course there are downsides; one upside of feeling terrible on a Wednesday is the realisation that it was vecause of going out on a Friday.
What's worse is feeling terrible and it's during a time where you haven't been going out partying.
You also don't need a beer to celebrate with friends.
You also don't need a nice winter walk to find a deepened sense of feeling alive.
You don't need a nice house and car to feel like you are worth something.
The truth is, external things impact our lives. The substances consume, food we eat, landscapes we move through, people we talk to, objects we use, architecture we work and live in influences us more than we would like.
Nobody would say "It is sad that you need that glas of Prosecco to celebrate New Year's with your friends." Because strictly speaking you don't really need it — it is just nicer that way. (Edit: unless of course you are an alcoholic, which is a real thing)
This is the way that kind of party drug can work as well. You don't need it to be happy, but it is nicer that way.
"Nobody would say "It is sad that you need that glas of Prosecco to celebrate New Year's with your friends." Because strictly speaking you don't really need it "
Of course, some people feel that they do actually need it and that is the rub with expressing positives about drugs or other externalities. Some people become addicted and those addictions can have incredibly negative effects on the people around them.
That goes without speaking. Drugs are not without risk and they are tricky because even smart people might fall into the trap of tricking themselves till it is too late.
That being said the same is true of a lot of things as well. People can become addicted to social media, expressions of material wealth, porn, food, ... Literally everything that provides a dopamine boost in some way.
The question depending on the specific object of desire is always how much of the addiction is in the "substance" and how much in the mind of the addicted person.
“Nobody would say "It is sad that you need that glas of Prosecco to celebrate New Year's with your friends."”
There are actually quite a large number of people who would say exactly that. It’s a minority position, but there are still quite a few people in the US who are opposed to alcohol consumption and have exactly the same concerns about it as other drugs. (Often, but not always, based in religious convictions.)
I simplified reality for the sake of argument. It goes without saying that there are people who have religious or moralic concerns, there also people who have actual good reasons to avoid alcoholic drinks (e.g. if you or someone in your family had problems with alcohol in the past).
I think a realistic stance towards drugs like alcohol or MDMA demands that we do not ignore the problems these drugs cause, but also see with how many users they don't cause any problem at all.
The article doesn’t describe it that way. More like turning off parts if your brain and letting other parts come to the forefront. Thinking of your brain this way, that you have multiple zones I guess jostling for control is an interesting concept.
Personally I was too scared by the Leah Betts type thing (mentioned in the article) at the time to try E and I was had a perhaps irrational fear that drugs would affect academic performance and basically lower my IQ so I never did them.
Of course the main thing I should have been scared of is my first year of driving a car, statistically!
Mind altering drugs allows one to glimpse what kind of person one could be if they where e.g more empathetic or less anxious. It can help people better understand such feelings.
I can understand the “true self” narrative, when one loses their constant anxiety for on a trip for example, those feeling suddenly start to feel different in sober life, as if they are no longer a part of you but instead are with you. Hence why you discover your “true self”, who does not have such negative feelings.
The idea that you reject such powerful (and yes, dangerous) tools due to the societal stigma to "drugs" is sad and the reason research only now starts to pick up again, way too late.
It's absurd, especially in the US, how a crazy amount of people is put on anti-depressants for years instead.
Many people struggle with anxiety, depression, lack of energy or other, sometimes extremely harsh and severe, mental issues. To blanketly dismiss the problems people encounter and then to condemn the possibility of treatment or relief is callous and impulsive.
I’ve taken mdma at parties and concerts in the past. Without it, I had anxiety and am generally quiet and stiff, with it I’m out on the dance floor with everyone else having a good time.
yeah, that "I wanted to dance to the music" and "I felt connected to people" - uhhh, I feel that just by being in a dark room with music and dancing and other people enjoying it. That's just the club atmosphere. Takes a little time to get into it though.
In a broader sense, I think it's worth exploring the notion that there is such a thing as a true self that you're normally not able to access, that may be revealed through some process of therapy, insight, meditation ritual or drugs.
I'm not sure where it comes from, and there are some pretty concerning inconsistencies with the notion if you scrutinize it.
I don't think one needs drugs for that kind of exploration. It is relatively obvious, that me vs me armed with Wikipedia are quite different. There are many ways you can slice it.
It's more about being your best self. There is a range of "you"ness, many possible versions of you, angling for a particular one is just self improvement, even if done by artificial means.
