At what point is self-analysis counterproductive?

[Fawkes]

So over the past few months I've experienced some pretty traumatic events that have unveiled some pretty twisted and dark aspects of my psyche I never really knew were there. As a result, I've been incessantly psychoanalyzing myself in an effort to find the causes of these things and subsequently change them, but the more I do it, the worse it gets. It's like with every new thing I uncover about myself, I hate myself that much more for it. At what point do you think it makes sense to just say fuck it and accept myself for the way I am and try to embrace it rather than torturing myself by discovering more and more awful things about me that I never recognized? Obviously, none of you really know anything too personal about me, but in your own experiences, do you find it better to just accept the really fucked up parts about you rather than trying to search endlessly for some cause?

[Summerspeaker]

I discarded self-hatred a long time ago and have become even more depressed as a result. Be careful.

As far as causes go, though, capitalist industrial civilization explains almost anything psychological damage you can think of.

[Octavian]

Thinking of yourself any more than a monkey on a rock that floats around a giant ball of fire is damaging to the mind.

[Decolonize The Left]

On one hand, this:

Thinking of yourself any more than a monkey on a rock that floats around a giant ball of fire is damaging to the mind.

There's quite a bit to be said about this sort of perspective (huge pun there). I often find it helpful, but I certainly don't think it's "damaging to the mind" if you don't see things this way.

I guess I don't really know what a "dark and twisted part of my psyche" means, (as in I want to cut of the arms of baby kittens and watch them squirm?) so I don't really know what kind of shit we're talking about. I'm guess I'm just saying that we've all got our shit to deal with and we deal with it as we can - but hating yourself isn't going to help anything.

You have to overcome yourself.

- August

[Comrade J]

Rarely one to quote others, but Durkheim came to mind when I read your post Fawkes, he had some really interesting analysis on over-contemplation of the self.


A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt. If it cannot discover the claims to existence of the objects of its questioning -- and it would be miraculous if it so soon succeeded in solving so many mysteries -- it will deny them all reality, the mere formulation of the problem already implying an inclination to negative solutions. But in so doing it will become void of all positive content and, finding nothing which offers it resistance, will launch itself perforce into the emptiness of inner revere.


Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character. So, melancholy is morbid only when it occupies too much place in life; but it is equally morbid for it to be wholly excluded from life.”


The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. If he loves, it is not to give himself, to blend in fecund union with another being, but to meditate on his love. His passions are mere appearances, being sterile. They are dissipated in futile imaginings, producing nothing external to themselves.