Not OP, but it happened to me. Started meditation to deal with anxiety and the introspection that came with it, ended up with me on the verge of a complete breakdown. I started off doing Sam Harris and then progressed to doing an hour or more each day. I had some moments of insight and then hit some dark night of the soul which wrecked me, I was close to admitting myself to hospital for psychological help.
What fixed me was finally reading Breath by James Nestor and how you breath has a direct impact on the parasympathetic / sympathetic nervous system. I learned to take long slow breaths into the diaphragm and too nose breath all of the time. Basically my vagus nerve was fried from burn out and being in the fight flight mode of the parasympathetic system, as opposed to the 'rest and digest' chilled nature of sympathetic nervous system.
My own view now, is that mediation should not be attempted (at least by anyone with mental issues) until the parasympathetic / sympathetic system is balanced and stress is significantly reduced. This should start with the breath.
I feel like you did the wrong sort of meditation for anxiety. Mindfulness and breathing where you see the thought come and let it go is preferred for anxiety sufferers. You should not be following your anxious thoughts.
I could see how it would affect you negatively if you tried to follow all your anxious thoughts and delve into their "meaning". The goal for some with high anxiety ought to be lessening its meaning. You should just see it as another emotion with a neutral (or even helpful at times) stance. You don't lessen anxiety by giving it MORE attention. That seems like it would train your brain to think it's way too important and you'd get stuck in an anxiety loop.
The thing is, these "No true Scotsman" justifications only come out later.
Despite significant literature on meditation psychosis, meditation is promoted as a completely safe practice and risks are almost never mentioned to new practitioners.
TBH all I'm seeing are straw man arguments from you. It sounds like you have not given any time to a truly good-faith exploration of these methods, instead leaning on vague impressions based on only the most incidental and bottom-of-the-barrel evidence.
> sounds like you have not given any time to a truly good-faith exploration of these methods
To me, this is just a variation of "never mind the science, why don't you try for yourself" argument you find in quackery. I found a disconnect between what people were reporting and actual behavior in meditators.
> only the most incidental and bottom-of-the-barrel evidence.
Are scholarly reports of psychosis bottom of the barrel or are testimonials from meditators the bottom of the barrel? Perhaps next, you want to make an argument from popularity?
You might just be completely unfamiliar with the emerging scholarly literature on the topic.
Lambert, D., N. H. van den Berg, and A. Mendrek. "Adverse effects of meditation: A review of observational, experimental and case studies." Current Psychology (2021): 1-14.
> Ah, the old "you're criticizing me, ergo you believe everything I am criticizing unconditionally" fallacy. What fun...
I don't believe that you do. I said you used a familiar argument that quacks use. I do not believe that you believe in quackery. This isn't facebook. On hacker news, I assume people are generally critically minded.
> Disengaging because of the amazing amount of bad faith in your responses.
I don't know what you mean by bad faith here. I have no need to deceive you and don't feel anyone here is trying to deceive me either. I am not refusing facts unreasonably. I do have an unpopular position based on considerable thought on the matter. I am citing literature on the topic that is not dubious. You can't ground arguments any better than that. This is not bad faith.
Taylor, Greenberry B., et al. "The adverse effects of meditation-interventions and mind–body practices: A systematic review." Mindfulness 13.8 (2022): 1839-1856.
Britton, Willoughby B., et al. "Defining and measuring meditation-related adverse effects in mindfulness-based programs." Clinical Psychological Science 9.6 (2021): 1185-1204.
Shapiro Jr, Deane H. "Adverse Effects ofMeditation: A Preliminary Investigation ofLong-Term Meditators." International Journal of Psychosomatics 39.1-4 (1992): 63.
In any case, I do also agree that further exchange with you on this topic is not productive.
