On 2026-08-08 Chris Lakin (@chrislakin) claimed 'feeling more' is part of a…

Brief

Chris Lakin argues that while 'feeling more' can be a globally optimal mental state, it can resemble psychosis when life incentives encourage emotional numbing: he hated himself, so feeling more only intensified misery and he chose anesthesia. After fixing situational incentives (housing, finances, health, self-concept, social dynamics) and getting help, he recovered; Raye warns retreats may inflame rather than resolve emotions.

Why it matters

On 2026-08-08 Chris Lakin (@chrislakin) claimed 'feeling more' is part of a globally optimal mental state but can produce ~psychosis when incentives push someone to feel less; he personally hated himself, so feeling more amplified self-loathing and made the world feel bad, prompting him to choose emotional anesthesia.

Key details

Lakin identifies concrete incentives that blocked feeling: living situation and who he lived with, finances, health, self-concept, and social interaction—specifically using self-dislike as a strategy to avoid risky social conflicts; addressing those incentives made 'feeling more' easy.

Lakin reports receiving substantial help after a prolonged, difficult recovery and ending up 'closer to optimal'; the post includes Raye (@rayefull) warning that some retreats inflame emotions without teaching processing, risking people getting stuck in intense emotional states.

while 'feeling more' is part of the globally optimal mental state, it can also lead to ~psychosis when there are incentives to feel less

in my case, I hated myself, so feeling more meant feeling how much I disliked myself. it made everything feel bad, made the world feel bad. I chose to feel less instead.

(it was anesthesia. my anesthesia was protecting me)

feeling more became easy after the incentives of my situation were addressed. some had to do with my life situation, who I was living with, my finances, my health. some related to my self-concept. most of it related to social interaction and how I was using disliking myself as a strategy to avoid risky social conflicts.

i'm fortunate to have received a lot of help. it was a stupid head-bashy journey that took way longer than it had to as I know now, but I made it out closer to optimal :)

Video

Raye (@rayefull)

There’s a specific state I see people fall into when they start getting into emotions. They’ll come back from a retreat and maybe access new feelings they have not had before. They might think that having a lot of new emotions is a sign that Something is happening and is good outcome. I think this is not great. I think these retreats are stirring up emotional states and then teaching people how to inflame them, so they can feel them. They are not teaching people how to go under and through their emotions, so there is risk of getting stuck in this teenage girl state of really big emotions rotting in your chest.

— https://nitter.net/rayefull/status/2085400791268176092#m