The Pendulum Swings... Part 3

The Pendulum Swings... Part 3

Mood swings are a well known part of human behaviour in modern day, because of portrayal of such behaviour on television, books, radio programmes and the likes. However, mood swings are actually signs of a kind of addiction.


Addictive Lifestyles

We are in a day and age where it is easy to get addicted. Our bodies and our minds were tuned to avoid pain and maximise pleasure - that was how it was when resources were scarce and we had to fight hardship to reach our pleasure. However, nowadays, with the way our easy access to everything we ever want or need - high caloric density food, satisfaction of primitive desires and quick access to virtually everything that makes us feel good about ourselves - we have a tendency to get addicted, which ironically causes more pain than pleasure.

And because of that, we actually have more and more people having mood swings. I was in class regarding addictions and substance use for my psychotherapy course last week and it hit me as to why people have mood swings (it's not absolute but a continuum): because they are addicted to a particular process.

Process Addiction

Process addiction is an addiction for a behaiour, action or activity that leads to dependence, tolerance and withdrawal. When we're in the process, we are gaining huge amounts of pleasure from it, but tolerance builds up and we need more and more of the process to feed our pleasure. Dependence happens as a result of relying it for psychological well-being, even if for a short moment. Withdrawal is where the mood swings comes into the picture - after we had our high from the process, we actually suffer from withdrawal when we're without it. We become emotionally labile and irritable and the moment we get the same fix we suddenly become alright for the day/hour/minute again. This process includes many things, whether is it ego-boosting events, or beating others, or whatever it is.

We all look to get pleasure, it's just the process that differs and how much we depend on it that defines whether it's an addiction, which is something dysfunctional, or something which simply maintains pleasure.


Short Term vs Long Term

We always hear the differences of short term vs long term gain. Singapore is a great example of how this point is used to argue a case for an unpopular policy, or for causing problems due to the constant change of environment and its side effects. However, it is true that short term gains are not always in line with long term gains, such as the pleasure for eating Carls' Jr everyday vs the pain of coronary diseases when you're 30+. There is an unending list of things in our lives nowadays that give us pleasure in the short term but ultimately cause us to lose sight of the long term happiness, including excessive gaming, television watching, etc., creating regret when we are older. In the same breath, what is difficult and causes pain for the short term does not necessarily cause us to be able to happy with what we have in the long term.

Then What Is The Key That Gives Us Long Term Happiness?

Being accurate, precise, strong, powerful, rich or famous does not give one happiness on its own, and we all know that. Instead let's concentrate on the one thing that is the commonality amongst lasting happiness - good self-esteem. What often happens in short-term thinking is that we often neglect our "bigger self", ie our idealistic and social side of ourselves, resulting in a sense of loss and regret over time lost and inability to accomplish personal achievements, leading to a burrowing of oneself into what already gives one pleasure and an avoidance of the idea of dealing with the pain of not achieving one's ideals.

Instead if we build our own self-esteem through means which are long-lasting - benchmarks set by oneself and regularly checked as to whether it lives up to one's image of oneself - we are likely to find that we can fulfill both short term and long term pleasures. As one of my tutors just recently told my clinical group last week, "The better you are, the less you have to second-guess yourself. The less you second guess yourself, the more time and peace you have."

Is It Normal To Have A Process Addiction?

Everyone wants pleasure. And the most amount of long-lasting pleasure we seek tends to be that of a solid and good self-esteem. (Though there are also many things that simply just give immediate pleasure) Temporary boosts in ego (often mistaken within oneself as self-esteem) very often give immediate pleasure and therefore are often easily preferred over long tedious processes of building self-esteem. Examples such as winning a political competition, getting a new branded bag, or getting good grades for a test without effort, as ends themselves, are common. These boosts are harmful because they are not actually not permanent (i.e. a skill or a personal achievement), are short-lived as only ego is boosted, not self-esteem.

The pleasure derived from direct stimulation for pleasure as well as ego-boosting events are actually what all of us tend to go for in the modern world with a strong excess of pleasure-stimulating opportunities. So yes, such addictions are very common, and can explain a person's mood swings and chase for same inane things that they themselves don't understand.

So What Is The Way To Deal With This?

There is truth in a statement that I've been reading a lot about lately, "no one truly believes their evil, even the hardest criminals believe that they were right". Everyone's ideal self-image is often that of a noble one, even if one denies it. Most people, when they realise it, will want to have contributed to mankind or their community in some way, or wish to leave a legacy that immortalises them. Recognising this is key in finding your way to a good and strong self-esteem because when you recognise it, you can identify what you're doing right, and move towards your goals.

The moment we accept our ideals and our addictions as normal, we can start realising our dreams buried beneath the mountain of "instant fixes" in our lives.

Moderating The Pendulum Swing

The day that we establish our self-esteem and recognise our true goals such that we can go towards it, many processes that used to be addiction-based would often lose its addictive flavour. Also, if allows one to moderate our pendulum swings such that it does not swing from extreme to extreme so easily, but instead tilt our centre of gravity to be more towards happiness - leading to a much better moderated life.


Why We Want Moderation

A small swing is much better than extreme swings because the average might be same, but the effects are very different. The most important reason for moderation is because of the fact that strong negative emotions have a lot more effects on our bodies and our minds than a long time in pure happiness. An analogy is driving, one moment of bad judgement can cause way more damage than many years of safe driving can repair. Another one would be of music, where the moment a mega boo boo appears and kills the momentum of the music, all the good will come to a naught. Therefore it is very important for the pendulum swing to not swing to the extreme side of negativity too often.


Countering The Effects Of Addictive Lifestyles

With new found awareness of one's own actions and dreams, I believe it's easier to conquer one's ego and build self-esteem for long-lasting happiness. The concentration should be on happiness, not avoiding the negative extreme, because that will tilt your pendulum the other way. The aim is to build a good esteem to allow reaching of your dreams and to maintain happiness.

I shall end it with an article that I read recently. Here's the link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128200.200-psychologist-why-we-screw-up-when-the-heat-is-on.html