Seneca is more accessible. Try him.
Alright I’ll look into his text. Bought a journal as well. Let’s go 
Btw are you guys taking 350mg of magnesium glycinate of 90ish mg?
I play this in the classroom every morning. My low level high schoolers have been writing from Seneca’s prompts for weeks now.
Weed affects each person differently, not only people with mental health problems. It’s fine to avoid it if has severe effects. It doesn’t make anyone less cool.
Physical activities like yoga are good.
Yup.
And I did a memory check and every time I had a panic attack when I was younger it was connected to weed I wasn’t used to. Sativa is the devil. Indica is the jam.
Cannabis can make you very introspective. If you’re like me and block everything that bothers you out and compartmentalize problems until it bubbles up and gets you when you don’t expect it this controlled introspection is useful.
As I’ve mentioned it allows me to self reflect and face my fears and problems in controlled and safe space. For some this might be more than they expect and cause anxiety.
I do have to say that the first time if you don’t use it often can often be the most intense. If you can push past that and accept the things you’re self reflecting it can be therapeutic.
I have a much better time smoking weed by myself
True. Or with people you really like to be around. I’ve never found it enjoyable socially as I get social anxiety from it and overthink everything I do and say.
I’ve not had much good time smoking weed myself, but I never really actually tried smoking weed, apart from taking a hit when a friend was doing it. And that experience scared me. Then as the effect wears off I felt intense loneliness that got worse.
I actually heard MDMA is better for feeling connection especially when taken around someone you like being around… and those are popular as heck in Taiwan.
Me three. I have friends* who can use it then carry on with their evening being as social and lucid as normal, but for me I’d feel better being left alone for the next couple of hours without needing to interact with anyone.
I also tend to feel pretty fuzzy and out of it for the next day or two, so I don’t find it great for anything that needs me to focus on things (work, or driving a motorbike in Thailand). I had an extra strong brownie in Thailand that made me feel like this for about three days after. So I tend to avoid it in general.
(*I’m talking about countries outside Taiwan of course. It’s not legal here, so obviously I don’t know anything about the situation in Taiwan.)
I would think a great part of the benefit comes from re-reading one’s own writing, to examine your own thoughts in an objective fashion, or as compared to the passage of time and new circumstances.
I don’t journal as a form of therapy. But I have written extensively for myself, to examine my ideas about starting a business, choosing a career path, and how I really deal with money (vs. how I “should” deal with money).
I write a description of my desires in writing (and perhaps these are things that I don’t want to admit to or talk about with others). I write out a plan to achieve these things, as well as a written comparison of likelihood of success. Or a written description of what’s holding me back.
When I revisit these written words a week or a month later, I might think “that’s a really dumb idea and I have a big blind spot that I need to address.” Or I might think “I’m still inspired by this good idea, and now I can look at my plan objectively and make some positive changes.”
In an earlier paragraph I stated that this is not a form of therapy. Perhaps I assumed that if I’m not specifically addressing depression or an emotional “problem” that it’s not therapeutic. But the process, and the benefit, may be similar. In addition, a person’s emotions are part of the decision making process surrounding business, finances, and career, and those things also effect emotional state. So it’s hard to say that something is or is not therapeutic. If it helps, then it helps.
So I think it is therapeutic to examine one’s own thoughts and feelings, and the process of writing helps one to look at decisions and emotions a bit more objectively as if someone else had written them on the page. Without that distance it’s not easy to examine your own emotions and thoughts through the subjective lens of your current mental / emotional state.
Maybe a good therapist does something simliar: gives you an objective take on what you’re thinking and feeling so you can understand your own weaknesses or errors. Writing or journaling does not have the benefit of a trained professional to help you, but it can certainly help you gain distance from your thoughts and actions, if you have the willingness to look at yourself objectively.
That’s a very different physiological process going on there compared to smoking it.
The brownie was a one-off, and it wasn’t the only physiological process that went on in Thailand or in my lifetime. 
Amen, especially listening to Zydeco grooves with Kombucha and wet tacos.
Boozoo Chavis Paper In My Shoe (1954) - YouTube
My therapist only suggested strategies in a general way. It was up to me to implement them. I went from drunk scribbling in notebook after notebook through abstract painting into memoir writing into fiction writing.
Writing classes will have a professional running them. My memoir class was run by a guy who teaches memoir writing and edits for a living. I took a freshman fiction course at a community college. I ended up earning a spot in the New York State Writers Institute fiction course. The class was run by a publisher author with a Netflix movie. Wutwut
Point being, writing is very good for you. It helps to clarify your thinking. There are many very good teachers online and many university and community college courses one can get in to online. Also a great idea.
Tough it gets. Sucks getting ground through the grain mill. Stick it out. God has a plan.
Cheers. 
I was about to write something like this in an earlier comment but declined to include it since it was already outside of the point that I replied to. But yeah, I thoroughly agree with this.
Yes, creative endeavors work wonders to me too. It helps me focus and feel productive while avoiding social interactions.
If God’s got a plan it’s a weird one. Like why even let me go back to America if it was ever going to be temporarily? Why give me the false hope. If it’s my fate to stay in Taiwan forever then going back to America was a waste of time. I don’t know what the plan is.
I want to put this on a T-shirt!
To be honest with you I’m at the “demand to see life’s manager” stage right now.