Is the Sequel to Epiphany Addiction Depiphany?

I have a new edition of Dear Hannah out with a new intro and updated subtitle! The new intro jumps right into the most compelling story from my book, the one where I used a spreadsheet to measure my happiness. Also, the new subtitle, Letters from an Epiphany Addict, encapsulates what I was trying to express with “method abuse.” Together, these changes should launch readers right into my roller coaster ride through fourteen years of self-improvement.

Even though I finished writing Dear Hannah ten years ago, I haven’t stopped trying to grow. I could probably collect another seventy letters describing every method I used and abused since then!

Date: April 10, 2025
Age: 42
Location: San Francisco, CA
Subject: Depiphany and Invertigo

Hi Hannah. I’m in a really weird place with my self-improvement. I’ve been meditating every day for almost 15 years, and ostensibly, everything’s great. The epiphany addiction that I meticulously documented in Dear Hannah appears to have subsided, maybe dropping 80% from its peak. But now, my mind seems to have found a replacement for my epiphanies, an experience that’s less hurtful, but still somewhat insidious. I call these episodes “depiphanies.”

If the classic sentiment of an epiphany is, “Oh my god, everything makes so much sense right now,” then depiphanies are like, “Dear god, nothing makes sense now.” In a way, these are akin to that blank, dumbfounded look you get when you hear a good Zen koan.

Similarly, I seem to have transitioned from vertigo to invertigo. A few years ago, I started gamifying my mental health, which led to an increase in the rate of my mental change. Whenever I would adopt a new mental health practice, I’d experience a shock or “vertigo,” as I call them, because I could feel my brain falling apart.

I remember when I first started meditating, the shock sent me into a vertiginous spiral. I thought I was going crazy! Every part of my cognition, while seemingly enhanced by meditation, was also unfamiliar to me. I didn’t know how to think! It took me a few weeks to come down from that.

Recently, though, I’ve been getting vertigo every year! And each time they happen, I curse self-improvement and swear to stop exploring new mental health practices. But now, instead of vertigos, I’m encountering invertigos! Similar to the epiphany/depiphany dichotomy above, invertigo involves me sitting around with a stunned, lost feeling.

To be fair, I prefer depiphany and invertigo to epiphany and vertigo, but I still wish all this disruptive mental shit would go away. I wonder if this is just another instance of my mind “finding a way.” There’s this Substacker I follow, Philosophy Bear, who sometimes goes into detail about his struggle with OCD. And he described fear as being akin to cancer, whereby fearful thoughts mutate and get stronger over time.

For example, while meditation initially brought me a few years of calm, it eventually gave way to a new kind of aquisitive and restive pattern. I haven’t stopped obsessing. It’s just my thoughts are now “enhanced” with meditation. Someone once described me as using meditation for self-improvement, which made me cringe. That’s not what it’s for!

- Phil

I’m posting this letter online in case someone can’t figure out if they’re going crazy or not. If someone decides to Google something like “mental health vertigo,” maybe this will find its way to them.

Or, it could be that I’m the only one that’s experiencing this: still high-functioning, but still climbing that roller coaster.