So efficient and hushed are our
brains in their day to day operations,
we are apt to miss what an extraordinary
and complicated achievement it is to feel
mentally well. A mind in a healthy state is,
in the background, continually performing
a near-miraculous set of manoeuvres that underpin
our moods of clear-sightedness and purpose.
To appreciate what mental health might be
(and therefore what its opposite
involves), we might take a moment
to consider some of what will be going on in
the folds of an optimally-functioning mind:
First and foremost, a healthy mind is an
editing mind, an organ that manages to sieve,
from thousands of stray, dramatic, disconcerting
or horrifying thoughts, those particular ideas and
sensations that actively need to be entertained
in order for us to direct our lives effectively.
Partly this means keeping at bay punitive
and critical judgements that might want to tell
us repeatedly how disgraceful and appalling we
are - long after harshness has ceased to serve
any useful purpose. When we are interviewing
for a new job or taking someone on a date,
a healthy mind doesn’t force
us to listen to inner voices
that insist on our unworthiness. It allows us
to talk to ourselves as we would to a friend.
At the same time, a healthy mind
resists the pull of unfair comparisons.
It doesn’t constantly allow the achievements
and successes of others to throw us off course
and reduce us to a state of bitter inadequacy.
It doesn’t torture us by continually comparing
our condition to that of people who have,
in reality, had very different upbringings and
trajectories through life. A well-functioning
mind recognises the futility and cruelty of
constantly finding fault with its own nature.
Along the way, a healthy mind keeps
a judicious grip on the faucet of fear.
It knows that, in theory, there is an endless
number of things that we could worry about:
a blood vessel might fail, a scandal might erupt,
the plane’s engines could sheer from their wings…
But it has a good sense of the distinction between
what could conceivably happen and what is in fact
likely to happen - and it is able to leave us in
peace as regards the wilder eventualities of fate,
confident that awful things will either not
unfold or could be dealt with ably enough
if ever they did so. A healthy mind avoids
catastrophic imaginings: it knows that there
are broad and stable stone steps, not a steep and
slippery incline, between itself and disaster.
A healthy mind has compartments with heavy
doors that shut securely. It can compartmentalise
where it needs to. Not all thoughts belong at
all moments. While talking to a grandmother,
the mind prevents the emergence of images of
last’s nights erotic fantasies; while looking
after a child, it can repress its more cynical
and misanthropic insights. Aberrant thoughts about
jumping on a train line or harming oneself with
a sharp knife can remain brief peculiar flashes
rather than repetitive fixations. A healthy
mind has mastered the techniques of censorship.
A healthy mind can quieten its own buzzing
preoccupations in o rder, at times, to focus on
the world beyond itself. It can be present and
engaged with what and who is immediately around.
Not everything it could feel has to be felt
at every moment. It can be a good listener.
A healthy mind combines an
appropriate suspicion of certain people
with a fundamental trust in humanity.
It can take an intelligent risk with a stranger.
It doesn’t extrapolate from life’s worst moments
in order to destroy the possibility of
anything good emerging with a new acquaintance.
A healthy mind knows how to hope;
it identifies and then hangs on tenaciously to a
few reasons to keep going. Grounds for despair,
anger and sadness are, of course, all around. But
the healthy mind knows how to bracket negativity
in the name of endurance. It clings to
evidence of what is still beautiful and kind.
It remembers to appreciate; it can - despite
everything - still look forward to a hot bath,
some dried fruit or dark chocolate, a chat with a
friend, or a satisfying day of work. It refuses to
let itself be silenced by all the many sensible
arguments in favour of rage and despondency.
Outlining some of the features of a healthy
mind helps us to identify what can go awry
when we fall ill. We should acknowledge the extent
to which mental illness is ultimately as common,
and as essentially unshameful,
as its bodily counterpart.
True mental health involves a frank acceptance
of how much ill health there will have to be in
even the most ostensibly competent and meaningful
life. And we should be no more reluctant to
seek help than we are when we develop a chest
infection or a sore knee - and should consider
ourselves no less worthy of love and sympathy.