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
recognizes 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 planes' 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 night's 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 order, 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 favor 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.
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Subtitles by Carol Wang