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