Frequently asked questions

Good mental health is not something you have, but something you do. To be mentally healthy you must value and accept yourself. This means that:

We suffer mental distress when we don't value and accept ourselves. This way of thinking usually comes from childhood, when we decided that we must be bad and unacceptable, otherwise our family would not have treated us as they did. This makes it very difficult for us to cope with the difficulties and disasters we encounter.

Mental distress is not compulsory. However, if we don't value and accept ourselves, we're making sure that we feel mental distress when life is difficult. If we do feel positive about ourselves, then when we suffer loss, we feel sad, not depressed. So, when someone treats us badly, we feel angry, but not guilty because we feel angry. When someone or something threatens us, we feel frightened, but we're not overwhelmed, because we look after ourselves and make ourselves safe.

Accept that you can change. Nobody stays the same, so you may as well change for the better. The big change that you need to make is to come to value and accept yourself. If you have spent most of your life believing that you're unacceptable and of little value, it's hard to change, because all your ideas and ways of behaving are based on that assumption.

Remember, it is not what happens to us that causes our distress, but how we interpret what happens to us. For example, if your mother always belittles and hurts you, and if you believe it is a law of the universe that you have to see her every week, then it is you making sure that you suffer.

People who have gone through a period of mental distress will often say afterwards how much they appreciated having someone who was there for them, who encouraged and supported them, even though they did not show their appreciation at the time.