There seems to be some misunderstandings around what constitutes good mental health. One of the common myths is that good mental health is the same as being happy. According to this philosophy, if you have poor mental health, you may be depressed, but good mental health is getting to a place where you feel good and can maintain that feeling. This is an unrealistic expectation for anyone.
Lisa Damour, in her book The Emotional Life of Teenagers (1), suggests that mental health is having feelings that fit the situation. And further to that, when appropriate feelings occur, good mental health means managing them effectively. Management would be displayed through coping in a way that brings relief and causes no harm.
Damour’s broader definition accommodates the ups and downs of life. We all know that life is not always rainbows and unicorns. How we handle the ebbs and flows of life of life says much more about our mental health than the one dimensional definition of being happy. Good mental health isn’t about being happy, it is being honest about our feelings and building up a repertoire of skills to manage them, which is also called resilience.
The encouraging news is that we can learn how to express our emotions and manage them in healthy ways. We can become more resilient and therefore, experience better mental health.
(1) https://drlisadamour.com/books/the-emotional-lives-of-teenagers/
