# What is mental wellness?



## Cat Dancer (Jan 23, 2007)

I've been searching the internet for some kind of article about mental wellness and having a hard time finding what I'm looking for. There are lots of articles on symptoms of mental illnesses. But I guess what I'm wondering if mental wellness just the absence of those symptoms or is it more than that? Like a state of peace no matter what is going on? 

Or perhaps a sense of well being inside your mind, having confidence in yourself? Or maybe lots of different things?

I guess for me I would have to overcome my negative thinking, but replace it with what?

Also I would have to overcome the anorexia I am going through and the self-injury and other self-destructive behaviors.

But I wonder does it also have to do with the people you allow into your life? If you are mentally well do you choose people who treat you well moreso than you do when you are depressed or suffering in some other emotional way? 

I don't know if any of this makes sense or even what I'm asking. Well, maybe I'm trying to set some goals for mental wellness. I don't know.


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## sister-ray (Jan 23, 2007)

Janet,

for me mental wellness would be being totally balanced in myself, being happy with me and others, being calm, coping well, eating well, sleeping well, being centred in myself, being at one with the world and everything and everyone in it, like a permanent state of meditation.


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## Cat Dancer (Jan 23, 2007)

Thank you for replying. 

That sounds good to me. I wonder if that is truly possible. I like to think it is. Or at least something close to it.


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## sister-ray (Jan 23, 2007)

Ive had a few times in my life when Ive felt something like it, that calmness and peace, just being at one with everything, so im sure it does exist, just wish it could be like it all the time


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## Cat Dancer (Jan 23, 2007)

I wish it could be like that all the time too. 

I hope you get there again. :hug:


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## Halo (Jan 23, 2007)

I have never experienced anything like you have described TTE but I would like to think that I can someday.....hope is what I hold onto


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## Into The Light (Jan 23, 2007)

it exists. i know, because i am living it now. it is possible for you too. it takes work to get there, but it is waiting for you. :hug:


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## Halo (Jan 23, 2007)

Again......."hope is what I hold onto"


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## comfortzone (Jan 23, 2007)

Hi Janet,

Good questions you have asked.  Mental wellness to me is an internal state.  It can be affected by external events, people as well as internal events, biological components, and the way we think.  Happiness to me is like an attitude one attempts to maintain. Wellness is on a continuum where some days you might feel better than others...something like a teeter totter and sometimes like a roller coaster.  We all would prefer to stay balanced (as TTE described).  We learned to search outside of ourselves for who we are.  The messages we learn about ourselves over time become our core beliefs.  Then we act accordingly.  Through therapy we learn to recondition or revamp the way we see ourselves and learn new ways of handling our self-perceptions.  Mental wellness is a process of discovery and rediscovery of hope.  Wishing you the best,


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## Cat Dancer (Jan 24, 2007)

Thank you, ladybug and comfortzone for the encouraging words.  I am trying to view it as a slow process where sometimes I go backwards or fall down, but gradually move toward being well. 

And Nancy and TTE, I too hold on to hope that we will get there one day. Or day by day.


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## Daniel (Jan 24, 2007)

> If you are mentally well do you choose people who treat you well moreso than you do when you are depressed or suffering in some other emotional way?



I think that's a big factor.  Interaction with other people is often the most immediate way to feel either much better or much worse.  

Even my cat can get me in a bad mood the next day by waking me up at night, which is why I feed my cat his biggest meal before I go to sleep.


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