If you have robust mental health, how?

[Laverbreadeater]

I think its great at the moment so many people are opening up about their struggles with mental health and that there is less stigma about it even if support hasn't quite caught up! I myself struggle with anxiety and depression and over the past few years I have realised that so do many, many people perhaps even most people to some degree. However what I am interested in here is the people who do not suffer from mental health issues and in finding out why they think that is?

I have one close friend who falls into this catagory stable and at peace with herself which I am in awe of. I did ask her to try and explain why she thinks she is this way and she told me that she is pretty much always able to pinpoint quickly exactly what she is feeling and why which allows her to put thinks into perspective and take any action she needs to in order to sort things out. Sometimes that might be to take a break, eat something, have a nap or even just nothing and let the feeling pass. She is also good at balancing her life so she can manage things well. She had a tough time in her 20's as did I but she seems to have been able to use that as a learning experiance and lives her life now better because of it. While I still feel broken by my past at times.

If you are a strong person, how do you do it? Was it something you learned, did your parents teach you or is it just genetics?

I have a hugely traumatic childhood, adoption l, early fostering, left in the hospital as a baby.

Then trauma from abusive parent, mother unable to protect.

Witnessed and was a victim of physical and emotional DV until the age of 6.

Confined trauma as a teenager victim of Sexual assault.
Had very real MH issues as a child / teenager intervention from CAMHS.

As an adult I have largely worked through my issues with talking therapies, had aD when younger, cbt, laterally neurofeedback which has made. A huge difference to my anxiety levels.

I have invested a lot of money in therapy and helping myself.

My therapist would say that I'm very unusual in that I have survived a lot but have a good job, friends and fairly robust mental well being.

I believe that some people are orchids and daffodils. I would be this person no matter the soil I grew up in but my life would have been easier had I had a more stable upbringing etc.

I have tried to heal myself from my very early trauma.

The area where it has shown up most in my life is my choices of partners, I have huge attachment issues and regularly choose people who are emotionally unavailable, I'm told this is because I don't trust that people will be there for me so I sabotage from the outset. I almost seek the familiar pain of abandonment because it's what I know. Unfortunately this can trigger my early trauma. As a consequence I have no decided that I should be alone with my DC. I need to fix my picker and get to the point where I could dump and be dumped in the dating world. I'm not sure I will ever achieve this and while my DC is still young I won't potentially destabilise myself so I'm alone now. And I think I will be for the foreseeable future.

It's actually a very interesting question. And I don't think it's just nature v nurture. Because within a family, some siblings are just stronger than others.

I am the strongest, having 2 older brothers, although we are all quite strong compared to others. I was loved and felt secure. I was comfortable with myself. Accepting of my flaws, knowing my good points. I've faced adversity and severe troubles, but never doubted myself, or thought that it was a MH issue.

@PastaAndPizzaPlease. I'm only quarter white and the rest Pakistani. I've always liked the fact that I looked different to what I saw in the media. Growing up it didn't bother me at all. With dolls also. I never played with dolls as they were all blonde/blue eyed. Even at a young age I knew they never represented me and refused to play with them.
I've never been short of attention from men. I've always looked up to ethnic minorities such as Madhuri dixit for inspo. It is definitely lovely to be the odd one out when in white places. I feel like a celebrity as all eyes in me

*on

I consider myself to have good mental health, I've been through a lot but have always had a very positive outlook to life. My Dad's the same, we are both naturally glass half full people. It's through nothing I've done tho, I consider myself very lucky.

I do have public speaking anxiety, I get panic attacks when giving presentations at work, but I take tablets for this and just generally buckle down and get on with it.

My mental health hasn't always been great.

What I find that has really made me resilient, is my perspective of life. I don't at get offended if someone doesn't like me- that their problem. I don't feel the need to get involved in other people's issues- it's not my business and I accept people for who they are- that way I can filter out the bad eggs.

Before that I had terrible relationships with people, everyone including strangers. I think most mental health problems stem from our relationships with others (and ourselves).

I live by 'love many, trust few, learn to paddle your own canoe'. Good advice. Plough your own furrow. I had a good example in my DF who could have been destroyed by the death of my brother but wasn't.
I had a very stable upbringing. I have a very strong DH and we have stuck together through thick and thin.

Don't take others too seriously or blame them if they let you down. They have their own struggles.

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
I know many will hate the above poem but for me there's a lot of truth in it.
Finally look after plants or animals and you can forget your troubles for a short while every day. For me my newborn lambs are a yearly joy.

I'm writing from the perspective of someone who doesn't have great MH and has struggled however I think the key to improving this and making your mental health more robust is to face your fears and not allow your mental health to control you. I have very specific fears and triggers that have, at certain times of my life, prevented me from doing things. I think when you find the strength to stand up to these fears and do them anyway, regardless of the consequences you really do become stronger.

I have terrible mental health. Obsessed with the past and things I can't control.

Ive had my fair share of shit but...
For myself I think it's just luck.
However I'm a very guarded character and very choosy who I let into my life.
I have a very strong belief that you are born on your own and you die on your own...everyone in between is...? Whatever
I also deliberately avoid social media and prefer to WhatsApp my nearest and dearest.

I have good mental health. I am often told how patient and tolerant I am with others and I have a very stressful job where I come across as resilient, so I'm told.

I have 3 siblings and all three have had serious MH issues. I am the eldest, not sure if that makes a difference. We were not cared for as children, never cuddled or kissed, home was dirty and smelly. Dad controlled the household and was financially and physically abusive. I was bullied at school, I never fitted in anywhere. As a young child I remember studying places wherever I went, assessing them for places to shelter if I ran away from home. I never did run away.

My mum had a phone conversation with me on my 19th birthday without wishing me happy birthday. When I got my degree she was lukewarm and hardly reacted. I think it gave me low expectations and resilience. I have a good relationship with her now and she is lovely with my children.

Interesting thread, me and my friend discuss this quite a lot as my MH is very good, never had any issues and her’s is pretty poor. We have both had similar upbringings (stable loving families) comfortable lives now and no real traumas but we are very different. I am much more logical/practical than she is so can sort through things easily in my mind and I know she struggles with that. We can only conclude it’s luck and/or biology. One of her children struggles as well.

I had an awful time as a teenager. It wasnt just teenage angst. It was circumstantial misery. Anybody would have fallen apart. I then had lots of money problems in university, but had tough parents who always encouraged me to be robust and live by the phrase 'everything can be fixed, even if the solution is a difficult one'.

Now, my life is hard in the normal ways (worry over DH losing his job, no family near me, issues with inlaws, about to give birth during a pandemic). However, because I have been through worse and come out the other side, I know that everything is fixable, and if I feel down that I can do things to alleviate it. I try to focus on what I can control only, and sort of emotionally step away from things I cant control. I suppose I am sort of pessimistic, I believe the world is tough, so I never expect things to be automatically good. I have to make things good.

My mental health isnt perfect. Nobody's is. But for me it's all about action rather than acceptance.

As my mother says; 'will crying fix it? No. So now you figure out what will' (she is a tough irish Mammy)

Luck. It’s down to genetics and the parents I was born to. My dad in particular has been a good role model in this respect, and he was always very present in my life. My mum had her issues, and I can see how they’ve affected me.

My sister, not so lucky. She has inherited - either genetically or in terms of learned behaviour - a lot of similar issues as my mum: anxiety, periodic depression. She’s coping with it with medication, therapy and a lot of self help.

But like success in life, it’s largely down to luck / fate / shit happens - and it’s something don’t you necessarily have control over. You can only control - to an extent - how you react to it.