Simplest Complete Mental Health Basic Tutorial With Practical Examples

A. Abuse

Abuse is defined as denying one’s boundary and forcefully entering one’s space.

B. Rape

The physical boundary violation is defined as rape. Currently, most states across the globe have eliminated “penetrative sex” from the legal definition of rape, and physical boundary violation is the accepted norm, definition.

C. Living Cell and Death

A living cell is a set of repetitive chemical processes, enclosed in a chemical boundary. The cell takes energy from outside through the boundary(in the form of hydrocarbon bonds, light, air, water, and so on) and excretes the leftover chemical processes through the cell boundary. The chemical processes maintain the boundary.

When the processes stop, the cell loses its ability to maintain boundaries and becomes one with the external world. This is called cell death. Thus a cell death is the death of the boundary that separates the inner processes from the outside.

D. Boundary

A boundary is a physical, metaphysical, or virtual enclosure of any entity(physical or conceptual, or metaphysical).

Examples of physical boundaries:

Examples of virtual/metaphysical boundaries

a. Personality.
b. Profession.
c. Knowledge.
d. Aspiration.
e. Feelings.
f. Emotions.
g. Thoughts.
h. Memory.

E. Object and Entity

Internal and External Objects

Our brain distinguishes objects of the physical world as entities in the mental world. A version of the physical world object in the brain is called an “internal object,” and the sensory perception of the external object is called an “external object.”

For example, when you see your mother, you are seeing an external object, which is recognized by the brain from her appearance, voice, and so on. However, as you see your mother, several threads related to your mother get loaded into your brain. These include episodic memory, feelings, shared memory, ongoing discussions and threads, and so on. The brain maintains a version of your mother, which is the internal object.

As it is impossible to know everything about anyone, the internal object in our brain is merely a perception of the external object, like a selfie.

Mental Health

Mental health is defined as the coherence between the internal and the external object. If one maintains a non-changing singular image of an external object, and rather than updating the internal object based on interaction, one maintains the same version of the internal object, then one is said to have lost touch with reality.

For instance, the internal object of your mother is loving and caring. Suddenly she starts giving you the silent treatment and start showing extreme mood swing. You do not update the internal object as “My mother is loving and caring, but has her mood swings and recently giving me silent treatments” but rather maintain “my mother is loving and caring” as the internal object of the mother, then you are away from reality.

Object Interaction and Memory Update

When one interacts with the external objects in the physical world, they first essentially interact with the internal objects, and these interactions are then translated into physical action, as well as are used to update the internal object.

So when your mother cooks food for you and serves you the food, your brain first updates the internal object of the mother “My mother is loving and caring; however, she at times has mood swings; recently she has been giving me silent treatment; she cooks and serves me food”

Now if out of the mood swing your mother doesn’t cook food for you, as well as chooses to remain hungry herself, then the brain updates the internal object as

“My mother is loving and caring; however, she at times has mood swings; recently she has been giving me silent treatment; she cooks and serves me food; however at times under mood swings, she neither gives me food nor eats herself”

Cognition

It is not enough for our brain to just remember the events and stitch them together. The brain also wants to understand the meaning of the events in order to contextualize them, learn from them, predict, and model the interaction and actions in the future.

For instance, when you first time find out that your mother hasn’t cooked for you in her mood swing, it surprises you as this is not expected behavior. So the brain will try to predict the scenarios when she likely will have a mood swing. The more domain knowledge one has and the more one understands and analyzes another person, and incorporates these understandings into the objects, the better meaning and predictions the object provides in interactions.

For instance, you learned that whenever your mother spoke to your grandmother, she had a mood swing. You also figured out that they both talk on negative threads.

“My mother is loving and caring; she cooks and serves food to me; at times when she speaks with my grandmother, they both share negative talks; negativity lowers my mother’s energy and she goes through mood swings; when she goes through extreme mood swings she doesn’t cook for me”

With better cognition, you will know how to lift one’s energy when low, how to reduce the probability of mood swings, and how to change behavior in mood swings.

Without good cognition, your internal objects are always incomplete, and you will witness unexpected and surprising events in the external world. This is called cognitive dissonance.

Entity

A good cognitive process attaches background knowledge, meaning, feelings, and analysis of internal objects with the objects. A good memory remembers most of the interactions with the object.

An entity is defined as an external or internal object + Memory + Feelings + Predictions+ Analysis+Facts + Thoughts+ Feelings.

An internal entity is an internal object, its associated episodic memory, and the meaning of the interactions.

Our brain maintains multiple different entities, one for each of the people who have come into our lives even for a day.

Empathy

One’s ability to maintain entities separate from each other with a boundary and interact with the external entity based on the internal entity, and not just the internal object, is called empathy.

F. Relationships

A relationship is defined as a set of laws and rules associated with an entity that governs the interaction between objects of that entity. The nature of the interaction with the entity is called an attachment.

Attachment is the emotional bond that connects two entities, and the relationship is their behavior governing rules.

Thought

When one internal object interacts with another internal object in our brain, it is called Thought. When the external object interacts with the external object it is called Behavior. When the same internal object interacts with itself in our brain, it is called Emotion.

Feelings vs Emotions

Feelings are a change in the body and brain’s state(change in temperature, hormones, electrons). Feelings require interaction. Emotion is an average feeling associated with an entity.

So when you are thinking about your mother, several threads appear one after the other. In the beginning, you had no feelings. Now more and more threads of her silent treatment and mood swing appears in your brain. When one after the other such threads makes you feel negative, then the overall emotion attached to the mother will be negative.

Because our brain doesn’t want us to feel bad/negative and low, it will motivate you to reduce interaction with your mother. In such a case your attachment with the mother will be a negative avoidant attachment.

Rules and Laws

For every action, our brain has to go through a complex decision process. Every decision consumes a tremendous amount of energy. Hence, rather than making decisions about every action and behavior, our brain prefers to maintain a pattern of behavior with an entity based on the meaning of the entity.

For example, when your mother entity is loaded in your brain, and your internal mother object is interacting with her, your brain will load rules:

1. You can kiss Mother, but only on her cheeks, not smooch her.
2. You can hug your mother.
3. You can’t beat your mother.
4. You can’t shout at your mother.
5. You must make your mother smile.
6. You must not hurt her feelings.
7. You can not imagine your mother as a sexual fantasy object.

and so on. These rules are further derived from one’s morality, one’s character, personality, environment and several other factors.

G. Individuality

Just like other entities, everyone has an internal object for himself/herself which is called “self.” One’s ability to recognize Self entity as an independent entity, with a proper boundary to it such that no external events, or interaction can alter this is called “Individuality”.

Therefore individuality is Self-Entity with a strong boundary. Because individuality is the reference to all the relationships, and interactions, if individuality is weak(either the boundary or the self), then all the relationships get intermingled. It is a death of the mind, exactly the way a cell dies.

For example you mother says “come and sit in my lap and suck my breast like a child, this will remind me of my motherhood and I will feel better.”

Example of Individuality protection and Healthy Relationship

Your self-entity is an adult entity. You know that an adult can not suck mother’s breasts. The rules in the relationship with mother prohibits any sexuality, and an adult sucking another adult’s breast is sexuality, and so this behavior must not be performed. So you say to your mother “I am an adult and I won’t do this.”

Example of lost individuality and abusive relationship

However, one with weak entity will forget that self is no more an adult and will engage in the breast sucking anyways just to please the mother. On the other hand, one with strong entity sense, but poor boundaries, will know the adult self, but wouldn’t care for the rules of the relationship, and engage in the behavior.

H. Emotional Abuse and Abusive Relationship

In this example, both mother and the adult child are abusing each other, as well as themselves.

1. Mother is forgetting that her child is not a child anymore.
2. She lowers her boundary of not allowing inappropriate behavior from child.
3. Mother is pulling the child out of the boundary and making the child engage in breaking rules of their relationship.
4. The child is forgetting the importance of individuality and boundary and compromising on them just to please the mother.

Because mother has an emotion for her self-entity and self-object, and after the child sucks her breasts, she may feel guilty, as well as her emotion for herself may become shameful, both of which are negative, this behavior is an emotional self-abuse.

Same way mother’s demand to the child is an emotional abuse, and after the behavior the child’s emotion for the mother may become “desire and sexual” from “loving and Caring”

The key is to know that abuse is both ways, and no one can abuse another individual if the individual is mentally healthy, has strong sense of self and self entity and protects the entity and relationship boundaries.

So, when you say that someone is abusing you, you are abusing yourself at the same time.

I. Key components of Mental Health

1. Good memory, as you need to load a lot of data about each of the objects, entities, rules, and relationships.
2. Energy, as you need to have energy to update the data, as well as energy for taking decisions on the behaviors, as well as energy for actions and behaviors.
3. Awareness, as you must be able to distinguish between your internal world and external world.
4. Knowledge, without meaning to the entities and relationships, the brain does not have a methodology for update.
5. Cognition, as without cognition, one will not have empathy, and one without empathy will not be able to manage and maintain a healthy self and other boundaries, and relationships.

J. Independence vs. Interdependency

The purpose of each cell is to survive, thrive and reproduce, and any multicell organism extends this functionality. We already know that a cell, as well as our brain interacts with the external world as well as within itself, amongst its entities.

The basis of these interactions is survive, thrive, reproduce fundamental need. So, if any external entity if doesn’t attribute to either of these three, then the brain is not dependent on the entity.

For example if your mother stops cooking for you, stop sharing stories that helps you heal, stops remaining in good mood when you meet, stops giving you love, then you get none of:

1. Good feelings.
2. Healing.
3. Food.
4. Care.
5. Conversation(which enhances knowledge is part of thrive spectrum)
6. Emotions

As healthy emotions for self and for other entities is key to reproduction, the above situation puts a constraint to your survival, thriving and reproduction. Under that situation, brain lowers the priority to the relationship.

In that situation your mother becomes independent in your brain.

Therefore, nobody becomes independent, we give independence to the entities that we are not dependent on.

Strong and Independent

If one claims to be independent, then that simply tells the brain that he/she is not dependent even on the self entity.

Disconnection from self is called independence.

Because self is the reference object of the brain, disconnection with the self itself is a marker of destroyed mind and mental health. A broken mind can be anything but strong.

Interdependency

The way your brain assigns a priority to each relationships based on the fundamental needs that an entity provides, the other entity similarly assigns priority to your entity in his/her brain based on the need of that entity that you provide.

Therefore interdependency is the measure of the need of the relationship, as well as the strength of the relationship.

So, you may provide dress, cloth, roof to your mother, but if she is not providing you anything that no one else can provide, then by definition it is a weak relationship.

Hence survival of a relationship depends upon both entities providing something fundamental to the other entity which no one else can provide.

K. Breakup

A breakup is merely a stop on the interaction our internal entity of a person and our self-entity. The prime reason for a breakup is loss of interdependency. Breakup is mental and not physical. Once we mentally breakup with a person, our brain doesn’t allocate energy for the interaction. Physical world interaction reduce between the two entities. This is called avoidance.

In a marital relationship, the strength of the marriage depends upon how much the two partners provide each other which are hard for anyone else to provide. So say for example if the husband gets better sex outside, then reproductive dependency on the wife is gone. If a maid is cooking, then survival need is also gone. And if they do not have knowledge that can be shared mutually for mutual growth, then the marriage is gone. No piece of paper can keep it, and no piece of paper is needed to break it either.

Active vs Passive Relationship

An active relationship is a high priority interdependency governed relationship between two entities where any of the fundamental needs of the entities are provided by the other entity better than anyone else can provide. An active relationship is also called a live relationship.

A passive relationship is one where either:

1. None of the entities are proving any basic needs to the other.
2. Any of the two entities is not providing any basic needs to the other.
3. Either or both of the entities are independent or not dependent on themselves.

Brain will always reduce energy exchange and interaction with an entity that it is not bind with interdependency.

Even when a relationship ends, brain doesn’t destroy the existing entity of the person. The entity once created remains forever. So if you are in a relationship, there is no forgetting, brain remembers and keep it forever.

Relatives are perfect example of passive relationships.

Also, if the children are staying away from the parents, and are not necessarily interdependent at this moment, then parents will still be parents as they will have the child’s internal entity intact, and the children will still be children, as theirs parents and child chapter of self-entity will still be intact.

Every relationship ends only and only for either of the two reasons, either one feels not needed in the relationship, or one feels being in the relationship only for the needs of the other he/she is providing.

Again, remember, end of a relationship simply means transition of the relationship from active to passive form in the brain, and it doesn’t end.

L. Depression

As the number of interdependent relationships reduces, and/or one becomes independent to himself/herself, body and brain has to spend significantly higher energy for surviving and thriving. Self-disconnection and low energy doesn’t give a hope to brain for prolonged survival, as well as reproduction.

When body looses the trust an confidence on the brain to help it survive, thrive, and reproduce, cells, and organs downregulate their functions and hence one feels like being dead.

Depression is not a mental health phenomenon, but a phenomenon of body loosing trust on the brain.

It is a simple fact that if one doesn’t trust himself/herself, no medicine, no professionals can bring that trust back. Depression is a state where one’s body and brain has cheated on each other for a significant amount of time. And so it is a divorce of body and brain and so neither wants to live with the other, and so the urge to end life is high.

M. Consicousness vs Awareness

Awareness

Ability to interpret and comprehend signals from all the senses(vision, audio, smell, touch, taste), as well as brain and body’s ability to sense internal changes(hormonal, pressure, temperature etc) and change in the environment is called awareness.

So awareness is the belief, knowledge and perception of the brain that you are alive and functioning. Hence awareness defines the quality of interaction between your self-internal object with all other external objects.

Consiousness

Consciousness is one’s awareness about the interactions between one’s internal objects, changes in the internal entities, and actions taken to maintain independent entities, their boundaries, and interactions.

So when you are not able to distinguish low mood of your mother, you are unaware of her and her situation. However, when she demands or express a desire to feel like a mother of a new born baby, and you violate your entity and rules to respond to the desire, your internal processes are flawed and you have low consciousness.

When survival becomes prime challenge, brain reduces consciousness, and when thriving is prime focus of the brain, brain lowers awareness and all the interactions are governed by the consciousness.

You may read our article on consciousness and awareness for more detail.

N. The Mental Health Scam

It needs no rocket science for anyone to understand that no one can improve one’s memory, cognition, energy, knowledge and awareness, the key pillars of mental health. Poor mental health is state that is outcome of years of poor fundamentals which have formed a pattern in the brain.

So any therapeutics essentially gives one hope initially and that hope gives new energy, and one sees result at the beginning. But then brain again goes back to the past patterns. One can provide you with better knowledge(for example this article), but if your brain is a poor learner then nothing changes. If one was already aware of detoriating mental health condition, and learned and took actions, then one wouldn’t have a mental health pathology(an illness) at the first place. So one with a mental health pathology is poor fundamentals in the neural structure of the brain.

So mental health industry is minching money by hiding this uncomfortable truth.

Conclusion

You bathe, your neighbour bathe, and the society remains clean. You fix yourself, I fix myself, we better our mental health. If you have to pay money for improving your mental health, the effort needed by someone else will cost you your both kidneys and liver. Stay in reality, have lesser active relationships, become good at what you can give, and become unapologetic about what you need.