Reply to Walt

In response to a recent posting, "Sadness," my dear friend Walt wrote:

I don't understand how one person's actions can determine another's mental health. Its like "you made me do it" all over again.

Thank you for these thoughts, Walt. One person's actions can never determine another's mental health, although those actions can influence it. Ultimately, mental health is up to the individual.

Childhood and other influences have a definite impact on who you are, or who I am, the person you or I have become. What any one of us chooses to do comes from inside, not from the outside, and not because of what someone else did or didn't do. Good deeds or bad ones, it doesn't matter. Nobody "makes" you do anything, unless of course it is by coercion, which is something different.