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Human beings, through social osmosis, are taught to be happy when we experience things believed "good" and unhappy when "bad things" happen in our lives. Yet if the bad things do not physically directly affect us, it means we have wiggle room with respect to how much this will affect us. Diseases affecting the body and/or mind have a direct effect of causing suffering. Some circumstances, such as homelessness, starvation, or being incarcerated, have a direct effect of causing suffering. The above are situations that we can't make okay through mental gymnastics. Physical disease or an injury are painful, with few exceptions. 

Physical causes and extremely bad environments have the power to make people suffer, including when people have practiced mindfulness for many years. If you can be happy in the presence of extreme physical pain and/or symptoms of physical illness, or in extremely bad environments, the level of practice of mindfulness is probably beyond what people can learn in the U.S. 

But then there are other things in our lives, situations in which people are expected by common consensus that they would feel suffering, that are negotiable with mindfulness. This includes seeing the glass half full, not half empty. Adverse circumstances could include poverty at a level that is not bad enough to be life-threatening, being demoted or fired at one's work, getting into a fender-bender car accident that ruins a car but not a human being, divorce, eating food that's not very palatable, or being treated, in your perception, disrespectfully. 

When someone insults you, whether this is intentional or not, many people, if the insult isn't over their heads, might generate being offended, which is a form of suffering. However, this reaction is negotiable with mindfulness. 

Antipsychotic medication can directly cause suffering because it impacts the central nervous system and causes it to generate depression, physical side effects, difficulty with tasks, and engaging the higher functions. Yet antipsychotics, if you truly need to take them, solve more suffering than they create because they are intended to treat serious psychotic disorders. 

Yet, much perceived hardship is more abstract. And the more an instance of hardship can be dealt with as an abstract thing, the more it is solvable with mindfulness. And this remediation begins with the decision to be happy. 

As persons with psychiatric conditions, there are many sources of suffering that we can cross off the list when we practice mindfulness. If someone gets the better of you in a verbal argument, it doesn't have to be a lingering source of aggravation. Through mindfulness, realistically you could be a bit miffed, but then forget about it quickly. If someone is using words to bully you, you should respond to that. Making the distinction is easier with an expanded consciousness that comes with mindfulness. 

Having your basic necessities paid for but then being broke doesn't have to hurt. If you have a psychiatric condition, this situation is common, and you are in the same boat as many. Just be glad you aren't worse off. 

"Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be."--Abraham Lincoln. Another quote, (which one source claims is not from Lincoln, but about him): "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power." Either way, adverse circumstances don't have to defeat us. 

When circumstances are hard but not to the extent that we are truly made to experience suffering, mindfulness is an appropriate alternative to the knee jerk response of becoming emotionally upset as poor examples may have taught us. 

Some spinoffs of Buddhism have exaggerated the level of immunity to suffering that can be created with their versions of mindfulness. Short of turning yourself catatonic, there will always be some things that will hurt, and to try to use mindfulness to evade valid suffering will cause damage. However, as I've said above, if a situation is more abstract or more distant, or if it isn't devastating to your way of life, you have more choices that can come about with retraining yourself.