It feels like I watch the sun set out of my dorm window, admiring the way the pinks and blues integrate right beneath the clouds. The blend of pigments dull into the dark of the night, and just as the company of moon to the night sky is affiliated with the morphing of reasonable humans into primitive werewolves, it brings me something of the same sort. While I may find myself more civilized, I still cannot recognize who I am anymore.

It feels like all of the happiness I made for myself during the day light disappeared with the sunshine. My motivation withers away and my will slowly follows. Night used to be my favorite time, but now resisters to me as one of my greatest fears. Scary movies proved to me that the worst things in life happen at night. My soul screams louder than the characters in the films.

It feels like distance is my only acquaintance. The people surrounding me never hear my cries for help, and if they did I'm too far away from them to grab a hold on their hands stretched out anyways. At night I am now reminded that hope is as out of reach as the stars my eyes stay fixed on through the window. My mind is toxic, my thoughts poisonous. This is a mental illness, and the disease is myself.

No, the disease is the great mass that not recognize that mental illnesses are real illnesses, too.

I was told that anxiety is all in my head. Yes, one could say that it is in my head. It is also in the pit of my stomach as I feel it twisting and turning, trying to stay away from my thoughts. It is also in my chest as my heart jumps up-and-down sending the rest of my body into a full panic. My entire body gets consumed by the anxiety, and I feel each limb shutter from repulsion of the idea that I could be doing everything wrong.

I was told that depression is just another word for sadness. It is. It is a sadness that I cannot explain. It is a weight tied to my mind that I am forced to carry around every day. It attaches me to shackles that seek to hold me under water, when I am expected to stay afloat.

Mental illnesses are real. They are a problem that consume people all over the world.

I do my part, and now it is time to do yours.