Mental health and mental wellness are two topics that hold extreme importance in my daily life. As a person that struggles with anxiety and depression, I have to put my mental wellbeing at the focus of a lot of the decisions I make in my life. It’s easy to get caught up in the spiral of negativity that these disorders can create, and though it might seem selfish, I have to put myself first a lot of the time so that I’m able to function.

College has been a different ballgame in terms of my mental health, as I’ve had the most challenging coursework thrown my way since I started at my new school. Academic stressors can take a toll on a person mentally and it’s hard not to get anxious about not being able to achieve academic success, or not make the marks that you initially had hoped for.

According to National Data on Campus Suicide and Depression, one in every twelve U.S. college students makes a suicide plan. If these statistics are not scary enough, it is also reported that more teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from all other mental illnesses combined. Although I personally have not experienced thoughts of suicide and have not attempted it, depression has definitely hit me hard at certain points in my life (most notably during high school and my freshman year of college.)

It is hard to shake feelings of hopelessness and an overall malaise when you are going through something as terrible as depression, or any other mental illness. It’s extremely important to raise awareness about issues of mental health and mental illness. Talking about the importance of these issues can be a life-saving conversation.

We need to end the stigma around mental illness and mental health issues. There are so many people in the world that are struggling with a mental illness but can’t get the adequate help that they need due to their environment and feeling like their illness isn’t valid. I used to think that mental health issues were something that people could just control on their own until I realized that I struggled with them myself.

Knowing that I had the ability to get help for what I was dealing with was extremely comforting and was the first step to bettering myself and my situation. If you are struggling with a mental illness, it is important to get help in whatever way is possible. There is always a way out of your situation. Never allow yourself to become hopeless or feel like you will never be able to live a healthy and happy life again.