"If you're a psych major and you can't even pass a mental health evaluation, then you're not really a psych major. But keep telling yourself that."

I saw a "lovely" young girl post that on my timeline today. I wonder what motivated her to even say such a thing. I mean, my university never told me that I'm not allowed to be a psychology major if I can't pass a mental health evaluation. Shit, I never even got the chance to take my mental health evaluation to determine whether or not I was "allowed" to be a psychology major. Because, oh wait, that's not actually a thing.

To be honest, I don't do the whole "Facebook drama" thing. I don't even know the girl or why she was even my friend to begin with. I'm not sure what she has against mental illnesses, or why, but I feel like it needs to be addressed. If there are actually people in this world who walk around feeling that way, there is a problem.

I'm sure the girl was just trying to get a couple of likes on her status, or perhaps sound smart (it didn't work, sorry). However, what she said was blatantly ignorant and blind. I've never heard of any college requiring a student to pass a mental health evaluation in order to study psychology. I also hope that she knows that approximately one in five American adults suffer from mental illness every year. Out of those adults, there are some who currently study psychology. There are some who have studied psychology. Oh, and guess what? Some of them graduated college and currently hold a job in the psychology field.

I mean, a simple Google search would tell you all of these things. Look up Marsha Linehan, "a therapist and researcher at the University of Washington who used her own experiences to develop a groundbreaking behavioral therapy." She worked with patients who referred to as 'super-suicidal' because she felt she identified with them the most. She saw them as the most vulnerable and she wanted to help them.

After experiencing suicidal tendencies as a young teenager, most people would never want to have to relive those experiences again. Many people grow up to become ashamed of their mental illness and keep those memories tucked away safely in a sealed box, never to be opened again.

That's the exact reason why I am a psychology major. I grew up with anxiety and depression. It honestly had a huge strain on my life. Losing my father triggered it even more, making it ten times worse. Imagine having anxiety and depression, and losing your father right after. It was absolutely terrible. I developed suicidal thoughts and tendencies when I was seventeen. Nobody saw or believed it. In the eyes of other people, I was some privileged girl, living in a nice house, with a nice family, attending a nice school, and I had no reason to be depressed. But, believe me, the thoughts were there, no matter how "privileged" I was. I'm sorry, people, but money and material items really do not buy happiness, no matter what you want to think.

I sat in my room. I had just eaten dinner, which I had already puked up into my toilet. Fresh scars laid on my skin. I liked the feeling that cutting gave me. Since, according to others, I had no reason to feel pain, I gave myself a reason to feel pain. I saw in a dark room, sobbing, a notebook and pen in my hand. I told my mother, my brothers, my boyfriend, and my friends, that I was sorry but I couldn't deal with what I felt anymore. I thought about it deeply while lying in bed. I wanted to do it so badly. I constructed a plan. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I remember my boyfriend calling me shortly after and that kind of put a hold on everything. He knew I was suicidal, but he didn't know that I had a plan.

We broke up a week later. That pushed me over the edge. I had a huge mental breakdown. In my eyes, my only reason for staying alive was gone. I had nothing left to live for. People just thought that I was an overdramatic teenager. I was just some young girl depressed over some guy who broke up with her. I needed to just move on. No, I was really about to kill myself. If I didn't get help, then I was going to walk to the bridge a mile away, and I was going to jump off of it. I wasn't trying to be cute. I didn't want attention. I needed fucking help.

I got help. I went to the psychiatric ward and stayed for a little over a week. Honestly, it was kind of scary. There were all sorts of patients. Ones who had really bad anger issues and punched their mother in the face. Ones who had breakdowns and screamed and threw things at people. I met two seven-year-old boys when I was in there. One cried hysterically every time his mother came because he missed her so much and wanted to go home. The other one bragged, telling me that he beat up two boys at his school and hurt them really badly. None of it was easy to watch, even as a patient. The staff wasn't much help either.

"Obviously, you do know some coping skills - cutting, or whatever else. Or you wouldn't be in here. So you guys need to start speaking up and participating."

I watched as the staff berated one of my good friends because he hugged another patient. No, he actually then went out of his way to call him out in front of everybody. Staff members would embarass and belittle patients. I didn't really like any of the staff. Oh, and the one guy that I did like on the staff got arrested a year later for having sex with a fifteen-year-old girl and getting her pregnant.

I hated it in there so much. I just wanted out so badly. The whole 'being secluded in a tiny white hallway in which everything is locked' got pretty freaky. I just lied my way out, learning that if I simply complied with everything and said that I was feeling okay, I would get out. It wasn't even until I was out of the hospital completely that things started to change for me.

After being in there, I realized that I wanted to help people. Somehow, in some way, I would help people. I would help the people who were written off because their life was "too good" for them to feel depressed. I would help people start to love themselves again.

So, to the random girl who apparently decides what major people can be, do I meet your qualifications yet? Or, am I still not allowed to study psychology? Please let me know when you decide that I am allowed. I am overcoming my own mental illness and want to help people. I want to make sure that nobody has to go through what I did. I will be resilient, and I will not let my mental illness keep a hold over my life.