Mental health

I would like to think of myself as a very lucky individual, I have an amazing family, good health, great friends, and so many other things that I am extremely thankful for. When I was younger I never thought that there would be any instance where mental health would affect me personally because I had always lived such a sheltered and fortunate life. However, as I get older and the real world starts to become a reality, my mental state has started to decline. I`m a person who hates showing my emotions, so I don’t think that anyone really knows that I struggle with mental health which is something that I should address and make my friends and family aware of. I really don’t have any problems or things in my life that are too overbearing, however I`ve come to find that its the little things that I struggle with. I`m always overthinking which leads me to become nervous and anxious about stuff in my life that I really shouldn`t be worrying about at all.

The reason that I wanted to talk about this topic is because I know that there are so many people out there other than myself that deal with these problems every single day. We as a society have to realize that it isn`t just ourselves going through hardships, and it is our job to check up on our family members, friends, and peers on a consistent basis. It is so important to be aware of mental health because in some of the worst cases, it can lead to depression and suicide. I lost a friend to suicide which was really hard for me because before that Incident I had never really thought that he had any problems going on in his life that would have lead him to that point. There was not a single person who saw the signs which is what makes it so scary because you never really know how someone is doing mentally. Therefore, it is so vital for all of us to check up one the ones we care for and love. I want to emphasize that it is so important to make sure your loved ones are doing okay is because when someone is gone, you will never see them again.

I really wish that myself and others would talk about this topic more because it is just so important for people to be educated on these things and know that it is okay to be open and honest about mental health. There was a team I was once on in high school and the coach was one of the best people I have ever met. He was so caring and open with us which made it easy to be the same way around him and our team. There was one practice that I vividly remember where we played a game called cross the line, basically what happened was he would ask us questions and on one side of the line constituted yes and the other no. When we got to the question concerning how many people have had problems with mental health, every single person on the team went to the yes side. He then asked us if anyone had thought of suicide and more than half of the team stayed on yes. This was so crazy to me because of the fact that I had never thought of any of these people`s personal problems and I hadn`t realized that they too were going through personal endeavors just like I was. By him doing and allowing this, it made all or our team closer and more understanding of each other.

I want to wrap up by letting everyone know that it is okay to struggle with your mental health and that its okay to be open about it because in reality, almost everyone around us deals with these problems on a daily basis. If there is someone that you think might be struggling with their mental health, please reach out to them because you never know when it might be too late to do so.