Did you know that about 25% of adults and 20% of adolescents aged 13-18 in America are suffering from a mental illness of some sort?
   Mental illnesses, suicide, self-harm, and addiction have become more and more prevalent in this generation.
   According to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 35% of people with severe depression and 20% of those with moderate depression said they received help from a mental health professional.
The stigma associated with mental illnesses, suicide, self-harm, and addiction needs to end because many people with mental health problems feel misunderstood by those close to them and don’t receive the professional help they need.
   I have been running Buddy Project, which is a program to prevent suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders by pairing people as buddies. I launched this program on Twitter in April 2013 and have over 78,000 followers.
   There have been many times where I tried to encourage my followers to seek professional help if they believe that they have a mental illness or have a self-harm addiction, eating disorder, or suicidal thoughts. Numerous people have replied to these tweets telling me that their family doesn’t care and thinks that mental illness doesn’t exist.
   There are millions of people out there who can’t grasp the concept that mental health is important to everyone, or they underplay any mental illness by saying things such as:
“If you’re depressed, why don’t you just be happy?”
“If you have anorexia, why don’t you just eat?”
“If you self-harm, why don’t you stop cutting yourself?”
   It doesn’t help when people weaken the importance of problems such as these. These disorders and addictions aren’t things you can solve with one simple sentence. They are things that require professional help in order to get better.
   Many people looking for help feel so ashamed to ask for it these days or can’t find it. There is a serious lack of awareness for resources people can go to for getting professional help.
   Schools and workplaces should make sure that all students or workers know where they can go if need help for whatever they’re struggling with. They should also let anyone who can not function due to a mental illness have some time to themselves so that they can try and get themselves to feel “fine” again.
   There should be advertisements or PSAs on television showing that it is okay to ask for help in life.
   Everyone deserves to believe that they are worthy of receiving help for their mental illness, addiction, or suicidal thoughts, and together as the world we need to spread this important issue like a wildfire.
   Let’s not have one person in the world commit suicide every 40 seconds, or have millions of people living with a mental illness untreated for anymore.
   Why can’t people with mental illnesses be treated to the same standard that those with physical illnesses are?
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