 Mental health is just human health. Just as much as a person needs to be working on their fitness or getting enough sleep, a person needs to keep their mental health in check. So much of the time, it looks like everyone else is doing it perfectly, you know? But when you really get down to it and you really start talking to people, you really find that so many more people are struggling than you could ever imagine. I can't tell you the amount of time I was met with, oh really, let's talk about it because I had my first counseling session. Going to college takes a lot out of freshman. You're asked to move to a different place, leave all your friends, leave all your family and jump into a really rigorous academic program. Your first year is hard and transition times are hard. People really just don't like asking for help. There's such a huge stigma against admitting that you're unhappy or you're sad or you're depressed. I think it's really easy for me to feel like because we're an institution, we're not going to support the well-being of students because the grades are important and the studying is important. When really this is an institution that I've seen support students' health on physical, mental, emotional, psychosocial issues. Talking to supervisors and peers has been probably one of the biggest tools that I've used to get me back on track when I'm not doing so great. Renee Brown has this quote that vulnerability fuels connection. Knowing that I wasn't alone was huge in my path to being comfortable with my mental health and with wherever I am. It allowed me to not only ask for help, but to help other people get help. It's a big responsibility when a friend of yours chooses to let you in to problems that they may be having. It's an amazing feeling sometimes to know that your relationship is at a point where they can trust you and confide in you, but I'm not trained, I'm not a mental health professional, so I might not be able to help them with the problem that they're having. It's so easy to tell a friend to get help this place or that place and it looks a lot different when you're asking yourself to do that. You need to take the same advice that you would give to others. The Care Reform is an amazing opportunity to help yourself and help your friends. Being able to do it digitally online kind of removes that social barrier of not being able to say, hey, everybody, I need a little bit of help. I can go to CAPS and meet with someone who really does give me the directed care I need. There's been so many tools that I've learned through CAPS and through other services that CAPS has been able to refer me to. I actually was super surprised at how many services outside of CAPS were available. You offer free massages. Drop-in meditation sessions and the drop-in yoga sessions. I personally think everyone should go to therapy. Counseling has helped me tremendously. Like once a week I am taking a class on myself to learn more about what makes me emotional, what hurts me, and what makes me happy. And the way we do that is by just talking, just talking about it. A tool that helps me is managing a healthy schedule so I can go in with the advisors and have them plan out what's on my syllabus with me. A lot is asked of students, so it's important to know that you can do all of these things that you're aspiring to do in college but there's also going to be times and opportunities for you to kind of take a breather and relax. Something that is so important to me is positive self-talk. Be kind to yourself. It's the biggest thing you can do. People with mental illness are very capable and can totally make it through even when college feels really rough. You don't have to be proud and you don't have to be brave. If you're struggling with something, you're in an amazing community of 10,000 plus people who are willing to help you. So you have to take advantage of those resources. Being strong enough to say I need help and I need time for myself is strength, it isn't weakness and it's really important. I don't think I've ever met a person that can power through college all on their own. That's not how it works.