In this country, 1 in 5 people suffer from an ‘invisible’ mental illness. That’s around 42 million people. This select and increasing population go through somewhat of an existential crisis, except every second of their lives. They silently scream inside their heads, drown in the sinking feeling within their chests, and get carried around like a puppet by their responsibilities.

We live in an age where people are nonstop comparing one another. There's never ending evaluation and judgement. We focus on nitpicking and hurting each other more than anything else. Our societies have failed to guide us through the importance of mental health.

We've never been told how significant we truly are. In science class, we've been taught so many things about this world, this universe, but never that we are an expression of it. Society has conditioned us to drop our nurtured take on our surroundings and the fellow humans we live among, and resort to a self interest of survival of the fittest. No love, just war.

We try to take control of so many things except ourselves. We live almost always in our futures; worried, exhausted, numb. It's no wonder so many people feel eaten up by everything.

Personally, for as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt this sort of desolation inside of me, even as a kid. At times, I feel cursed, discarded, or extremely isolated. I'll get suffocated by not only myself, but by what others expect of me.

I felt nobody really understood why I radiated such melancholy most of the time, especially when I was so young. What they also didn’t get was I couldn’t comprehend it either. I’d be scrutinized for not being able to control feeling what I felt.

Some days, my routine eats away at my soul. I get exhausted from life; empty interactions, fake smiles, waking up too freakin' early for my own good. I feel all of the emotional and mental processes I'm put through minutely so deeply.

At times, I'll find my brain constantly gawping off into space in an attempt to just catch a break from thinking. I’ll notice my heart second guessing itself way too often, and detaching from emotions, people, or any type of bonding, really. I'll feel betrayed by my own thoughts. Sometimes, I don’t feel alive, I just feel myself dying.

I think deep down I, as well as each and every one one us, know a part of us is always going to be dying, and obviously that's horrifying. It scares me and I'm sure a lot of others that we're never going to get this exact moment back, ever. Or 20 years of adolescence that so quickly flashed before eyes. Time just turns into memories, and that integrated sadness within me derives from a piece of me that will always live in every moment I've ever had, or haven't had.

I’ve been through all types of motions, the victimizing, the feeling sorry for and hating myself, the idealizing of permanent solutions for my temporary problems. At this point, the only option I give myself is to live life by each second, and tell myself I'll be okay if I'm still breathing, and still feeling.

I've learned in the past few years that I have to use these feelings for bigger purposes, and not just drown myself in thought. I've found the little hidden purposes of life everywhere I go.

At the end of the day, I want this life. I'm so curious to see how long I can possibly go through this thing we call time, and what I can accomplish. I'm here not only because I have endless love and support around me, but I need me here. I am me, no one has been or ever will be me. I made a promise to myself to do something about that.

To anybody who can relate to me on any level, I want to applaud you for getting out of bed this morning. We don't hear that nearly enough, yet it's the greatest accomplishment of every day; waking up.

You are not your broken mistakes, your fears, or your indefinite future. You are still you. You are enough and deserve not only to be happy, but free. Only you can free yourself. Allow your sensitivity to human instinct teach you things about yourself; it's communicating something deeper than just angst.