I cannot stress enough that maintaining a healthy mentality is huge if you want to succeed in anything. If you are not doing well mentally then how do you expect to get things done effectively? As many of you know, I have been battling with a healthy mentality myself. It is hard. Sometimes you cannot do it on your own. I read this story from someone on Tumblr once about how her mom would give her "mental health days". If she had a day where her mind was utter chaos due to her mental illness, then she was allowed to use a mental health day to regroup and focus on healing the mind. Why is it a crime to some people to not go to class one day or take a day off from work to regroup, to organize, to get your mind right? I believe if you have a mental illness, you should be required to have a certain amount of mental health days. Battling with a mental illness is not easy, especially if you are still trying to find the right medications. I mean call me out if I am wrong, maybe there is something in the ADA about it, but as far as I know, I haven't been granted this. In this past year alone, 1.2 million Americans have developed some sort of mental illness more than 2015. The numbers are just going to keep increasing if Americans do not do something about this. Helping people with mental illness is just as important as any other cause. Life gets stressful, life gets busy, but when all that starts to really affect someone with a mental illness, their world gets flipped upside down.

I understand that to some people this idea is lame. This idea is an easy way out. No, I promise you this is not an "easy" way out. The fact that some of us NEED a mental health day should be enough itself. If you were in my shoes or anyone else's shoes, you would understand. Mental illness is not something people enjoy having. It is a disease of the mind. The one thing that literally has you functioning besides your heart is SICK. Why not heal it? Why not give it a break?

I get that some people will never grasp this concept, but I think spreading the word can be just as effective and this is definitely a start. I hope one day maybe there will be mental health days if there isn't already. I hope one day I can help my future kids heal their brains and be able to understand what it means to take care of yourself and that other people care about their well-being too. Remember that trying to be mentally okay, IS okay.

"Mental health is often missing from public health debates even though it's critical to well being." - Diane Abbott