The first full week of October is known as Mental Health Awareness week and is a time to bring awareness to serious illnesses and break stigmas surrounding them. This is the one week of the year where everyone comes together to support one another and spread love. This is the one week of the year where people feel safe expressing the issues they have been dealing and others are there to offer kind words.
However, this really bothers me. Why is there one specific week to bring awareness to a serious issue that affects millions of Americans? Why do we only band together to offer our support one week a year? Why do we only talk about mental illnesses on days created to do so? Mental illnesses do not take days off so why should we?
Mental health is physical health. We have no days to talk about and bring awareness to our physical health because we worry about that everyday, yet we have specific days to talk about and bring awareness to our mental health.
Those that struggle with mental illness' suffer everyday in silence and fight the battle themselves. They go through life feeling alone and struggling by themselves. The pain one feels from being in a constant battle with herself is indescribable to those on the outside, yet nobody is there to offer their help.
Knowing you have someone; someone to lean on, someone to help, someone to love you, means the world to those struggling. Having the positive encouragement, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, through the struggles gives those the strength to keep fighting. They need support 365 days a year, not just 7.
It's time that we realize and understand the seriousness and the true horror that is mental illness. Nobody should ever have to fight these monsters, but since they do, nobody should ever have to fight them alone. We need to stand together, hand in hand, heart by heart, to support, encourage, and love those suffering, so they know how much they mean and how important they truly are. We must give them the strength to want to fight and want to win everyday of the year, everyday minute of the day. When "I" is replaced with "we", illness becomes wellness.
Mental illness is a war and you can't win a war without an army. Let's be someone's army.
