While dining on Korean food, my best friend and I were catching up with the week's news when she brought up a person we knew from high school. We weren't close to her because we thought that she was a bit snooty, but we didn't think that she was a bad person, either. This acquaintance of ours, who I will call Emily, is going to the same college as my best friend so they decided to have lunch and chat. Their meeting was more than a simple lighthearted chat.

During the last semester of high school, Emily mysteriously vanished and only her closest friends knew what happened. I asked one of those friends, and she responded that Emily had to leave school for health reasons. I pressed for more specifics out of concern, but Emily's friend refused. Her reason was, "I don't want to say because it's kinda embarrassing. Not really but you know." Except that I didn't know since that was a shabby answer—but I didn't want to pry. A year later, my best friend finally provided the answer:

"Emily went to the hospital for her mental health. She was breaking down."

I was shocked, not because Emily needed help, but because that need was considered embarrassing. It had been a long time since I encountered stigma like that. I had always believed that awareness of mental health was unduly important after covering up my own issues out of fear for being judged as an ungrateful crybaby. Bottling my own emotions felt like trying to contain a nuclear bomb in a fragile glass box. Rather than have my friends deal with the aftermath, I had resolved to confront and resolve them instead. It took me much time but I had started to become more open with my thoughts, even trying to express them to others when writing about trying to love yourself again and why therapy was extremely important to me. I thought that I was overcoming my own stigma.

However, like a lot of times, I was wrong. When I remembered how Emily’s friend called the reason embarrassing, I remembered last week when I covered up that I had just come back from a therapy session. I didn’t want to be judged for needing therapy, and I didn’t want to explain why I needed it in the first place. I lied and said I had come back from math class instead because it was easier for me that way.

I felt disappointed in myself. I thought I was so open with myself, but I guess not. I realized how even though we try to raise awareness for mental health, most of us are barely prepared for it or even know much about it. It’s like the selectivity in world news—Americans only know the attacks in Paris and Belgium while nobody knows of the incessant attacks in Yemen, Iraq and other countries. I don’t blame anyone, though. It’s because we’re too used to hiding the issues that stigma is all too easy to occur. It’s not easy, but this stigma must be overcome. Having depression, bipolar disorder, or any other disorder is maddening to live with on a daily basis; it’s not fair to add on the fear of being embarrassed.