No matter what any of your friends are telling you, know that this right here is the truth:

There is absolutely no shame in expressing your emotions. You do not deserve to be silenced.

When you mock someone for being ‘too sensitive’ or ‘too dramatic’ in how they are responding to stress of any kind, you are hurting them more than you understand.

After a while, someone who is always pressured into silence will give in. They will distance themselves from people they once thought they could trust with their innermost thoughts and feelings. They will keep their mouths shut just so that their sadness “doesn’t ruin the party” or so that their anxiety “doesn’t infect the rest of the group”.

They will do all of this because they care about your feelings in spite of you not caring about theirs.

Soon enough, the pain of bottling up all of these feelings catches up to someone. The burden of internalized fears and worries manifests itself in hurtful and sometimes dangerous ways. They can become depressed. They can become anxious. They may even feel so lonely and so isolated within themselves that they start to view suicide as their only way to escape.

We don’t realize how severe of an issue this is until something catastrophic actually happens. We’re told time and time again that we need to look out for our friends, and we know this as the correct answer if the question were to appear on a quiz or test.

But still, we wait until another suicide attempt is made. We wait until we notice the self-harm scars. We wait until we catch them purging in the bathroom. We wait until prevention is impossible. We wait until the damage is done.

If you really, truly care about someone, you should be looking out for them.

We are in college, for Christ’s sake; we really should have learned this lesson by now.

Perhaps you argue that you’d rather not intervene in someone’s personal life because you don’t want to seem nosy. Let them tell you that themselves. Don’t assume that someone isn’t looking for help simply because they haven’t raised their voice to ask for it.

You might be downright frustrated with that one friend who keeps talking about their ex. You may be ready to rip your own hair out the next time you have to hear your roommate stress out about a public-speaking presentation. Maybe it infuriates you that she jokes so often about going back to her razorblades after all these years. Maybe you’re tired of him moping around whenever you hang out.

Whatever the case may be, chances are,none of them are acting this way on purpose.

You can’t wrap your head around how they operate just like they can’t get all Freudian with you. So why should you judge someone for how they feel or for how they think?

Another thing to keep in mind is that not everyone who vents to you expects you to give them something in return. Sometimes - and I’ll bet you’ve felt this way, too - all they want to do is share what’s been buzzing around inside their heads for so long so they can set it free.

If you sincerely can’t handle their distress, you can refer them to people who can.

Offer them hotline numbers to call, or direct them to counseling services nearby. Explain to them that you care about them so much, but that you can’t devote yourself fully to them for whatever reason.

Being a friend doesn’t mean you have to be their therapist. Believe me, they don’t even want you to be their therapist. They just want to know that you’re willing to support them even as they bounce between highs and lows. They want to know that you can be a comforting presence in their life as they navigate through whatever personal issues they’ve been dealt.

If you have any say in it at all, don’t let someone slip through the cracks. Don’t let them become a statistic; don’t let them become another suicide, another body marked with scars, another real-life example in a health textbook.

Be a friend from the very beginning.

Don’t encourage anyone to believe that their feelings aren’t valid.

Don’t let the silence take over.