People who suffer from mental illness have been persecuted against in the 1800s mistaken for witches and heretics which lead to them being killed. People in the 1900's were thrown into overcrowded asylums, were abused both physically and mentally by being forced into unethical treatments as well as malnourishment. Overall the population of people in the united states has been subject to a lack of support from society as a whole when they really NEED support. These people deserve to have their voices heard, and they should also get the care they deserve.

According to Mental Health America, 43 million American adults suffer from some sort of mental illness, and one out of every five of those Americans have suicidal thoughts.

Over half of these Americans did not receive any treatment for their mental illness, and on top of that, there are not enough medical professionals that can help these Americans. In Alabama, there is one mental health profession per ever 1260 people. That is INSANE. The mental health crisis in America is here, and it's taking over the lives of many Americans who deserve to have a chance to treat their mental illness and also have a normal, functioning life.

According to Mental Health America, 1.9 million children suffer from depressive episodes and "6 out of every 10 children" do not get treatment for those episodes.

This is prevalent everywhere in the United States, and this issue should be more publicized. These kids are suffering at the most important time of their development and it is sad. These kids deserve to be treated with the care they need in order to become the wonderful adults we want them to be. The lack of mental health funding is causing the future of this country to suffer. These kids deserve a chance to be happy and healthy, and not giving them the help that they need is not only an insult to them but an insult to our country.

We need to revolutionize our mental health systems and give funding to this system because clearly, our population needs it.

These individuals should be able to have the ability to seek counseling, to be prescribed medication that will help them function better, and to be leading happy lives. This problem needs to be fixed because if it doesn't it will just continue to get worse until we have an epidemic and we are forced to do something about it. Our country will continue to suffer more and more unless we do something to help these individuals.

The stigma behind mental illness is one reason these individuals don't seek the help they need, and the stigma behind it needs to end.

The people who are suffering from mental illness are just everyday people trying to live their everyday lives. They have families, they have jobs, they have people who love them, but they also hide how they feel because they don't want to be judged for being depressed or having anxiety or for having obsessive-compulsive disorder. Some people have even more intensive issues like bipolar disorder, multi-personality disorder; and a lot of these disorders cause some people to not function properly in society and they suffer. The society also suffers as a whole, if people do not start taking mental health seriously we might end up having more bad than good happen to us.

In the past few years, many of our favorite celebrities have committed suicide. These people range from Robin Williams to Kate Spade, no one outside of their inner circle had any idea that they were even depressed or suicidal. I know a lot of people who couldn't understand how people with seemingly everything could be suicidal, and that is that ugly part of mental illness. The people who suffer the most from it are those people who are able to hide it effectively from others. They isolate themselves, they don't believe that they are worthy of their successes, and they feel like the world would honestly be better off without them.

No matter how many people love you, you can still hate yourself, you can still feel helpless, which is the worst part of suffering from mental illness.

Some people try to use drugs in order to escape from their troubles. This is shown in Demi Lovato's overdose in July, she has suffered from years of mental illness and drug abuse, and sometimes even when you want to get better it is hard to stay on track. She has been in treatment for a little over a month, and not a lot of news has been released about how she is doing in rehab.

Although I am just speculating I also think it may be why Mac Miller died. He struggled with addiction, and after his breakup with Ariana, he seemed to kind of spiral out of control. His latest album "Swimming" seemed to me like a goodbye album to all of his fans and a scream for some help. I'm unsure if he was depressed or not but after listening to his album and taking into consideration some of the things that were happening in his life I could see how he could have been suicidal. It would have been a pretty easy thing for him to just simply overdose on drugs especially if they were laying around. Again, this is just speculation on my part.

No matter if you're rich or poor, if you are getting treatment or not, mental illness takes over people's lives.

We all say our condolences about suicides, but we never act to change the system to prevent suicides. We have to do better, we have to stand together, and help people who need it even if we don't know they need it. The future is depending on us to make these changes so that we can improve the lives of millions of Americans.