One in five people suffer from some sort of mental disease, the most common being anxiety and depression. When someone has a mental disease, that disease takes control over their mind and they are no longer the person that they really are. You become your illness.

It's kind of like blood sugar in cases with people who are diabetic. When your sugar goes high or goes low, you become your blood sugars. Each person has different reactions, but typically the person becomes someone else. Someone whose mood changes to something uncommon for the person. The same goes for someone with depression.

Someone with depression may experience this fog that takes over the mind. In this fog there are voices and images that come up. Voices telling you that you're worthless or other horrible things. Images of the world without you, and in those images, somehow the world seems better.

Suicide isn't a joke.

Neither are people with mental diseases.

I have experienced a range of people who have dealt with mental disease and suicide, and I can tell you that someone contemplating suicide is the scariest thing you can be faced with. After dealing with this in many different angles, I feel as though I can put into perspective the value of someone's life.

To the people who feel like they're better off gone,

I just want you to know that without you, someone that loves you very much would be broken. By broken, I don't mean like two halves of a heart. I mean absolutely shattered. I mean floods. I mean no return to the person they once were. Someone loves you. You might be haunted by the fact that no one does, but trust me, that's the fog of depression that comes over us talking to you.

I want you to know that you will regret it. If you go through with it, you will regret it. I don't really know what happens after you die, but you will look down on your old life and see all the good in your life. You will see all the love in your life. But if you leave everyone, you will look down and see all the hurt.

I want you to see that you hold a special place in someone(s) heart. Without you, they would not have the memories, the laughs, and the life they have now. You make a difference in other people's lives. You are important.

I want you to know about the fog. That's what I refer to depression as, a fog. I want you to know that the fog is not you, it is not part of you. It is part of having a mental illness. Sometimes the fog is there and sometimes it isn't, but when it is there isn't a clear picture in your mind. The fog distorts what is actually happening. The fog makes you feel bad about yourself. The fog deceives you and tries to trick you. You are not the fog. More importantly, you can overcome the fog.

I've had a time in my life where the fog was always there. Sometimes it was dense and other times not so much. Regardless, the fog was trying to take over my life. It was trying to tell me that I was not going to make it. But I did, and you will too.