College students across the globe experience so many things while enduring their life-changing journey of higher education. Many only think of the physical strains, like the infamous "freshman 15", that college students undergo, while the mental and emotional challenges are taken lightly. The most common mental health issues that college students experience include depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, addictions, and even eating disorders. Students often live through their college careers with these challenges being untreated due to a fear that they will receive little help or no help at all. Can you blame them? Mental health is culturally and socially shamed, which leaves students to suffer in the quiet company of their dorm rooms or hopeful dreams that one day they will be able to find healing.

As a junior at one of the most academically and socially demanding colleges in the country, I can attest to the way a student's mental health can be put into danger or at a point of concern. I have had moments where I felt a bit depressed about my college journey and the ability to balance my personal life away from school and making my college career worthwhile. I have also had some friends who have had mental breakdowns since they were unable to cope with this new experience of independence and literally being over a thousand miles away from home in an entire city alone. I've even witnessed friends gain an addiction to drugs and dependence on drugs to deal with their problems because drugs made them feel at ease. It's frightening, it's serious, and it's even worse when you don't know how to handle it. Too many people look at mental health as a joke that you will "get over", but you can't get over a disease that you don't have a cure or clear answer for. It's kind of like telling a cancer patient to get over the fact that there is no "known cure" for an illness that they didn't even ask for.

ActiveMinds.org reports that 26 percent of Americans ages 18 and older – or about 1 in 4 adults - live with a diagnosable mental health disorder, which can be detected as early as 14 years of age. People that are aged from 18 to 24 are usually the most dominant group that refrain from seeking help with their mental health, which may be due to our highly active lives and minds. This age range features students who are entering college and some are finally getting out of college. During the age of 18-24, students are seeking balance while figuring themselves out. This may include students looking for jobs, figuring out how they will pay bills/tuition, joining organizations around campus/the community, or simply establishing their identity as they are fused among multiple cultures of people.

Mental health can affect a student's ability to succeed academically and even cause death.More than 80 percent of college students have felt overwhelmed by all the things they have to do in the past year and 45 percent have felt things were hopeless. Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death of college students and approximately 1,100 pass each year due to suicide. Most of these students confide in their friends in regards to their suicidal thoughts, but what if their friends have the exact same thoughts as these students? ActiveMinds.org also reports that 80-90% of college students who die by suicide were not receiving help from their college counseling centers, which says a whole lot about colleges of today and the importance of an institution's image rather than the genuine health of their students. Mental health should be defined, organized, and strategically outlined as a concern just as much as sexual assault and plagiarism are considered.

If you or a friend are having problems with your mental health or stability, please understand that you are not alone. Most, if not all, college students experience some form of mental instability. Seek help and know that you are not "crazy", "making a big deal", or "being dramatic". Share your experience. Speak out and demand proper help from your institution that is reliable, professional, and most of all genuinely available.