According to the 2019 report from SAMHSA, around one in every five adults in the U.S. (or 51.5 million people) lives with one or more mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders. During that year, 12 million of those adults seriously considered ending their own life, 3.5 million of them made a plan to do so, 1.4 million of them tried, and over 45,000 unfortunately succeeded, making suicide the tenth leading cause of death in adults. It is also the second leading cause of death for people between ages 10 and 45.

Mental health is already a major issue around the world, especially in the U.S., and its prevalence has been steadily growing for years, most significantly for the 18-25 age group.

It is past time to end the stigma surrounding mental health and start having important conversations to understand how it affects people, how different people manage and overcome these things on a regular basis, and what can be done to conquer mental illnesses for the long term.