World Suicide Prevention Day is held each year on September 10. Active Minds handed out educational posters and buttons to campus this week to raise awareness.

For those who have experienced the loss of a family member, the buttons were purple, and for those who have lost a friend, they were blue.

I stepped out into the basking sunlight with a blue button on my shirt; one singular shining emblem of mourning to represent all of the people that I’ve lost.

Can you imagine what it would look like if the group had enough buttons for all of the students on campus to accurately count how many people they have lost in their lives? How many buttons would Wayne State need? How many buttons would the State College System of Nebraska need? How many buttons would fill all of the colleges within the United States? Too many.

One of my favorite songs by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros goes like this: “Yes, life is hard, come celebrate, life is hard.”

I can’t tell you the amount of times this chorus has looped through my headphones on overwhelming days.

There is so much truth in simplicity. There is so much strain in the everyday theory of waking up proud, dragging your bones through a schedule, and coming home at the end of the day satisfied that you indeed are enough of a person in every aspect, satisfied with your career path, physically healthy, striving for success, financially well off, emotionally satisfied, mentally stable, community involved, in good faith and relationships with all of those around you with enough time for simple pleasures on the side. BULLSHIT.

I’m writing a letter to the editor of this unrealistic list of expectations and telling them to try again because I have yet to meet a single person who doesn’t struggle with something. This stigma that erodes our society is shrinking our human ability to simply be. What does a human life mean if it is spent trying to live up to the standard of living?

I have stopped using the words illness, issues or disorders when talking about mental health.

I respect and understand that these illnesses are real, but am trying to find a new way to break the negative cycle in which people view them.

I now say “mental health situations” which, to me, states that we all go through situations in life that encompass a varying degree of circumstances.

Some days those circumstances are different than others, but no life has to be compromised at the arms of them. If you’re still reading this, I need you to pick up your wrist and kiss it right above the pulsing vein.

I do this when my anxiety is triggered to remind myself why I am here. If the pounding muscle within my chest can achieve 60 to 100 beats per minute, what could I do in a lifetime?

Advice from one college student to the audience of The Wayne Stater: please don’t take yourself for granted. You are unstoppable. You are a miracle. You are capable. You are enough.