Personally, I've struggled with various mental health issues, from depression and anxiety, to academic struggles with ADD. I've found ways of managing them (somewhat), but the biggest mental health impact for me came from an experience with my brother. Two years ago, at age 25, my brother attempted to end his life. He was hospitalized and had to undergo surgery to repair the damage he caused to his body. It shook our whole family to our core. It was completely unexpected, and we couldn't understand how he got so low to feel his only way out was to end his life. And why didn't he seek out help from any of us? After he recovered, we talked about his reasons for falling so deep, and he shared a series of situations in which he blamed himself for others' misfortune and pain. He was a helicopter mechanic in the US Navy. During a routine inspection, he discovered something that needed to be replaced and he outsourced the repair to a fellow shipmate who apparently did not complete the repair. Later on, the helicopter took off, transporting several of his shipmates, and then crashed injuring one member so severely that he had to end his military career. My brother blamed himself for not just doing the repair and felt he single-handedly caused the crash. After getting out of the military, his female roommate (who had proven to be a manipulative, opportunistic, and jealous young woman many times before) told him he was 'practically a rapist' because he was drinking at a party one night and flirted with her friend, who was also drinking. Nobody slept with anyone, he never even touched this young woman, but his roommate got into his head and seeded doubt about his fundamental moral core and sent him spiraling because she didn't want him talking to her friend. I asked him why he never told anyone what he was struggling with, and I recall him telling me 'the men in our family don't talk about our feelings; we just don't'. I shared this with my dad, and he broke down- blamed himself for pushing this false narrative down to his son, the same narrative he received from his father when he was a young boy. What I learned from his experience is how important it is to be emotionally available to our friends and family. No judgment, assumptions, or criticism. And we need to do more than think it; we need to say it, mean it, and prove it. We can all be that safe space for someone who feels they have nothing left in their lives worth living for. The more we talk about it, support mental health programs and normalize seeking therapy.