Anna Quindlen-“After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.” As a woman, there are often added layers of complexity in how mental health is perceived and managed. When my friends ask “How do you manage your mental health” I tell them “I might seem good from the outside with my mental health but in reality, there are things better not said than said." I have learned that mental health is a disease that everyone goes through. As a female myself, I am still figuring out how to get rid of my mental health, all while doing my school work and personal life, but one thing I can say is that putting yourself first and exploring and trying new things will get you out there, seeing the real you. When I hear the word school, I just want to hide and disappear from the world, but reality is something else. Having to deal with my mental health while doing academics is the biggest obstacle that was put in my life. I am still in high school, and many have said to me that I’m still young and it's just a phase that I’m going through and that mental health is something that will pass. Hearing all of that caused me to fall into depression. I could say that some ways I tried to make my mental health better is by putting myself first and making time for myself. As well as trying to understand myself more and try dealing with time management to not put my work behind. By trying to understand myself more, I like taking myself on small dates and explore little things I find interesting. An example is painting, I didn’t know that art was one of the ways for me to breathe and have time to relax, letting all that anxiety go away. I never knew in my life that exploring and doing small things would get you to know yourself better and make time for yourself. They are the smallest things in life that make my mental health better and help me move forward in life. Not many people know about my mental health, I hide behind a smile, letting those next to me know I doing better, but that’s far from the truth. No one is perfect in the world and I’m not perfect.