Being sixteen, mental health is so hard to handle, especially when I am a full-time college student juggling a new part-time job, and making time for my boyfriend and family. That being said, I was sent to an all girls mental health treatment center on September 31st, 2021. There I was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsion Disorder, Severe Major Depression, PTSD, and Severe Anxiety. I started medication to help manage my depression and anxiety. I was there for 88 days. And it changed my life forever. I feel so much better now compared to just five months ago. My relationship with my boyfriend has been repaired. My relationships with my parents are getting better—they’re trusting me more and allowing me to make my own decisions. This includes starting my first job, driving to and from college, and visiting my boyfriend at his house and vise versa. Since being back I have started going to church. This might just be a compulsion, but it is quite nice, actually. I have also realized that “crazy” people are actually just people—they are just going through somethings of their own, mentally. I work as a certified nursing assistant in an acute care center. I am assigned in the “behavioral” care side of the wing. I help take care of the elderly with all different kinds of mental health “illnesses”, including schizophrenia, dementia, short-term memory loss, depression, anxiety, bipolar, and suicidal idealization. It is not a hard job once I realized that a majority of the patients are just like me, so I am able to help them by treating them how I wanted to be treated when I was at my worst—with respect, kindness, care, and love. As a teenager with mental health issues living through the stigmatization of mental health, it is heart breaking. People struggling with their mental health do not need to be belittled, stereotyped, or frowned upon. This is because they are human. They are human and they have their problems just like anybody else. One particular experience I went through while being in my treatment center was funny, but sad. The group of us went out to eat with our care-coordinators— the women who watched over us and made sure we were okay—and the waitress asked us if we were having a sleepover. We could have said yes, but another one of the girls said “we are in rehab”, and the waitress looked at us wide-eyed and had a very scared expression on her face. We laughed, but deep down we know it all stung a little bit to be looked at in such a way. She looked at us as if we were tainted, as if she was going to catch whatever “illnesses” we have. This is part of the reason I want to de-stigmatize mental health, and the “issues” that may come along with it. People with mental health issues are not monsters, we are not crazy, nor are we going to spread whatever we have to others.