Being an undergraduate admission candidate and for belonging from a South

Asian country, I am quite familiar with the admission process of undergraduate

program here. Here it is termed as 'admission season'. As I had a good number of
friends, I got to know their mental sufferings during their admission period from
very close. Over almost one year this admission lasts and that struck my mind that
how much important mental health is. I have seen my friends suffering from acute
depression due to not fulfilling their family's expectations. They have suffered
from Identity crisis; they have questioned their abilities, and all this feels like a
failure. Some even attempted suicide. Even in my case, there were days I doubted
myself and I had no one to talk to. All this rough phase made me, and my mates
lose confidence. Even after when they got chances to different universities, they
were not happy. Their emotions and ability to be happy was sucked out from
them. And very sadly, counselling is very expensive still now. For this, students
suffer from frustration and still cannot go to any psychiatrist due to financial
loads. We didn't find anybody just to say that it's a phase and good days will come
soon. It felt like drowning in a sea full of high standards.

I am pretty sure that when I am 50 or near about that I will still say, this
admission period was one of the toughest situations in all the students. And it
would not have been that bad if there was proper mental health counselling. We
are always running after success, dream, passion and while running we gradually
lost ourselves, our emotions and feelings. In the childhood when a simple toy
used to give us enormous joy, now at this point in life even a stable job doesn’t
give us happiness. It only lessens our stress of financial aid. In the whole process
of adulthood, we declined mental health issues, and we lost us. At the end only
happiness matters and in search of happiness we have lost the ability of being
happy. If I were given a chance, I would tell everybody out there, scream out my
story to make realize how much mental health means.

When anyone suffers from any physical injury it is seen very clearly, but when
someone is mentally sick, we cannot easily see that from outside. This makes
mental health more of an important issue. One may die inside and still laugh at
silly jokes. In the present world every one of us is running behind success. We feel
that if we achieve that certain thing, we'll get happiness for life. But in this
running, we forget that happiness is not any object, it's a feeling. It is about
finding contentment in the things that we have. One can be happy living in a tent
and one can be unhappy living in a multi-storied building. It's all about how we
take things. And sadly, these are not taught to us. We learn these through any
traumatic experience. And when we finally learn these, we have already lost
ourselves.

This is what I want to talk about if I get a chance. I want to say how much
important it is to check on friends and family if they are okay or silently fighting a
battle inside. I don't want any more of newcomers to go through mental illness
thinking it's just a mere issue and it'll be over. Rather I want them to have
someone to reach out for help. Counselling should be made free or at least
budget friendly for students. Because if students lost their mental energy, it
would make the whole nation lost its energy