Mental health is a controversial topic that many have been too afraid to talk about. Some people brush it off, saying it’s not that serious and that you should just ‘get over it.’ This causes more problems for people with mental illness. The more they shove those feelings down and try to forget about it, the more those feelings fester. Society drills into many people a deeply rooted fear of talking about their emotions and their struggles.

Luckily, in recent years, more and more people have been coming out of their shells and talking about their journey with mental illness. One of these people is singer-songwriter Billie Eilish. Billie recently opened up about her struggles with mental illness in a new “Seize the Awkward” PSA. When I watched that video, this quote stuck out to me: “It doesn’t make you weak to ask for help, it doesn’t make you weak to ask for a friend to go to a therapist … you should be able to ask anyone for help.”

This is SO important, and it made me wonder who else has spoken out about this. Michelle Obama once said this when referring to mental health: “We would never tell someone with a broken leg that they should stop wallowing and get it together. We don’t consider taking medication for an ear infection something to be ashamed of.”

Seeing these people use their popularity to send such an important message is really inspiring, and I wanted to see how this has affected my peers. I took a poll to see if celebrities speaking out about mental health has ever helped them and if they thought it was important, all 55 people said it was important and 18 of those said it had helped them before.

One student, Eva Candia, even shared, “I find it very fascinating that the people who have such a big platform to portray themselves on have chosen to come to terms with reality and speak out about such important topics.”

Talking about mental health is so important, and I’m really happy that it’s starting to become more mainstream.