We are approaching that time in the semester that I refer to as the “hump.” At this point, students are usually in the midst of midterms which becomes a time of high anxiety.

I believe that we must be reminded that with all the stress and frustrations, our mental wellness is at a precarious position and taking the time to ensure your mind’s health is a necessity.

A couple of weeks before I wrote this article, I had the displeasure of experiencing a brief period of mental debilitation. During that time, I had been in a depressive mood state in which I felt like nothing mattered and found myself sleeping for long periods of time. To top it all off, the depression was worsened by a bout of persistent insomnia that threw off my sense of time.

This may not seem like the most dramatic case of mental wellness gone awry, but these episodes are important because they happen abruptly and come about through an accumulation of everyday stress.

We are all creatures of habit, which means that our lives operate on cycles of predictability. Whether it’s the reality that the sun comes up everyday or that grades are given at the end of the semester, we live on a schedule.

Mental wellness thus becomes intimately tied to our expectations of our lives happening as we live them.

After my episode of mental crisis, I reflected on why my breakdown occurred. I realized that in a couple of months, my reality will dramatically shift once I graduate from college. By spending so much time at CSUSM, this place has become a part of my world, a second home and a predictable cycle.

By attending college, I knew all my time here was meant to culminate in leaving; however, the reality that I would soon have to adjust to a life after CSUSM was probably too much for me to handle all at once. Luckily, one of the things that I learned with my time was how to ensure my mental wellness and why it is important.

Being able to work through personal issues and understand yourself better is a result of taking time to ensure your mental well­-being. In doing these things, you come to understand who you are as a person, and understanding this is the first step towards happiness.