In many instances my clients were not just the children who had come to my office for help, but also the parents who came with them, most often mothers. Mothers who were exhausted, anxious, depressed, lost, and breaking under pressure―struggling to know how to help themselves and their children.

One of my biggest priorities is supporting students as they go through challenges in their lives. I am not a mental health expert, but I am here to tell my story and share advice coming out of my successes, as well as my failures.

It was a Saturday. I was trying to finish a sermon but couldn’t quite get it done. Feelings of sadness didn’t help. Maybe going for a walk would. It didn’t. Despite the beautiful fall afternoon, the sad feelings only increased. They reached a point of almost overwhelming me with their power. I knew I had to do something.

Mental health problems are difficult to talk about because we simply don’t do it much. As a result, we don’t always know what to think or what to say. Yet mental health problems are extremely common. In any given year, about one in five persons, regardless of age, will experience a mental illness.