Is Your Mental Health Important to You?

How serious do you take your mental health? Take a second and think about it? I don't think we take our mental health seriously enough. I am right in the middle of the absolute breakdown of one of my friends and it's awful. Did I see it coming? Somewhat, but it's harder to deal with than I expected.
We all have a breaking point. That point doesn't have to end with hospitalization and a straight jacket, but there's a moment when everything just explodes.  Most of the time, you can cry by yourself and a few hours later you're good again. But, sometimes crying just isn't enough.  I don't ever want to get to the point where a good long cry by myself won't make my internal stress meter restart. For the first time in a long time, I'm really worried. I normally manage my stress pretty well. My friends laugh at me because I take random "mental health" days off of work.  I know when I need a break. I also know that if I don't take that break, the office manager might find herself looking at my hand print in the mirror the next morning.  That won't be good for anyone.
I feel like we've all forgotten how to take a moment and just be. Vacations cost a lot of money, so most of us are lucky to get one every couple of years. We've gotta find some other ways to get away from the things that cause us stress. Or we at least need to learn to manage our stress better.  Tonight my mother told me I need to learn to not care so much. I told her that I just can't not care because that's not who I am. She told me I'd better figure out how to make it happen. She's right. I'm stressed, not because of anything concerning me, but because of the things concerning the people around me. I'm not saying I don't have any problems, because lord knows I do. But luckily the people in my life are so fucked up that I don't have time to focus on them.
Seriously, my focus is all out of whack.  I have a million things I'm working on and I can't dedicate the appropriate amount of time to any of them because I'm constantly having to be there for (insert random person's crisis) It's getting to be too much. I either need to change the people around me, or change the people around me. It's going to be hard, but I've gotta do something. I'll start with a good, long cry by myself, and see if that helps.