The Weyburn Branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association held its annual Mayor's Luncheon today at McKenna Hall as part of Mental Health Week.
Read more: Drop the mask, start a conversation: CMHA Weyburn prepares for 74th annual Mental Health Week
During the April 28th meeting of Weyburn City Council, Mayor Jeff Richards proclaimed May 5th to 11th as Mental Health Week in Weyburn.
Read more: Mental Health Week, Water/Sewer Levy: City Council highlights
Mayor Richards addressed the crowd of around 200 at the event.
"In small communities like ours, we all know one another, and we see one another and we say, 'hey how you doing?' And we say, 'good'. Sometimes it isn't good. I think that's an important distinction for us to make, and I think that's what the theme of unmasking is about. It is not sustainable. We need to make it okay to not be okay. We need to make it okay to have hard conversations, and we need to make it okay to have safe spaces to have those conversations."
He pointed out that mental health impacts all of us.
"I would suggest there's nobody in this room who hasn't been touched by mental health, either yourself or someone very very close to you. So I would encourage you to do the things that you can do. Have conversations with people, your family people in your community, with your friends and neighbours. Ask them how they're doing. Be genuine and be generous with your ear. Listen where you can for as long as you can. And we don't have to know everything. We don't have to understand everything. But the thing we can do is listen and help people and make sure it's okay not to be okay."
Britton Houdek, the Director of Mental Health and Addictions for the southeast region of the Saskatchewan Health Authority, said she was prompted to discuss two concepts for this year's theme for Mental Health Week, 'Unmasking Mental Health'.
"Firstly, I think about the notion or the belief that mental health only occurs as a bad thing or a problem. Mental health actually exists on a continuum and should be viewed and cared for just as our physical health is cared for every day. The second thing I think about is the word mask and the idea that we must mask when we're unwell, when situations are tough, when life feels lonely, and when experiences, ideas, thoughts mount beyond what we feel like we can manage."
"For me, when I think about unmasking, I think about vulnerability. Some think that vulnerability means shame, guilt, or fear. I challenge that belief. For me, vulnerability in unmasking actually means courage. Being here today reminds me that we don't exist in isolation, but rather we stand together here as a community. We can feel courageous to unmask when we feel like we can't manage."
Trevor Gates, Executive Director of the CMHA Saskatchewan Division, said the concept of 'normal' is a social construct, and it changes over time.
"Yet we're all competing to be normal, with this thing that's evolving," he noted. "Social media, looking at it, we have this hyper-real version that we put out there that is our best thing that we want to be seen, and I find that when we're competing with that and not only that, we're kind of monitoring one another with what's going on, it starts to take a bit of a toll and it takes some energy from us, so being able to unmask and has that real thing and using that vulnerability and using the strength, which I think is such a great way of putting, it is we need to talk about that and have those conversations."
Gates added that those conversations will eventually result in a safe space within communities.
The Keynote Speaker, Brad Siroski, delivered a powerful message, during which he shared deeply personal stories from his life, including how he overcame his own battles with mental health, addictions, and cancer. He also shared tips he's learned throughout his journey.
He said he wore masks through his struggles, and taking them off has resulted in his career as a certified Mental Health and Addictions Counsellor.
"I have a diploma in mental health, and I'm CACC, certified in addictions. I'm an award-winning program designer. I've designed programs for companies, school divisions, and a bunch of different corporations that help their clients, their employees, and their students who are struggling with mental health. I'm a public speaker. I've traveled most of Western Canada sharing my story, sharing wellness workshops, and basically helping people promote positive mental health. "That's really where my heart lies."
Siroski was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for his contributions in the field of mental health. He also released a book last year, entitled, "The Long Road of Recovery', which hit the bestsellers list in the field of both mental health and addictions.
He shared his background, "I'm a son, I'm a husband, a father, a brother, a poet, I'm a friend, and I'm just a small-town boy from the Davidson-Kenaston area in Saskatchewan who's struggled his whole entire life with some form of mental health or addiction issues. And for a lot of years, I wore masks."
While the struggles with substance abuse began early for Siroski, carrying into his adulthood.
"Running from our problems, not only putting on masks, but running from things you're not dealing with in school, is common for people. And I ran from those problems. I headed off to go to school. In that first year away from home, those problems followed me, and I got kicked out of that post-secondary school. I got kicked out of the house I was living in. I got two impaired driving charges. I went to rehab, to detox, to jail, all before I was 19 years of age. And this is what the next 22 years of my life is going to look like."
"I became this very high-functioning addict," he'd said. "This is what it was like for about seven years."
At the age of 31, he suffered a cocaine-alcohol-stress-induced heart attack. This prompted doctors to advise him to quit, which he said he had, for a while. However, not even the birth of his daughter was able to make him clean up, nor did the serious threats to his physical health.
"I'd do really good for two or three weeks. And then I'd have a falling out with my partner or a problem at work. Or I would just feel good and want to hang out with my buddies and go out and make this mistake. And I'd relapse. And when I relapsed, I felt all that guilt, that shame, that self-worth, self-doubt, and all those things that I recognized. And the only way I knew how to deal with those things at that time was to use them more. So it became this vicious circle of getting well, having that first mistake, feeling those feelings, using. And it snowballed for the next nine months until on February 2nd, 2009, my beautiful daughter, Carolyn Siroski, was born. And I remember that night like it was last night. I held her in my arms. I sang to her. I cried. And I made a promise to that girl, that little girl right there. I promised her I was never going to use drugs ever again. And eight hours later, I was using cocaine in the hospital parking lot with my drug dealer. And I thought, 'if I can't do this for this little girl, and I can't do this for myself, then I can't do it at all'."
After three more years of losing friends and family due to his addictions, despite being in detox treatment programs, he was facing losing his rights to his daughter.
"I've had the door slammed in my face so many times, it was tough for me to reach out to my boss. And with a lot of courage and, to be honest, a lot of vodka, I finally did reach out to him. His name is Clayton Schneider."
His boss told him he was proud of him, and within a few minutes, he was speaking with a recovering addict and was able to get into a treatment program, Teen Challenge, three months later. He showed a 'before' photo from when he entered the program, describing himself as lifeless.
The program was able to provide him with a community of like-minded men who made him realize he wasn't alone.
"I felt like for so many years that I was the only person that was going through all these things. And when I talked to these men, I realized they had the same mental health problems. Similar addiction problems. In that program, I found a faith. I also got to see a counselor once a week for 52 weeks, and we started to take those masks off and we started to talk."
"I say all the time, my catchphrase is, revealing is healing. And when we start to reveal and talk about what's going on in our lives, we start to heal."
Once his life of sobriety, which included setting goals, plans, and schedules, as well as connecting with people, had become more progressive, he was ready to go back to school. It was at that point Siroski was diagnosed with cancer.
"I feel like if that diagnosis would have come 10 or 12 years earlier in my addiction, I wouldn't be standing here talking to you guys today. But it came at a good time in my life. I was mentally and physically the healthiest I'd ever been. I was surrounded by people who supported me. I didn't believe that my higher power brought me through 22 years of addictions to wipe me out with cancer. I wouldn't have it. So I stayed positive and I used those supports. About a month later, I went under the knife and had a tumor about the size of my fist cut out of my kidney. And I'm happy to report that this July I'll be 10 years cancer free."
After that, he found a career in his community.
"It wasn't my favorite job [...] But the one thing that did start to happen when I took that job on, and I mean this from all my heart, is when you really start to work on yourself, and you put a lot of work in, and you start to do all these things, you take care of yourself, and you set goals, and you help other people, you tend to stand a little taller. And walk a little prouder. And you emit this positivity that people feel. It makes you feel approachable.
And that's what happened. People started coming up to me and talking to me."
He said people were reaching out to him for help with their own loved ones who were struggling with mental health and addictions. This inspired him to train as a counsellor. Once he completed his studies at an Indigenous school, he was able to work on the streets of Saskatoon, "with the most vulnerable population of men and providing them with addiction support by meeting them where they were at. And what I mean by the most vulnerable population is guys directly out of jail. Guys living in trap houses, back alleys, homeless shelters. And when I say I met them where they were at, I met them at the doors of the jail. The doors of the trap houses. I met them in the back alleys. And I learned a handful of things working in this position."
"The first thing I learned was that the only time we should ever look down on someone is when we're helping them out. I was just one step away. One lack of support - one boss that didn't tell me he was proud of me, one parent that didn't drive me to a treatment program - away from being on the streets with those guys."
Siroski said the other thing he learned was, "every single person in this room knows somebody. But even more than that, at some point in your life, every single one of you is going to go through a battle with your own mental health that nobody else knows anything about. It may be grief or loss. It may be trauma, or stress, or anxiety, or substance use."
"You're going to go through something. Look next to you. The person next to you is going to go through something at some point. And because of the stigmas and the stereotypes and the masks, they're not going to talk about it. So be kind to each other. Be kind to one another. Because you never know what a person is going through. The lady that just cut you off in traffic and just lost a child. Or have a husband that's dying in a hospital. We don't know. Be kind to one another. Be kind to ourselves."
He said his third lesson was, "When we stopped doing the things that worked, things stopped working."
While breaking down in front of his boss, Siroski realized that his struggles had not ended, as he was not taking as good of care of himself and had lost a few people close to him as well.
"She said, Brad, you said yourself, if you were physically ill, you wouldn't be here. But you're mentally, emotionally, and spiritually drained, and here you are. You need to go home. And I said, 'I'm not going home. I didn't go home when I blew my back out, so I'm not going home when I'm sad'. And I worked in the field. I was telling people every day, show your emotions, be vulnerable. And sometimes counsellors are really good at telling people what to do, but they're not really good at doing it themselves."
He was, of course, sent home, which was when he was granted the space to write down what he needed to process, resulting eventually in his book.
"We need to do things that promote physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual growth. And the physical quantities are easy. Just do anything that promotes a healthy mind. Try to get some rest. Try to hydrate. Eat some great food. Get outside for some fresh air. Mentally, we need to do things to improve our minds. We always need to keep growing our minds."
"We also need to pay attention to our thoughts. The way I speak to myself, if I spoke to you guys that way, you'd punch me in the face. We need to be kind to our own mind and our own body. Emotionally, we need to do anything to recognize positive feelings. The positive feelings are joy and excitement and happiness. So do things that make you feel like that. But we have to have balance in our life. We've got to honour the positive emotions. We also have to honor the negative emotions. Things like sadness, fear, anger."
"I grew up in anger. It was in my household. So when I sobered up, for some reason, the anger was still there," he shared.
He added he still sees counsellors for his own self-care, and he is now married with two step-daughters.
"Surround yourself with good people, places, and things, and you'll be successful. Balance and boundaries. We need to have balance in our life."
His tips included having balance and boundaries, taking responsibility for your role in your problems, being honest, and having purpose and gratitude.
"So please you guys, reveal. Heal. Don't struggle in silence for 22 years like I did and go through all the other stuff. Substance abuse and the other problems. Because you've been told for so long not to talk. It's okay to talk. It's okay. Please. Take the mask off. Reveal. Heal."
Find Siroski's book HERE.