The third annual Douglas College
Miles for Mental Health Walk/Run was held this past Saturday. The following is the speech given by Anna
Helewka to start off the run.
The dream team consisted of Anna
Helewka, Vicki Shillington and her son Jake, Patricia Juvik, Joan Crisp, Sarah
Mellet, Shana Lund, Maria Bishop and her dog Sadie, Maureen Mackey, Donna Roy, Kathy Potter, and Hazel
Postma.
Kudos to the PNUR department for its
involvement, along with HR and External Relations. Great community involvement !!
Get ready for next year students!!!!! Faculty dream and student dream team!
Our team has dream---that, we will one day live in a
world that is free from the destructive stigma and bias that still exists for
those living with mental health challenges.
As a young student
nurse I came to understand early the extent of this stigma towards those
suffering mental illness. My first
psychiatric patient as a student nurse was a woman who had been a pharmacist
for almost 20 years—she had what was called a nervous breakdown and was
institutionalized and put on some very heavy duty medications with damaging
side effects---when I met her she had been in hospital 37 years---no one came to
visit her, family and friends abandoned and forgot about her because of the shame----she
was alone in this world except for her co-patients and the hospital staff at
Riverview.
SO, yes we can say we have progressed in decreasing
the stigma towards mental illness from those times—when those with mental
illness were banished to locked institutions BUT we still have a long way to
go.
Attitudes of stigma
and bias continue to be injurious to those experiencing mental health
challenges but these attitudes are also detrimental to all of us individually
and to who we are as a larger society.
I ask the
question---how can a society that has come so far in so many arenas, continue
to engage in, accept and sometimes promote such damaging attitudes? A favorite quote of mine that illustrates this
is from past US President Bill Clinton:
Mental
health is nothing to be ashamed of but stigma and bias shame us all.
Some things to think about as we
walk/run today:
·
A fifth of Canadians will develop mental illness at
some point in their lives, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association. This means that many Canadians will be
affected not only directly but indirectly by mental illness, because their
friends, family or neighbours will develop a mental illness.
·
Mental illness affects people of all ages,
cultures, education and income levels
·
Labels of mental illness do not define the
person---no more so than a label such as Diabetes defines the person—there is
so much more to the individual than the label ‘assigned’ to them.
·
Stigma or bias results in a decreased sense of self.
The individual begins to believe they ARE worthless because of how they are
treated.
·
Stigma associated with mental illness causes people
to hide and not seek treatment resulting in unnecessary suffering, alienation, pain
and often very real feelings of terror so that they choose to escape the pain
through suicide.
·
Stigma is responsible for many of the barriers that
those with mental illness face in communities, hospitals, workplaces etc.
·
Aside from accidents and injuries, mental illness
in youth accounts for the second highest reason for hospitalization
As we run or walk
today on this beautiful trail, let’s all think about how we can as a community
and individually raise awareness of and conquer the attitudes of stigma that
continue to exist around mental illness.
Let us make a
pledge
to go further than our 2.5 Km walk or 5 Km run today ….lets strive to advocate
and educate for a change in societal attitudes on a daily basis with everyone
we meet.
LETS WORK TOWARDS A WORLD THAT IS FOCUSED ON MENTAL
HEALTH FOR ALL!!
Anna Helewka,
Program Coordinator, Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Douglas College Faculty
of Health Sciences
