May was Mental Health Month and I would have written about it in my last article, except I wrote about the fire on the Hay River Reserve while the fire was still a real danger. So, what is good mental health?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), good mental health is a state of well-being in which you can:
realize your own abilities, cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively and fruitfully, and make a contribution to your community.
And, what negative things affect our well-being? Well, a few things quickly come to mind: last year’s flood and this year’s fire that caused the Hay River Reserve and the town of Hay River to be evacuated. Fifteen reserve buildings also burned.
Back in the day a huge traumatic event was Native people being forced to go into residential schools and being sexually, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually abused while there.
Unfortunately, when abuse happens to people, they often abuse others in the same way. And this has contributed to an epidemic of sexual and physical assaults in the NWT.
Colonization also caused huge traumas that Native people are still dealing with. One day they were free and independent. Next thing you know, they have to put their kids into school or go to jail, everything costs money, they need an education to get a job, and they can’t hunt trap and fish like they used to. Add the effects of constantly having to deal with racism when you are in a large town. To boot, the caribou are later killed off by over-hunting and climate change and you can no longer hunt them as you used to.
All these stresses leads to overuse of drugs and alcohol, which leads to abusive relationships where a spouse is beaten up, called names and so on. This leads to break-ups where kids are in limbo. Kids are often totally confused because they might suddenly have another dad with their mom or another mother with their dad. Eschia-take it easy, eh? And they might think it’s their fault that mom and dad had broken up.
Meanwhile, it’s the parents who are at fault for breaking up, not the kids. Of course, when a couple breaks up, it usually means both people have less money, because each person now has to exist on one income, not two. Also, there could be a huge extra cost; at least one of the two has to get a place to stay, which costs money, unless they go live with mom or dad. There are all kinds of other things that affect our mental health. For instance, people who break up can be lonely. So, they might start drinking, which costs money and can lead to addiction.
A person’s mental wellness is also affected if their basic needs are not being met, for instance if they don’t have a place to stay and are not eating or sleeping properly, or don’t have good water or clothing. And when you lose your ID, it’s no picnic. And losing your job? Whoa, more headaches.
Of course, if you lose your job, this affects your finances and you can get bad credit. This often causes people to get jobs they hate or dislike because they have a bad boss, don’t like the people there, or it’s too boring. Add unresolved grief to the mix with the loss of loved ones, and they don’t have time to grieve properly, especially when there are multiple deaths from reasons like Covid and overdoses. And, don’t forget everyone lost their freedom when we isolated due to Covid.
All of these things and more cause poor mental health. The good news is we can do something about it: practice good self-care.
Self-Care
Self-care is the act of doing different things to gain or maintain an ideal level of overall health that can add to your well-being. There are some simple things we can do for good mental health. Some things we can do every day are to eat healthy meals, exercise or go for a walk, and drink plenty of water. We should also get seven to eight hours of sleep every night, take a shower or bath, get some sunlight, go out in nature, or just have a hot cup of tea.
A few other things are to meditate and learn how to say no. Many of us are afraid to say no because we don’t want to disappoint people. We end up doing too many things for people we should not be doing and this causes stress.
Next article I will discuss self-care in the following areas; Physical, Mental Emotional, Spiritual, Environmental, Financial, Social and Recreational.
See you next time and take care of your mental health.