Life Unscripted - Stories of Mental Health and Addiction

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The media plays an important role in forming public opinion and jouranists and their media outlets need to change the way they report on violence against women. 

 Gillian’s Place - a shelter for women in Niagara - has put together a free online course on Responsible Media Reporting of Gender-Based Violence and Gendered Issues.

The course dives into how much words matter and the ways media should report gender issues.

Gillian’s Place Project Manager Laura Ip is on the show today to talk about this complex issue.

Note: This free course was developed with the media in mind but is open to everyone.  

You can go directly to gilliansplace.com/responsible media or on the website under Community Education.

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Talking with someone who knows what you're going through can make all the difference when you're in hospital for treatment of a mental illness. Faith Rockburne, who is a Peer Support worker at St. Michaels Hospital in Toronto, finds personal healing for herself as well knowing that she is helping someone recover.

Faith was on the show last week to talk about her lifelong battle with treatment resistant depression. Group therapy played a major role in her recovery and she's using that experience to help others.

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Faith Rockburne has lived with mental illness most of her life from anorexia as a teenager to severe depression as an adult. 

 Her depression and anxiety got worse as she got older until she stopped going out of her house and eventually lost her job. 

Faith’s road to recovery has been long and difficult - anti-depressants didn’t  work and after trying electro confulsive therapy – or ECT - she was told there was nothing left to try but group therapy.  

She did finally find an effective medication but she says the biggest change came after she joined a peer support group.  

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Eram Chhogala is an emergency room and trauma nurse at a hospital in Toronto. She says more and more people are coming to emergency rooms for help for mental health or substance use. She believes it's because there is so much financial stress – the cost of living or maybe losing a job – and they have no other place to go for help.

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Losing a pet can be very hard but adults expect it when their pet gets to a certain age and we know it’s ok to be sad, even cry.  Children feel the loss in a very different way and as parents we want to protect them from sadness and may feel it’s best to buffer the sadness with euphemisms, like "he’s gone to sleep" or "she’s gone away", leaving the child wondering when their pet will be home.

Dr. Joshua Russel from Canisius University in Buffalo has focused much of his research on children's relationships with animals. He’s interviewed children of all different ages on how their pet died, how they felt at the time and how they’ve coped and he has some advice for parents.

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Gambling is known as the hidden addiction. Many people play at online gaming sites, go to casinos or maybe they start by betting with friends or buying lottery tickets. For most people it's just some fun and doesn't affect their daily life. But for some the obession can lead to losing their family, friends and even their job.

Community and Addiction Services of Niagara – or CASON - provides comprehensive treatment for alcohol, drug and gambling/gaming and internet addiction for individuals and their families. 

CASON's Marnie Prokator is on the show and you may be surprised when you hear what can be considered a gambling problem. 

For more information to to https://cason.ca

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Last spring, New Brunswick became the first province to require teachers to have parental consent to use a child’s preferred name or pronoun in the classroom  if they are under the age of 16. It’s a complete change from the previous policy that made if mandatory for teachers to use preferred names and pronouns for all children.

Now Saskatchewan has implemented a similar policy, Ontario’s Education Minister believes parents should be making the decision although so far there has been no change in policy and Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative leader says she’ll bring in the same policy if elected in October.

Quest Community Health Centre in St. Catharines provides health care and counselling to the 2SLGBTQ+ community, as well as specific transdgender health care through it’s Rainbow Niagara program. Manager Stephanie Vail and outreach worker Kai Kristoff are on the show today to talk about the Rainbow Niagara program.

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Every time I watch the news or read it online I think about how happy I am that I’m older. But I worry about my 15 year old nephew and my nieces and nephews who are now having children of their own. We’re used to wildfires in Canada but I don’t think there’s ever been a time when there have been so many raging at the same time and buring their way through communities and many people had to leave their homes. Who new we’d be breathing smoke from Quebec in southern Ontario. Politics in the U.S. is a mess again and the federal government has now put out a travel advisory about 18 states where 2sLGBTQ+ people could experience discrimination.

All this after 3 years of a pandemic.

I’m talking to Erin Clayton from Pathstone Mental Health about getting children back to school, how parents can talk to their kids about what’s happening in the world, and importantly, how can they recognize when their child is experiencing more persistent mental health problems.

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Canadian Mental Health Association Niagara is focused on providing mental health supports to adults in the Niagara Region. On top of mental counselling CMHA connects people to with housing and to other services they may need to lead a healthy life.  It also provides crisis help:

• providing safe beds for people who need a short term place to stay
• mobile mental health support through it’s Crisis Outreach and Support Team.  
• Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team has social workers riding with police to help diffuse and divert people in crisis from the hospital and sometimes arrest.

CMHA Niagara Executive Director Tara McKendrick talks about the services.

Call 911 if you or someone you know is in immediate crisis.

24 hour mental health  in Niagara:
The Mental Health and Addicitions Access Line will connect with the services you need 1 -866-550-5205.
Pathstone Mental Health crisis line for children: 1-800-263-4944 – 24/7
Distress Centre - 24 hour telephone support:
• St. Catharines, Niagara Falls And Area 905 688-3711
• Port Colborne, Wainfleet and Area – 905-734-1212
• Fort Erie and Area – 905-382-0689
• Grimsby, West Lincoln – 905-563-6674