By James Bowler
You wake up, and despite getting a good 8 or 9 hours of sleep, you feel exhausted. You’re cranky, you have a poor outlook on your day, and even your morning cup of coffee isn’t breaking the funk you’re in. And the problem is, you’re feeling like this every day this week.
If this is you, you may be one of the 1 in 5 Canadians experiencing an undiagnosed mental health disorder, according to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). And it’s getting worse. According to a report from Statistics Canada, mental health-related issues like depression have grown by more than 3 per cent between 2012 and 2022. Globally the picture isn’t much better. The World Health Organization reported that just before the COVID-19 epidemic in 2019, nearly 1 billion people around the world were affected by some type of mental health affliction. Just imagine how much that number has grown post-pandemic.
So, now that we’re past the viral pandemic, we’re faced with the newest global crisis, one that has been growing since long before the outbreak of 2020. We’re living in a global mental health crisis.
In early 2020, I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and moderate depression, and now that I’m in a place where I’m able to recognize my own symptoms and how they impact me, I’m starting to see similar symptoms crop up in the people around me in the Muskoka community:
- A growing sense of anger is prevalent on social media, with many people taking more and more time to express their frustration with everything from the lack of parking to a restaurant worker not giving them the correct change.
- A general sense of fatigue. During conversations with people, I can see they’re tired and, in some cases, just exhausted. They have difficulty showing enthusiasm for things that used to bring them happiness.
And, the problem is the system is not set up to help with this growing need. While we have institutions like CAMH and CMHA, they only receive partial government funding trickling in, mostly relying on donations to continue offering the services they do. There’s no direct stream of funding for this healthcare need, and let’s be clear, mental health services should be considered a healthcare need. But, the provincial and federal governments do not appear to have any plans to consider mental health a service that needs permanent funding.
It’s important to state at this point that by no means am I a medical professional, but drawing from my own experiences and backed by the current data, I think the picture is pretty clear. Many Muskokans are clearly not able to, or unwilling to, recognize their own mental health issues, and that’s a problem.
If you believe you’re suffering from a mental health issue, please take the time to speak with your doctor or a local medical professional. If you are considering suicide, please remember your life is precious, and there are people who care about you. Call 9-8-8 on your phone now to be connected with someone who can help you.
James is a local journalist who has worked in Muskoka for nearly a decade. He’s an avid
advocate for diversity and inclusion as well as normalizing the conversation around mental health.
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Cynthia, I’m very sorry for your experience and it’s important for you to hear that none of this is your fault. You’re doing the best you can in a horrible situation.
If your son is under the age of 29 I’d really encourage you to reach out to Mind-Aid Muskoka which I’m a board member with. They can help him get the help he needs and also help take away the sting of the cost. You can just google that name and go to their website and get started with one of the extremely helpful staff members to help you and your son.
Cynthia, would services referred to here be helpful? :
https://www.firstsession.com/resources/therapy-provincial-healthcare-canada
Thanks James for publishing this article. My son has had mental health issues (ADHD, ODD, anxiety, severe depression, bipolar 1 depression mania a very long time but he can’t afford to pay for a therapist or for counselling which I feel the federal and provincial should fund it and realize fund places to help people suffering with depression and it’s a world wide health crisis which is so sad. He sleeps 8-10 hours and wakes up lonely, sad, burned out, exhausted, cries often. He wishes many times that he could die in his sleep and not wake up & live like he is every day. Too bad that places cost a fortune eg $150- $220 every time for 50 minutes you see a counsellor or therapist. So many people out there are crying for help like my son. He blames me why he feels like he does every day for a very long time but he has gotten worse since he was 16 years old. He is taking a lot of anti depressant pills and has put on over 50+ lbs in the past 4 years and he feels so depressed being over weight. He gets angry, frustrated, lonely, screams, wants to buy a lot of things like shoes, clothing etc. He calls me foul names, starts yelling, has melt downs occasionally and feels like it’s a bad disease he has. I was I had solutions for him. His mom.
Thank you, James, for your timely article.
We might be well advised to add the ever-present, often unrecognized background noise of ecological anxiety and solastalgia to cloying and deepening individual and societal depression. I find that unplugging the grinding pessimism of mobile news and the false company of social media, and instead breathing fresh air on a walk among trees and wildlife, with friends, family or alone, helps to revitalize healthy kinship. For me, positivity grows through actively seeking reconnection and rootedness.
Of course, there are many who need professional help to rediscover this grounding in life. As you advocate, our social safety net must try to keep pace with this need.