I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by emotion as I sat in the Lower Kootenay Band gymnasium on Monday night, a bowl emptied of the delicious moose stew and frybread I had just downed sitting on the table in front of me. Speaker after speaker addressed issues that arise from mental illness, of struggles that arise not only from illness but from the stigma that makes it difficult to acknowledge one’s own need for help.
And I learned a little more, as I inevitably do when I attend an event in Lower Kootenay, about why I have such admiration for many people in that tiny community.
We, nearly a hundred of us, had gathered to welcome Olympic athlete Clara Hughes to the Creston Valley, yet another stop on her epic journey around Canada to help shine a light on the need to create a public discussion about mental illness. If what I heard and learned on that evening was any indication, she can already count her efforts as a success.
Over the years I have learned about Chief Jason Louie’s struggles with depression, the symptoms of which began in his childhood. And he has told me personally about his experiences in the Canadian Army that led to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, an illness that plagues him in many, varied and often unexpected ways.
But to hear his story in one sitting, and to put into context with messages from his wife, Angie, local mental health professional Dr. Randy Grahn, LKB councillor Anne Jimmie and others packed a powerful punch.
During Jason’s years as leader in his community, I have been bewildered by the cruel treatment he and his immediate family have been subjected to, by people with unclear motives. At every LKB event I attend, I look around and make note of people who aren’t there — otherwise good and decent people who shun their elected chief and his family at all costs. What they hope to gain is beyond my understanding.
Angie Louie, in her role as Ktunaxa-Kinbasket Child and Family Services wellness educator, has spent years working with First Nations people in her efforts to raise awareness about mental health and wellness issues. She is well educated on the subject and passionate on the subject. But to hear of her own experiences was especially powerful. Angie said her mother, an angry and violent woman, often took out her frustrations on her children. When asked, she would not talk at all about whether she had even been in a residential school.
Not surprisingly, as a young mother, Angie found herself repeating her mother’s behaviour, hitting her own child in anger. But she faced her own deficiencies, determined to break the cycle. “I wanted to be better,” she said.
In her talk, Angie, spoke of her attempt to create a simple definition for what is becoming commonly known as residential school syndrome. The symptoms, she said, often mirror those of post-traumatic stress disorder but PTSD typically comes from a short-lived trauma. Years and years of life in residential schools meant the problems multiplied, and her list of 20 questions that ask about RSS symptoms is a brilliant synopsis. I have asked her share her presentation with the Advance and we will post it on our website when we receive it.
Of the many LKB residents I admire, none stand above Anne Jimmie. Short in stature, Jimmie stands tall in her efforts to leave behind her a better community. She is articulate and passionate, and her soft voice only serves to encourage one to listen intently when she speaks.
My skin tingled with shivers when Anne talked about being sent off to a residential school at the age of five, having no idea that she wouldn’t be coming home at the end of each day. In the eight formative years that followed, she says she learned to lie because “I would get punished for telling the truth.” But, she added, she would also get punished for lying. It’s hard to imagine what those years did to a little girl who wanted nothing more than to learn to read the newspaper she used to see on her grandfather’s table.
“I hated myself, hated being native. I hated my grandfather for what he told me,” she said. And I wanted to cry.
To deaden the pain, she started drinking alcohol at age 12. She didn’t stop for more than three decades.
As I drove home that Monday evening, it wasn’t the sadness of the experiences I had just heard that overwhelmed me. It was the indomitable human spirit that drives people like Jason, Angie and Anne to leave the world a better place than the one they were born into. There is a remarkable and, to me, inexplicable, lack of bitterness in their messages. They acknowledge their pain but they don’t point fingers and lay blame. Their determination to understand their own situations, to face them head on, and to work to help themselves so they can help others is astonishing.
We are fortunate to share a community in which there are people of such strength.
Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.