COVID-19 pandemic forces world to face mental health

A Bell Let’s Talk toque with sports items I’ve collected over the years.

Over this past year, people have been forced to meet the elephant in the room face to face.

Those meetings aren’t equal for everyone. For some, the elephant has been a small problem that causes frustration like replacing a rim of a car tire after encountering a pot hole.

For others, it feels like the elephant is Brock Lesnar who has you cornered in a UFC octagon cage, and he is coming to smash the crap out of you.

During the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, it seems unavoidable that everyone in the world has faced a mental health challenge or adversity at this point. The extent of those challenges seems to go all over the map.

Everyone is dealing with the fact their lives are not like they once were.

On my own front, I have known I have battled with issues dealing with anxiety since 2012. Actually, I have to admit I see myself doing a lot better on that front than I did six years ago.

I’ve spent more time in my home office than in past years.

I write about my experiences on the mental health front in hopes it will help others. Since 2016, I’ve kept up with a tradition where I write a post regarding mental health on Bell Let’s Talk day.

There is still a stigma around mental health issues, and they are unfortunately still treated as the elephant in the room in too many circles. Over the past year, people have had to face the elephant more so than likely at any time in the past.

In North America, shutdowns and restrictions started to come into play in a serious way on March 11, 2020. That was the day the NBA paused its 2019-20 regular season, and it seemingly started a domino effect with shutdowns and restrictions.

In Canada, the restrictions in some parts of the country are the tightest they have ever been. In Saskatchewan, a provincial government announcement was made on Tuesday extending the current tight Public Health Orders for a slowdown through to February 19.

Residents in Saskatchewan have a little more freedom to do things in their daily lives compared to the other three provinces in Western Canada. Alberta and Manitoba are experiencing fairly strict lockdown measures.

My life in 2019 talking up Brett Leason (#20). (Photo by Darryl Leason)

With that noted, life in Saskatchewan is far from what it was a year ago at this time.

One of my friends in Rod Pedersen, who does work in the addictions and recovery field on top of his more famed sports broadcasting roles, has consistently stated he has learned of two definitions for the word “trauma” in his dealings on the mental health front. Trauma situations are “any situation your brain can’t comprehend” or “a deeply distressing or disturbing event.”

The shutdowns and restrictions that have happened during this pandemic have been something that most in the world likely would never conceive happening a year ago at this time.

Even at this time, the COVID-19 pandemic fits in the descriptions of “a situation your brain can’t comprehend” or “a deeply distressing or disturbing event.”

When I step back and look at the big picture, I believe I have been in a better situation than most.

I did a lot more biking around Saskatoon in 2020.

I feel my past experiences on the mental health front have helped me navigate the seemingly everyday changes that have come with the pandemic.

Since March 12, 2020, I have only covered two hockey games. I do miss covering football and hockey games in no particular order the CJFL, SFU18AAAHL, SMAAAAHL, U Sports, WHL and WWCFL. I’ve really missed seeing my friends on all those circuits.

In recent days, my mind often thought about people I haven’t seen in a while now on the WHL front. My life on the sports media front has pretty much disappeared.

In response as cliché as it sounds, I have focused on one day at a time.

I’ve continued to work as the communications coordinator at the Gordie Howe Sports Complex on part-time hours. That has kept my mind active and busy and given me something to look forward to.

I’ve also used that pandemic to rediscover other recreational pursuits I used to do like playing Madden football, watching WWE or checking out old 1980s episodes of G.I. Joe, Transformers and Robotech. In summer, I did way more biking than I have done in past years.

The situation in the current day includes wear more facemasks.

I’ve spend more time with my mom, because I’ve worked from home quite a bit and haven’t been on the road. To me, I’ve felt that has been a huge bonus and blessing.

My line of work involves checking out social media lines on a daily basis. I see every day others are not doing as well as I am.

In my mind over the last few days, I have been struggling with what I want to say in this annual post, because I can see others are not doing as well as I am.

One of the toughest parts over the past year was hearing news from my old 10-year home in Medicine Hat, Alta., of friends having taken their own lives. There were days I did feel absolutely gutted.

I know the first time I return to Medicine Hat will be emotional for me knowing what has happened on that front.

At the beginning of my mental health journey, I always believed that if I just continued to grind and work hard on a day to day basis, be a good person and do the right things that good things in life would ultimately unfold in my favour despite difficulties. That would be especially true, if I was in the right on the big issues.

I have missed fun moments like this in the WHL.

I ultimately learned that you can do everything right and still fail. I also learned that life isn’t fair, and it won’t bend to make you happy even when you do everything right or are in the right.

When I check out social media lines, I see a lot of people in the spot where I was at the beginning of my mental health journey. They are to different extents learning that life isn’t fair.

I also know I am not counsellor, psychologist or social worker. I can lend an ear and listen.

When it comes to mental health, you need different games plans for each individual.

In order to figure out that plan, I will advise friends to seek out the help of a professional. In some cases, you might need to actually see a professional just once or twice to figure that plan out.

In other cases, it might take more visits with a professional to figure out the best path in the journey.

For myself, I have a lot more awareness. I am lot more alert to when I am off and what triggered me to being off. That alertness helps me pull myself out of funk.

My look at the Art Hauser Centre on November 21, 2020.

With that said, what works for me isn’t what is going to work for everyone.

There is so much in life that can’t be controlled.

I pray everyone that is struggling can find their path to navigate the waters in their mental health journeys.

If that first step requires someone to lend an ear, I will do my best to stop and listen.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com. My Bell Let’s Talk post from last year called “A big mental health challenge is learning to take a break” can be found right here. A piece from 2019 called “Those facing mental health challenges can still be great in all parts of life” can be found right here. A piece from 2018 called “Being content can become a mental health challenge” can be round right here. A piece from 2017 called “Recognizing and respecting triggers is key for mental health” can be found right here. A piece from 2016 called “Feeling connected calms the mental health seas” can be found right here. A piece called “My Mental Health Story” can be found right here. Another post I like that I wrote in February of 2015 about my mental health journey call “Huskies hockey was good for me” can be found right here.

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Sweet social memories hanging with veterans

A gun salute at a Remembrance Day in Medicine Hat in 2008.

When every Remembrance Day comes around, I always wonder what happened to Peggy Ellis.

Ellis was a short-hand hand typist for the British Army during the Second World War. I met her in November of 1997 at the Army, Navy & Air Force Veterans club located on Broad Street in Regina, Sask.

I was putting together a Remembrance Day story for the features class I was taking at the University of Regina’s School of Journalism and Communications. The first meeting ended up being a very impromptu social one.

I got to see her one other time about a year later at that same veterans club, when I was working on another war related story. Once again, a great social encounter ensued.

It is quite obvious that those meetings were very enjoyable from my end, because I still remember Ellis all these years later.

Having been born and raised in England, she came over to Canada as a war bride of a Canadian military man to go along with the fact she was a military veteran. Ellis eventually ended up relocating to Regina with her husband, Jack.

I remember she told me during that first meeting that Jack had passed away a few years back.

At the time we first met, I was 21-years-old and she was in great shape at age 75. Ellis was 17-years-old when the Second World War started and had turned 23-years-old when it ended.

Even as young as I was back then, I always believed you should treat veterans of the First World War and the Second World War with the utmost respect. I viewed them as the greatest generation that had to make sacrifices even people at the time I met Ellis in 1997 and to the current day wouldn’t be able to do.

When I met Ellis, I saw veterans as being stoic and principled.

It didn’t occur to me they could be sociable and fun loving in a relaxed social setting like most everyone else in society.

Veterans march at Remembrance Day in Medicine Hat in 2008.

I interviewed Ellis and one other Second World War veteran for my story, and proceeded to hang out at Ellis’s table for some social time during that first meeting. It was just something that was spontaneous and happened.

Over a couple of alcoholic drinks, we talked about all sorts of old stories. The veterans also teased me the a little bit, which created a number of laughs too. I knew it was all in fun.

The discussion drifted a little bit to what happened in war time. Ellis talked about what it was like to live through the Battle of Britain in 1940, when the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large scale attacks by Nazi Germany’s air force.

She mentioned she got to transmit the order to start the Allied invasion of Normandy, which is often referred to as D-Day, in June of 1944.

The vast majority of talk revolved around life after the war including the joy of watching children grow up, fun trips that were taken to various travel destinations, recollections from working world life and memories of various social functions over the years.

From the crew Ellis hung out with, you got a sense that life was well lived and enjoyed after the Second World War came to an end.

It might sound weird, but during that visit, I didn’t see those veterans as being that different from the young university crowd I was part of at that time.

When I got into a more serious reflective alone time back then, it did hit me that those veterans were all around the same age as me in 1997 when they were fighting the Second World War. Due to when I was born, I was fortunate enough that I didn’t have to go through that.

Hearing the social time stories from those veterans, it actually made me see similarities in my young generation to their generation, and it did hit you in new way that it was crazy in what they had to deal with.

Overall, the visit with Ellis and her crew was fun, and I made a note in my mind to take part in those social gatherings in the future. I figured it was always wise to take advantage of any opportunity to hang out with a Second World War veteran, when those opportunities presented themselves.

Standing at attention at Remembrance Day in Medicine Hat in 2008.

I remember Ellis and her crew telling me they really liked the reunion aspect of Remembrance Day. After the morning ceremonies were complete, some of the greatest times were the social gatherings that followed the rest of the day.

Due to how busy life could get, Remembrance Day allowed them that one day each year they could all get together and see each other.

As years went on, I tried to ensure I made Remembrance Day services, and at least twice during the 10 years I lived in Medicine Hat, Alta., I made it to social gatherings that were held after the services.

When I was at one of those gatherings in 2008 in Medicine Hat, I was hanging with two younger military veterans that day, and they were telling me the veterans from the Second World War were starting to pass away in bigger numbers due to old age.

One year earlier in the summer of 2007, I visited with my uncle Sid and auntie Joanna Sargent in Penticton, B.C. Sid was a veteran of the Second World War.

My auntie Marie Corrigal arrived for that family get together, and I remember Sid talking about the social gatherings that happened in Canada before going overseas for war during the era of the Second World War.

I had never heard those stories before, but I got a chuckle out of them.

As the Second World War veterans pass on, you worry that some of these stories might get lost over time.

Today, I decided to Google search Peggy Ellis’s name. I found her obituary that ran in the Regina Leader-Post.

Margaret “Peggy” Ellis passed away on May 1, 2018 at age 95 and a few months shy of her 96^th birthday in August of that year. I saw a note in the obituary that she was predeceased by Jack in 1989.

The piece said she was involved with the Army, Navy & Air Force Veterans Association for 41 years and was honoured for her dedication and commitment.

A moment of silence at Remembrance Day in Medicine Hat in 2008.

It made me smile knowing Ellis lived for another 21 years after we first met.

I was happy I got to take part in those two social gatherings at the Army, Navy, & Air Force Veterans club with her and her crew. I got to see things in a way I had never seen before.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Recognizing and respecting triggers is key for mental health

I am spending time contemplating triggers in my home office.

    I almost despise it, but I realize I have to respect the word “trigger” when it comes to mental health.

    In mental health terms, a trigger can refer to anything that produces a memory of a past trauma you once went through. That memory forces you into a defensive style of self-protection and results in some type of reaction.

    A trigger can be anything from a word, an action, a smell, a place or even the face of a person who looked like someone that did something bad to you.

    Since November of 2012, I have known I have had issues dealing with anxiety. The issues rose due to a mental health issue I discovered in my workplace at the time, which was the Medicine Hat News. That resulted in a whole host of spinoff problems.

    There is still a stigma around mental health issues, and they are unfortunately still treated as the elephant in the room in too many circles. I try to make it a tradition every Bell Let’s Talk day to write about my experiences on the mental health front in the hopes it will help others.

    Now having lived about two-and-a-half years in Saskatoon, I still find it a battle to deal with triggers. Besides the difficulties I faced in the last three years I lived in the Medicine Hat, I believe there were battles that occurred actually for the last five years I lived in the Hat that sometimes affect me now. A trigger will put me in back into one of those battle or trauma moments, and I didn’t even realize it was a problem.

    I still can’t believe how quickly my emotions will switch, when I am triggered. I also hate how I react to others around me, when I am triggered.

    One spot I really have to be mindful of triggers is when I am watching the six o’clock news with my mom. When I am alone and the news is on, I watch it passively and my mind is shut off.

    My mom has a tendency to react at times to every story with a freaked out emotion. My mind ends up jumping back into a staff slashed newsroom during my final two years in the Hat. It seemed like a major story there broke every second week, and everybody was in a panic.

    There was a constant anxiety about getting all the information you needed to finish a story before a deadline. Reporters often got at each other, and depending on the story, some would freak out emotionally.

    When my mom reacts to the news on television, I jump up and freak out trying to explain how things likely played out like they did in the story. I constantly have to try and catch myself from going off and try to kindly let my mom know I want to passively watch the newscast.

Working a Tigers scrum in 2014.

    After my shifts as a sports reporter in the Hat, I actually didn’t watch any media type programs when I got home at around 11:30 p.m. To get calmed down, I usually passively watched Robot Chicken or Sex and the City reruns, which were on nightly at that time. Those program choices were so off the wall for me it allowed my mind to escape from everything.

    Triggers also show up in another way. When I have two or three projects on the go at one time that I am trying to get done on a deadline, my mind gets locked in a set plan of how I have to go about completing everything. I try to lock everything else out.

    Sometimes if someone approaches me with a request, I lash out because it is interfering with what I am doing. It would flash me back to the newsroom in Medicine Hat, where it seemed at times you were in a constant battle to stay on track and get places in a timely fashion in the sports department. You were ruled by the clock, and you freaked when you could feel time was slipping away or wasn’t being used constructively.

    One of the worst recent triggers for me came when a woman I would go long stretches without seeing in the local sports scene here in Saskatoon shut me down on all lines of communication in order to cut down on distractions. That triggered a traumatic memory from my time in Medicine Hat.

    In a situation that was 65 per cent similar, I got jumped in a night club by a boyfriend of a woman I knew that was involved in the local sports scene, who I only saw once every six months. The boyfriend was also involved in the local sports scene. They were having relationship problems, and unknown to me, I became part of the problem somewhere just for talking to her at some point in time.

    I didn’t see of the bad stuff coming due to lack of interaction with the two.

    When I lived in the Hat, I also had a high profile due to the fact I covered WHL’s Tigers for the daily paper. The incident occurred in December of 2009, so my life at the time was really upbeat. I learned that having a high profile when your life is going good can provide the combination to make you a target for someone who was having a rough spot in their life.

    Security took care of things fast, and I came away with just a couple of bruises. I went on social media when I when home that night and realize the woman I was jumped over shut me down on all lines of communication. We had never been romantically involved.

    A new boundary was also set up where we could never talk again for the rest of our lives. We still haven’t talked to this day.

    When I got shut down by the woman that was involved in sports in Saskatoon, I did have a panic attack, where I went home and shut down for the night. I thought what happened in the Hat was going to repeat itself despite the fact I have never had troubles with her sports involved boyfriend. Looking back, I shut down over nothing.

    Actually, if I feel I am getting cornered in a night club, my defence mechanisms will go off. I will move to areas where I am close to bartenders or security members I know, and I will constantly keep my head on a swivel and the “Spider Sense” up. That also comes from the night out difficulty I had in the Hat.

    With triggers, half the battle is recognizing the fact you have been triggered. Once you recognize you have been triggered, you have to work to catch yourself and take an emotional step back. From there, you try to get as many facts about what you are dealing with as possible to make a decision to move forward.

    Actually on the plus side, I get triggered a lot less than I did, when I first moved to Saskatoon. When I first came to the Bridge City, it seemed everything kind of freaked me back to my difficult times in the Hat.

    As for the present, my biggest trigger battle might be convincing my mom to maybe watch something different instead of the news when we eat together during the dinner hour. I guess I should find out if Sex and the City is on somewhere in the multichannel universe.

Back in the Express with K of C Games

Astrid Nyame, left, and Jared Olson have some fun at the fieldhouse.

    I was back in the Saskatoon Express this week with an article that leads up to the annual K of C Games.

    The piece features recent University of Saskatchewan Huskies track and field grad Jared Olson and current Huskies track standout Astrid Nyame, who is in her final season of eligibility. 

    Both talk about their experiences with annual K of C Games, which have been held for 52 straight years.

    There are also catch up tidbits with both athletes. The story can be found right here.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com. My Bell Let’s Talk post from last year called “Feeling connected calms the mental health seas” can be found right here. A piece called “My Mental Health Story” can be found here. Another post I like that I wrote in February of 2015 about my mental health journey call “Huskies hockey was good for me” can be found here. The photo from the Medicine Hat Tigers media scrum in 2014 is courtesy of Dave Dawson

Weekend will be jumping in Saskatoon

Setups in progress for the Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour stop.

              It seems like everything is running to Saskatoon this weekend.

            One can almost forget how busy life can get in a bigger city. When you leave Medicine Hat, Alta., which has a population of about 62,000, Towntown definitely feels like a big city with a population of about 261,000 calling it home.

            During a walk through downtown today, I immediately encountered crews setting up for the Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour stop. The tour is part of the promotional package Rogers put together in conjunction with its new broadcast deal with the NHL, which started this year.

            Crews were scattered along 21^st street extending for about two blocks from the front of the Delta Bessborough hotel already starting to set everything up. Equipment was scattered everywhere.

            Activities with the tour stop start at 12 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. There will be a meet and greet with NHL alumni, local hockey heroes and celebrities, a market showcasing local culinary and hometown food trucks, local bands and entertainment, and a kids zone filled with hockey themed games.

            There will also be a viewing party for the broadcast of Sunday’s NHL contest between the Ottawa Senators and Chicago Blackhawks. Of course, long time hockey broadcaster Ron MacLean will be in town as part of all the festivities.

Items wait to be placed for the Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour stop.

            Besides that toured in function, the local sports scene is frantic. The Saskatoon Blades host a pair of WHL games, The University of Saskatchewan campus is packed full of varsity athletics activities including basketball, football, soccer and hockey, and the Saskatoon Hilltops host the Calgary Colts in the Prairie Football Conference championship game on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Saskatoon Minor Football Field.

            That is just a quick rundown of what is happening as far as sports is concerned, and I am not even close to knowing what is going on as far as the arts scene or anything else that might be happening.

            The rebuilding Blades are starting to frequent the win column on a more regular basis lately. They are 4-1 in their last five games and sit 4-7 overall.

On Friday, the Blades tangle with the Lethbridge Hurricanes (2-8-0-1), and on Saturday, they face the Portland Winterhawks (3-9-0-2). Game time is 7:05 p.m. on both nights at the SaskTel Centre.

Blades rookie goaltender Nik Amundrud picked up his first career WHL victory on Wednesday night making 31 stops in a 5-2 victory at home over the Kootenay Ice. Before that contest, Ice left-winger Tim Bozon, who is out with a lower body injury, dropped the puck for a ceremonial faceoff before a standing ovation from the 3,498 spectators on hand. He spent 27 days at Royal University Hospital last March while battling Neisseria meningitis.

            On campus, the men’s basketball team is hosting the Graham Shootout pre-season tournament, which started on Thursday. The Huskies faced the Edmonton based MacEwan Griffins on Thursday night, were to battle the Nipissing Lakers from North Bay, Ont., at 7 p.m. on Friday and the University of Victoria Vikes at 7 p.m. on Saturday.

            The Huskies women’s hockey team has a two-game set against the University of Calgary Dinos at 7 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday night at the ancient Rutherford Rink. The Huskies football team battles the University of Alberta Golden Bears at 1:30 p.m. at Griffiths Stadium.

            The Huskies soccer team are both hosting Canada West single elimination quarter-final games on Sunday at PotashCorp Park. The women’s team faces the MacEwan Griffins at 12 p.m. and the men’s team battles the University of Winnipeg Wesmen at 2:15 p.m.

            The Hilltops battle the Colts in Sunday’s PFC final for the right to go to the Canadian Junior Football League championship game, the Canadian Bowl, which will be hosted by the British Columbia Football Conference winner.

            Saskatoon topped the PFC with a 6-2 record in the regular season, while the Colts were third in the six-team league with a 4-4 mark. The Hilltops thumped the Colts in Calgary 47-19 in the only regular season meeting between the two clubs on Sept. 21. Calgary turned the ball over five times in that contest, while Saskatoon avoided any giveaways.

            The Colts outgained the Hilltops in total offensive yards 404-340. If the visiting Colts clean up the turnovers, this contest could be closer than a lot of people anticipate. I still expect the Hilltops to prevail.

            With all that is going on, this will definitely not be a weekend in Saskatoon, where you want to stay home. 

 

Safety a state of mind

            It still seems hard to believe two Canadian soldiers died this week in two suspected home-grown terror attacks on home soil.

            It feels like no words would ever be able to comfort the families of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was shot guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday, and Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, who was run down by a car in a community just south of Montreal on Monday. I do offer condolences to both families on deaths that were tragic and needless.

            When I was in downtown Saskatoon on Thursday at about 1 p.m., I ran into a curious situation. I saw a radio reporter interviewing two separate individuals on the street asking them if they felt more fearful about their safety after the two attacks.

            The reporter and the interview subjects were just a short distance away from three different street creatures situated in three different spots. The three street creatures turned out to be fine, as they did talk in a friendly manner to me, when I walked past. I could also envision a different scenario, where you are mugged for the possessions on your person.

            Living in a city like Saskatoon, you can face dangers on the street every day. While Saskatoon is a beautiful centre, it isn’t immune to the crime problems that plague a big city, and anyone who lives here can honestly tell you that.

            If  you are hanging around 20^th Street or 22^nd Street during a night hour or at times during the day, you likely have a better chance of something bad happen to you than being the victim of a terror attack.

            In February of 2010, one of my old buds Bob Florence, who is now a former desker and sportswriter for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, was knocked out heading home from work, and he spent two weeks in intensive care, in an induced coma, and required two months of hospitalization. Charles Ellwood was convicted for assaulting Florence, who has no memory about what happened that night because of his injuries.

            In all reality, you will only feel as safe as you want to feel safe. I feel if you let a terror attack convince you not to go somewhere, you have allowed the terror attacker to win at some level.

If you have any feedback on this blog, feel free to email comments to stankssports@gmail.com.