- Things to Do
- |
- Move To Oakes
- |
- Plan Your Trip
- Start & Grow Your Business
- |
- Local Businesses
- |
- Irrigation Days
- Residents
- City Alerts
- Economic Development
- Chamber of Commerce
- Calendar
- News
- Search
Things to celebrate…
This week feels a little heavy around here. We had a strong focus on mental health last week and while one maybe wouldn’t correlate celebration with mental health, we do. Every time we offer a session in Oakes that brings this challenging subject into the light, we want to celebrate it. The levels of vulnerability and trust needed to speak up when you’re struggling are huge; the environment we live in influences that willingness and ability. We want to celebrate that last week, Oakes took another step towards being the kind of community that destigmatizes mental health struggles and is open to hearing the truth, even when it’s hard. Any little thing we can do to keep our loved ones here another day will always be worth celebrating.
News to know…
At our mental health sessions last week, licensed counselor (and our new friend) Monica McConkey, shared some truly staggering statistics. North Dakota ranks 16th in deaths by suicide. Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death overall and specifically for groups aged 10-24, 25-34, and 35-44, it is the SECOND leading cause of death in North Dakota. We are losing our young ones at a rapid rate to suicide. We share this not to create more fear but to shed light on the truth that what we’ve been doing to address mental health isn’t working. We encourage you to go to www.growingsmalltowns.org and check out the blog post called Mental Resources for All Small Towns. It contains video recordings from Monica’s sessions along with a host of other resources. We can’t keep pretending this doesn’t exist or that it's an "out-there" problem; we need to keep talking about it and keep encouraging each other to talk when we’re struggling.
Ideas to spread…
One of our biggest takeaways from this past week with Monica was simply this: we can’t give what we don’t have. To everyone who believes that we can externally care our way to internal health and well-being, we might be overlooking the simple truth that if we’re not whole and healthy ourselves, we’re unable to serve others as fully. This reminder matters and is so worth spreading. The larger cultural narrative might be ego-driven and selfish; locally, due to our cultural backgrounds, general stoicism, and Midwest passive-aggressive nature, which we’ve labeled “North Dakota nice”, we’re far more likely to kill ourselves at the expense of serving everyone else. The only way to combat this is to openly and honestly share when we’re struggling, making it safe for others to follow. If we continue to present ourselves like we never hurt, feel pain, or struggle with life, we continue to set that standard for everyone around us. Then when it’s not met, people feel like they’re doing something wrong. It’s tricky down here. Being human is hard. We need you to be OK. Self-care isn’t selfish.