BY DEBBIE PAGE

Be Well Iredell Coordinator Genevieve Glaser recently welcomed several hundred attendees to the organization’s second annual mental health forum at Mooresville’s Charles Mack Citizen Center, applauding the community for saying yes to the vision of mental health being seen, valued, and prioritized in the county.

Be Well Iredell started with a small group of volunteers and organizations who wanted to create awareness about suicide prevention and emphasize the importance of empowering every resident to thrive by prioritizing their emotional, mental, and physical well-being.

Glaser said that real change is possible and happening in the community and will continue if attendees take what they learn back to their circles of influence. Every small act of caring and every life that community members help move forward are important.

Seeing major health organizations Duke Health Lake Norman Hospital and Iredell Health System collaborating instead of competing “speaks volumes,” said Glaser.

Iredell Health System President and CEO John Green noted the system’s mission, “Inspire well-being together,” blends services for physical, mental, and emotional health. Purchasing Davis Behavioral Health last fall was a “leap of faith” to ensure that behavioral health services would remain in Iredell County.

Iredell Health System’s mission is to care for the whole family, whole child, and whole community. Green also welcomed the nonprofit Duke Health-Lake Norman to the community and looked forward to many more future collaborations.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Keynote speaker Carla Carlisle, founder and executive director of The Compassionate Companion and a certified trauma informed advocate, told the audience of her difficult journey to adopt and parent her son JC, who struggled through extensive early adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in addition to inter-generational trauma.

Carlisle first fostered JC as a premature 10-day-old until at 10 months the court returned custody to his parents, who were living in poverty, substance misuse, and domestic violence.

Trying to help this family over the next five years taught Carlisle about “resiliency, advocacy, and love,” she said.

After JC attempted suicide at age 6, Carlisle gained emergency custody and focused on keeping him alive and returning him to mental and physical health. Carlisle finally won permission to formally adopt JC when he was eight years old. He is now 15 and “triumphing over trauma,” she said.

Carlisle shared startling statistics about youth mental health. The second leading cause of death for young adults is suicide. Across the nation and North Carolina, suicide ideation and attempts are steadily increasing, particularly among young and marginalized communities.

She described marginalized youth as unseen, unhoused, struggling with substance use disorder, or just trying to make it through the day.

Adults are struggling too. The pandemic exposed the serious underlying mental health crisis in the country. “There’s so much pain going on underneath the surface,” Carlisle said. “Silence is no longer an option.”

Carlisle introduced the three pillars of her Empowerment Triad that focuses on healing and change: awareness, acceptance, and advocacy. Awareness focuses on understanding what mental health and trauma is, acceptance is understanding how it affects our lives and acknowledging its impact, and advocacy involves taking actions within our control to heal and help others.

Carlisle noted generational trauma (stemming from alcoholism, substance use, slavery, holocaust, domestic violence, poverty, etc.) continues through its impacts on the family members’ DNA, affecting how people think and function, parent, perform in their jobs, and act within their relationships.

“We have to stop pretending it doesn’t happen and give ourselves permission to heal from inter-generational traumas,” she said. “It’s scary because healing means feeling and feeling means facing, but you cannot change what you do not acknowledge.”

Advocacy is “when I take my power back. What is in my control? What is outside of my control and I need coping strategies to deal with it? What help do I need to ask for?”

Asking for help and setting boundaries, she said, are critical.

“Setting boundaries is advocacy. Choosing to go to therapy is advocacy. Saying ‘no more’ to dysfunction is advocacy,” Carlisle continued. “When we teach this to our kids, we start breaking these cycles of inter-generational trauma. We can focus more on our intergenerational blessings instead.”

Carlisle said people must ask for help when their “cup is empty.” Engaging in evidence-based strategies like trauma-based cognitive behavioral therapy, positive psychology, mindfulness practices, and journaling techniques can promote healing.

Having empathy with others builds trust, opens hearts, and makes healing possible. Evidence-based therapy without empathy “will not land,” Carlisle warned.

“Empathy is the delivery system for everything we are trying to teach.”

She also noted that so-called “bad kids” are not positively experiencing the eight dimensions of wellness – emotional, intellectual, environmental, spiritual, social, occupational, physical, and financial.

“If they don’t have enough food to eat, if they have chaos in their home or don’t have a home, how are they supposed to focus on schoolwork?”

Carlisle noted the importance of equipping parents with the tools to nurture their children in healthy ways. She advised adults to listen to young people, not advise them, because they need to express their pain and needs.

“Meet people where they are and listen. Remember, people in trauma are experts on their trauma.”

She advocated for taking QPR and Mental First Aid training to help develop the tools to help others as well as learning personal coping skills as well.

Carlisle said the Be Well Iredell organization is a promise of change, showing that “when prevention, collaboration and compassion lead the way, really important and valuable things can happen.”

PANEL DISCUSSION

While enjoying a lunch provided by OptiMed Hospitalists, attendees listened to a panel of experts, moderated by Optimed Hospitalists CEO Dr. Mahad Ajjan, who spoke about the pursuit of wellness as well as the mental health challenges in Iredell County.

Ivy de Leon, an OptiMed board certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, noted that wellness is not fixed but rather on a continuum.

Wellness involves being aware of and making choices that will lead to a healthy, balanced, fulfilling, and active life, including a healthy diet, regular exercise, adequate sleep, and hydration as well as going deeper to take care of mental and emotional health needs.

Anxiety, fear, and nerves are all normal feelings, but if these feelings start to overwhelm and impede people’s lives, they need therapy and treatment to regulate and manage their emotions.

De Leon reported that one in five adults will experience a mental health disorder each year, but only half of those will get treatment, often because of the stigma that further isolates and silences those who could benefit from treatment.

She added that having a mental health issue does not mean a person cannot pursue wellness.

“Wellness is not a destination — it’s a daily practice that we choose to build on and return to again and again.”

The base level of wellness is different for everyone, so meeting people where they are and cheering them on is important.

De Leon urged people to start speaking openly about therapy, medications, and recovery. Seeking help is a strength, not a weakness.

“We must challenge mental health stigmas in our conversations and in the healthcare culture and champion for those we care about.”

OptiMed Hospitalists Chief Operating Officer Alicia Ibanez shared a quote by Matt Haig she saw at Iredell Davis Behavioral Health Hospital (IDBHH): “Mental health problems don’t define who you are. They are something you experience. You walk in the rain and you feel the rain, but you are not the rain.”

The quote was powerful to Ibanez because it emphasizes that a struggling person is not a diagnosis and reminds us that treatment and therapies can restore health and wellness.

Gina Parker, assistant vice president of Behavioral Health at IDBHH, noted that having behavioral health services readily available in emergency rooms and hospitals is imperative for whole person care.

From October of 2023 to September of 2024, Parker reported that Iredell Memorial’s ER had 768 patients present with mental health issues. The number since October 1 is at 502, an average of 72 per month, so the number this fiscal year is expected to be even higher.

“The problem is real. These patients require medical screening as well as mental health services.”

However, mental health providers often have limited availability. De Leon noted that teletherapy increased 20-fold during the pandemic. These rapid consults, conducted just like an in-person session, minimize delays in treatment and improve patient safety and quality of care.

De Leon also believes AI integration will help improve mental health screening and treatment in some ways, but it will never replace human involvement and interaction in the room or online.

Reducing staff stigma and training them to screen patients for mental health problems can help identify patients’ needs and get them the appropriate treatment faster. Collaboration between medical and mental health staffs only leads to better patient outcomes and better management of staff time and resources.

OTHER PRESENTERS

Jeff Eads of Partners Health Management hosted an afternoon session with Jennifer Barraclough from Iredell Council on Aging, Maureen “Mo” Gould from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Toni Robinson from Children’s Hope Alliance, and Derrick Buggs from Iredell Davis Behavioral Health to share their services and answer questions.

Paul Newman, senior vice president with Duke Health, and Brett Eckerman, executive director of United Way of Iredell, closed out the event.

RESOURCES

Be Well Iredell partners include Iredell County Public Health Department, Partners, United Way, Children’s Hope Alliance, Iredell-Statesville Schools, Mooresville Graded School District, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

The initiative focuses on education and training in suicide prevention, mental health literacy, and resiliency training; community engagement through public awareness campaigns, peer support programs, and community events; and access to support and care through expanding mental health resources, crisis intervention, and telehealth accessibility.

Visit https://uwiredell.org/be-well-iredell/.

Community members can call 211 for information on community resources such as food assistance, housing, utility assistance, healthcare or government services, transportation, counseling and support groups, and local helping agencies.

Calling 988 will provide access to support during thoughts of suicide, mental health crises, substance use crises, or emotional distress.

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