“Embracing Humanity” town halls finds the human condition in mental health

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and the City of Eureka continues to focus on the importance of mental health.

Within the council chambers, residents from across Eureka came to listen to speakers embrace humanity in this month’s mental health town hall.

One of the main focuses of the town hall was focusing on the lived experiences of those with mental health issues.

“When we listen to people’s stories, we see that there is hope, that people do recover, and that we all have the human condition. It’s very inspiring to see folks come out of hell, literal, and live a productive and beautiful life in the community,” City of Eureka Mayor Kim Bergel said.

And the town hall hopes to build that understanding of the human condition.

“Folks can get better even when they have really severe mental health and substance abuse issues. The other piece to it, it’s difficult to find ave compassion and empathy for someone that we don’t know,” mental health clinician Jacob Rosen said. “So when we can actually listen sit down and listen to someone’s story. That’s how we as humans learn.”

Professionals spoke on a panel, answering questions from community members. They also spoke on their personal experiences of helping patients out. 

Other community resources were on hand for residents to get more information on and meet those behind the scenes.

It is part of Mayor Bergel’s mental health initiative in the city. That includes having conversations with peers they may not normally have with one another. 

“At the risk of sounding a little soapboxy, I think our society’s been out of practice of having discussion where maybe we don’t agree on things. One of our hopes by having these in-person events is really to pull people in and bring the community back together,” Rosen said. “Because I think what we find is when we get in the room together and have these discussions, our views are not so dissimilar.”

The city of Eureka hopes to add more town halls this year on different mental health subjects.

For those interested in pitching a topic of discussion, contact the City of Eureka.