Mental health is so important to be seen out in public that it is going for a bike ride all over town.
The Prince George chapter of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) started their countdown to the annual Ride Don't Hide event coming up on June 26.
It is a fundraiser, so participants are encouraged to register at www.ridedonthide.com and help gather money, but anyone who wishes to may take part.
There is a six kilometre course for kids and those with mobility challenges or tight schedules, there is a 10 km route, a 20 and a 30 as well.
"Ride Don't Hide is a national event. We have 33 rides in Canada, and this year the Prince George chapter is organizing its fourth annual," said fitness and nutrition personality Sherry Ogasawara, Ride Don't Hide spokesperson in Prince George.
"We have grown each year so we hope to increase participation again this year."
The financial goal is $5,000 locally, and "all the money that is raised here stays here," Ogasawara said.
Some of the latest programs run in Prince George by the CMHA are Mental Health First Aid and the Bounce Back Program.
They are set up to help the many sufferers of mental illnesses and afflictions, some of them severe, some minor, some long-term, others temporary. Devin Sluchinski is a volunteer who - under the Keep In Touch Program, phones around to those living with a mental health situation to give them someone to talk with - is someone who knows what it means to have an illness.
Sluchinski is also a consumer with CMHA.
"If people meet me and I tell them about it, people often say to me 'oh, you don't look sick,'" he said, but that sometimes causes people to minimize the actual impact of the illness.
He said it can be as heavy to deal with as any physical disease, but its hidden nature cause some outside observers to dismiss it and causes many of those afflicted with it to refrain from bringing it up.
"I'm not afraid to get involved, talk about it, stick up for people with mental illness," Sluchinski said.
"Education is big."
Maureen Davis, executive director of CMHA-PG said one in five people will, at some time in their lives, suffer from some kind of mental illness "and five out of five people will somehow be affected by it."
Those effects can be eased, and so many lives helped, if an open and honest attitude about mental illness became the social norm, she said.
"The stigma has been significant, for many years," Davis said.
"It's a fear," agreed Ogasawara.
"Anything that has to do with the brain, mental functions, cognitive functions, anything we don't understand, we categorically are fearful of. I still think there is a lot of work to do and a long way to go. People still don't want to talk about it, people don't want to ask questions about it, so this is a chance to improve the dialogue."
If there is a profession in Canada that has the trust of the public it is pharmacists. Frank Lucarelli is the associate owner of Shoppers Drug Mart-Spruceland and part of his job is to work with doctors and mental illness sufferers to ensure the medications being administered are doing the best job they can to bring someone's mental health into better balance or total restoration of health. Lucarelli is on the poster for this year's Ride Don't Hide event, wearing his polka dot biking jersey.
"Finding the treatments for mental health is not simple," Lucarelli said. "It's monitoring side effects, it's trial and error. Some medications work really well for some, but not as well for others. There are many kinds of medication for many kinds of illnesses, and a lot of work still being done."
As a road-bike enthusiast, the Ride Don't Hide event gave Lucarelli a prime chance to marry his recreation with his profession.
"Mental health affects my mom, so I have a personal relationship with it, and as a pharmacist I want to help as much as I can, and give back to the community."
Also, event bracelets in funky colours are for sale now at the city's Shoppers Drug Mart locations.
The bike rider who founded the Ride Don't Hide initiative was Michael Schratter, a Vancouver teacher who lives with bioplar disease. He took a leave of absence from work in 2010 and set out to ride the distance equal to the equatorial circumference of the earth - about 40,000 km. He reached that goal after 33 countries on six continents, 469 days later.
The community bike ride idea stemmed from that journey.
"It's an amazing feeling to be at a Ride Don't Hide event, surrounded by hundreds of your neighbours coming out to show support for mental health," Schratter said. "As you look around you realize, quite simply, stigma can't exist here. My dream is that one day my children will say 'Stigma? What stigma?' but we sill have a ways to go."
Helping the Prince George cause is Cycle World / Winterland Ski & Board. The downtown bike shop has donated a voucher towards a new bike for the fundraiser who registers the most income for this coming Ride Don't Hide event.
There is one month to raise funds and gather support, as of today.
