Stress, anxiety more recognizable, understood

Stephen Christopherson LSCW CADC (Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor), who has been with Arukah since

December 2022 and has been a social worker since 2017. “We don’t like that feeling. There

See HEALTH page 4 are different ways to cope with that feeling. Typically, when we don’t learn about it, we engage in unhealthy behaviors like distracting ourselves, getting stuck on social media, drug use, overeating, and so many other things we engage in that are unhealthy options to avoid that feeling.”

“It’s important for us to experience that feeling. I know everyone has heard, ‘Take a deep breath.’ The science behind it is incredible, and a deep breath can be helpful. But in the moment, if you haven’t practiced it before, a deep breath isn’t going to help you because you don’t know how to actually make that deep breath benefit you to help calm your nerves down,” he said.

“It’s just like anything else. I don’t know how to drive a stick shift. If you told me I was going to drive a stick shift right now, I would fail miserably. But if I had time to practice, then I would know how to do it when they asked me to do it,” he added.

Christopherson would also ask for help or assistance as he learned how to drive a manual vehicle.

To help calm anxiety and find ways to dissolve stress, reaching out to a trained professional is going to help you get results.

“When I see a client in the lobby, I don’t ask, ‘How are you doing?’ because people ask that in passing every day, and our automatic response is, ‘I’m good, how are you?’ That’s not typically what the real answer is,” Christopherson said. “We feel like we have to do good. We’re supposed to be doing good.”

“I know if you’re at a grocery store and someone asks you how you’re doing, you’re not going to go into full detail. But it’s about trying to be more conscious of how you’re actually feeling and not needing to feel like we need to put a fake face on for the world. We show the world what we think they want to see instead of being truthful and saying, ‘You know, I’m really struggling right now.’ It’s about taking time being real with where our thoughts and our feelings really are. Sometimes that can be a real quick fix by changing something small in your day, whether it’s removing or adding something,” he said.

“Sometimes, kids and adults think seeing a coun- selor or getting help is a sign of weakness. However, it’s a sign of strength. Therapy doesn’t have to be a lifetime thing, but lying about something bothering you doesn’t help. Speaking to someone does help, and if you’re bottling things up, speaking to someone is one of the best things to do.”

The Arukah headquarters is in Princeton but services La Salle, Marshall, Bureau, Grundy, and Putnam County. Stephen Christopherson isn’t the only Christopherson at Arukah Institute of Healing as his mother, Lori Christopherson, is the Coordinator of Fundraising.

Since the beginning of her employment in 2022, she has realized more and more about stress, anxiety, and mental health issues that she never noticed before because it isn’t her specialty. Being around the doctors, counselors, and clients at Arukah has opened her eyes.

“Prior to my work at Arukah, I really didn’t understand the need that’s in our community just for folks to seek someone out to talk about the stress that they’re feeling or the anxiety that they have,” Lori said. “I knew that mental health is a topic now, but until working with Arukah and hearing some of the stories, I never realized how vast it was. When I approach someone for fundraising purposes, they want to talk to me about their story. They want to tell me how important it is that we have Arukah for people to turn to.”

“When I think about when I was raising kids, we are more self-aware in our present society. Where 25 years ago, the stress of the every day was manifested in a raised voice or something that isn’t in the best interest of whoever you’re dealing with. People didn’t want to admit that they had a problem, or you thought you just had to grow up,” she said.

“What I see now, I hear from so many people that they’re more self-aware. When they feel the anxiety coming on, they know that there is somebody or somewhere they can go to for help,” she said.

Kelly Jones, the founder and owner of Maitri Path to Wellness in La Salle, has been a social worker since 2016 but has been helping people with addictions and other stress, anxiety, and mental health areas for the last 25 years.

“The negative stigma of getting mental health counseling is less than it was, but it still exists,” said

Jones, who opened Maitri in May 2021. “Quite a few of my clients would never have come to counseling if their primary doctor didn’t push for them to go to counseling. Once they get here, they say, ‘I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago.’ Sadly, I think the numbers of completed suicides and overdose deaths are still on the rise. Is the stigma really lessened enough?”

“If the way that you’re thinking and feeling is affecting your ability to function normally in life, you may be experiencing stress, anxiety, or mental health issues. If you are not doing as many of the things that you have done in the past that bring you joy or if you struggle to socialize or go to work, even if you go to work, but it’s still a struggle to do daily life functioning things, reach out,” Jones said.

“The thing about reaching out for mental health counseling, it’s not always about taking medication or going to counseling for the rest of your lifetime. There are a lot of things that can be done to help. You can learn some coping skills relatively quickly to manage the symptoms that you’re having,” Jones said.

Maitri offers individual counseling for mental health and substance abuse disorder and Accelerated Resolution Therapy. Soon, attentive inpatient and outpatient services for substance abuse disorder will also be available.

Jones and her staff offer counseling where clients can speak in person or in a Zoom meeting with professionals. With Accelerated Resolution Therapy, clients can receive help with trauma, depression, anxiety, cravings for substance use, grief, and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) in one to five sessions to resolve symptoms. With Accelerated Resolution Therapy, the symptoms can resolve or significantly decrease without talking. It’s a visualization process that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to talk to receive counseling.

One of the biggest complications Jones sees every day is the lasting effect of Covid-19.

“People isolating increases mental health symptoms, and Covid-19 forced people to isolate,” Jones said. “I have a lot of clients who are really struggling now because Covid-19 has (let up some), and we’re back in the community doing things, and activities are available. People are struggling to get back into that and leaving the isolation.”

“Isolation is sort of a cycle. You had to isolate, and it caused more anxiety. Now, that you could go back out into the world and you used to go out in the world, there is anxiety about being back out and being around people. People are struggling with getting out of the isolation pattern and how to go about it with the anxiety of returning to normal instead of isolation.”

Outpatient / Intensive Outpatient substance use disorder groups that include materials from:

• My Ongoing Recovery Experience (MORE) program which includes core education, guidance, and skill-building activities to help participants succeed in initiating and sustaining recovery

• Mindfulness Based Sobriety

• Seeking Safety teaching healthier coping skills

• Conflict Resolution for Recovery

• Mindful Self Compassion and other evidenced based materials that support long term recovery

Mental Health:

• Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART): quickly reduce symptoms of PTSD, Depression, Grief, Phobias, Anxiety or Addiction results in as little as 1 to 5 sessions.

• Individual Counseling: One on one confidential therapy for your mental health and/or substance use disorder concerns. We will help you develop and improve coping skills for everyday challenges, life stressors and personal growth using evidence-based tools and individualized treatment planning. Our Staff