A record 122,150,772 tweets, texts, calls and shares were made across the country to open the dialogue on mental healthThis week, as part of Bell's Lets Talk day.

That's a sign of growing change in the social treatment and acceptance of mental health issues that has Kelowna experts optimistic for our future.

“We have made great progress in the last few years,” says Candace Giesbrecht with the Canadian Mental Health Association Kelowna Branch. “We are so hopeful and optimistic about the amount of conversation that we hear. Last year, we received over 21,000 calls into our front desk, a 40 per cent increase over the year before.”

The statistics are staggering to those who don't understand how prevalent mental health issues are.

Photo: Contributed

According to Giesbrecht, one in five Canadians will experience a mental illness serious enough to require treatment, and less than half of those will seek out the help they need, due to stigma.

“So, if we do the math and look at the population in Kelowna, that is 36,000 people this year in our community that will experience a mental illness serious enough to require treatment,” explains Giesbrecht.

“If this was a strain of flu or a bacteria in water that was going to affect 36,000 people in our city, oh my gosh, the cavalry would be called in. We would just stop, drop and roll to try to help our community. But, yet we don't see those kinds of responses. There isn’t that sense of urgency around trying to get the word out and raise awareness, so that people can know the early signs and symptoms and get they help that they need.”

But, she believes positive change is being made.

“When people displayed signs of a mental illness, we used to lock them up and throw away the key,” notes Giesbrecht.

“This is part of our recent experience, so who of us wants to be whispered about, who of us wants to be the talk of the family or worse the secret of the family? It is an invisible illness for the most part, and a lot of people are walking around and dying inside because they are not getting the help they need.”

Part of the problem is the lack of funding. Something Bell's Let's Talk Day hopes to counteract, donating more than $6.1 million for mental health initiatives during Wednesday's event.

Giesbrecht says it is estimated the cost to the health-care system due to mental health concerns is 15 per cent of the total, and yet only six per cent of funding goes to mental illness.

“The consequence of that is that our most expensive systems end up kicking in. So we use our RCMP, we use our emergency departments. These are expensive systems, and it is all because community support services aren't in place for that early intervention.”

For more information on CMHA Kelowna and the services it offers, check out their website here.