Image courtesy ‘Can we just Talk’ and Breathe Coffee House
By ELLINOR COUCHMAN
Tiger Media Network
Last Thursday, Fort Hays State University’s National Alliance on Mental Illness club (NAMI) hosted “Can we just Talk?” at the Fischli-Wills Center for Student Success. The event is a semi-regular program promoting community communication courtesy of Breathe Coffee House. Meetings address a variety of topics and feature accredited community figures. Examples include improving sleep with Instructor Will Stutterheim, making connections with Global Affairs Director Haley Williams, and relationship advice with Compliance Officer Amy Schaffer. This meeting’s agenda addressed mental health with NAMI president Nevaeh Copenhaver.
“It sounds simple, and it really is. It’s just a chance to go to a safe environment where you can have discussions about things that you normally wouldn’t–maybe more sensitive topics,” Copenhaver said.
“Can we just Talk?” generally takes place either on-campus or at Breathe Coffee House’s storefront on 703b Main Street. Breathe Coffee House, a subsidiary of the nonprofit Dialogue Ministries Inc., has sponsored the event for more than three years. In that time, Copenhaver says she’s seen a paradigm shift surrounding mental health.
“Mental health has become more talked-about in recent years, especially thanks to the media, but it’s still something that’s very hush-hush, or people don’t feel comfortable to talk about it, or they’re embarrassed, or whatever,” she said. “There’s just that stigma.”
The specific discussions in last Thursday’s meeting are confidential, although attendees are only under a verbal agreement. For Copenhaver, confidentiality is a practice in trust at NAMI.
“We don’t bring anyone down for the things that they might share, and we don’t share that information to just anyone. It’s a safe space, and your trust is not going to be violated,” she said.
Breathe Coffee House president Patrick McGinnis, a former pastor at the WaKeeney Church of God, began “Can we just Talk” with the stated vision “that all people should feel love and feel connected“. For Zachary Cox, a fellow Christian and barista at Breathe Coffee House, it’s a message which is important for men to hear.
“As a man, definitely when I was younger in high school, it was hard because I didn’t want to be vocal about mental health because people would see me as someone who was weak, and I was shaped to be a leader,” he said.
Although Cox says he struggled in high school and college with bipolar issues, pessimism, and dissociation, as a recent FHSU graduate, he’s branched out to serving and exploring around the world. He’s visited Romania, France, Lesotho, South Africa, and East Africa, and he says he wants to go back.
“I’m a Criminal Justice Major, but we branch off of sociology; it’s like the study of humans, and one thing that I really loved while I was there was seeing how the people in East Africa interact with their community and with each other,” he said
True to the event’s name, in accounting for his improved mental health, Cox stresses the importance of talking to trusted friends.
“Don’t run away from it, and don’t let it have control over you. Just talking to one person about it, especially if it’s a negative aspect of your mental health, even if it’s your closest friend, loosens that grip that mental health has over you,” he said.