Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues or depression, help is available. In the United States, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7.
HORACE, N.D. — A man from Horace is sharing his experience going through a mental health crisis last year in hopes of helping others.
If you met Cale Homuth, he’d probably tell you about his two children or his wife, Megan, who recently was named Staff of the Year at Sheyenne High School.
You wouldn’t know it, but a year ago, he was in a fight with himself.
“I didn’t really know exactly what I was experiencing, but I felt as though I was an actor, kind of reviewing the tape of my life, and that I was just watching my life play out,” Homuth said.
He was scheduled to go on a work trip but says he couldn’t stop the pressure building within his own mind, eventually reaching out to his mother for help.
Cale Homuth with his children.
Contributed
“She just shot right over the bow and said, ‘Are you depressed?’ And hearing your mother ask you that was crazy. And so that, like the curtain fell, gig was up, and then we started immediately turning to where I could go to talk to someone that day,” Homuth said.
A study by the Center for Social Research at North Dakota State University completed in January found 62% of North Dakota residents live in an area with a shortage of mental health professionals.
It could explain why Homuth had a tough time finding the help he needed.
“I want to say there was at least half a dozen places that was the course of our interactions with providers that day. And so it was really, it was exhausting, and it was … it was anxiety-inducing, as well,” Homuth said.
That’s when he found VitellaCare in West Fargo and met with a professional therapist.
Mental health clinician Crystal Liddycoat said no one should have to face mental health issues alone.
“You don’t have to do it by yourself. That’s what we’re here for, right? Regardless of what you’re struggling with, come in, don’t wait for it to be a crisis,” said Liddycoat, a VitellaCare mental health clinician.
After just a couple conversations with a professional, Homuth said things began to change, and he hopes others going through their own battle will take that first step, too.
“It’s not like you’re giving up, or that you’ve come to a head and you’ve lost,” he said. “It’s really that you’ve earned yourself a chance to get another opinion, get some help, and really investigate and care for yourself.”
During his mental health battle, Homuth said he was dealing with decreased blood pressure and increased blood flow to his eyes.
VitellaCare officials say those symptoms, along with other physical changes involving fatigue and sleep disturbances, could stem from a mental health condition.