 According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, one in five adults in the United States will experience a mental illness in a given year. Bemidji State University is aiming to break the stigma with a Make It Okay presentation. Lakeland News reporter Sherell Moore has the story. Bemidji State University wants their faculty, students and staff to know it's okay to talk about mental illness. Today, strides were made to help break the stigma with a Make It Okay presentation. It was meant to be an interactive session where people can talk about their experiences, learn a little bit about mental illness. There was a lot of shuffling around the room for group activities, and naturally, a lot of group discussion. We did a lot of group discussion and had practice time talking about our own stories and sharing as much as we were comfortable with so that we could be able to leave here and look around the room and say, I am not the only one with some experiences either with mental illness for myself or a friend or a family member. A big message to Make It Okay presentation wanted to send out was that just talking about it can really help mental health. We oftentimes don't self-identify that there's something going on and we don't know ourselves that this is more than just being sad. Maybe there's a deeper depression that things just haven't gotten better after two weeks. People also learned that you shouldn't be afraid to check on your loved ones. It's about identifying what those things are, having conversations with other people, like being able to say, hey, I notice, I notice you. I see you. What can I do to help? At the end of the presentation, attendees were given various information on where to go to for help. Breviks says it's important to remember you don't have to be suicidal to use the national suicide prevention line or the text crisis line. They can come to you, they can come to the home, to the workplace, to the school and they can help make a safety plan and put those things together of how do we move forward and so it's an it's an okay resource to use. We want people to to be able to use it and reach out and get help. We have links to various resources online with this story. Reporting in Bemidji, Shremor, Lakeland News. Attendees at today's presentation were also given the opportunity to learn how to facilitate their own make it okay session. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.