BAKER LAKE
The healing journey for Martin Kreelak of Baker Lake has been long and hard.
Martin Keelak of Baker Lake is all about helping others, and he's spent the past five years as a resolution health support worker. - Darrell Greer/NNSL photo |
Abused as a child, Kreelak spent most of his adult life staring down his inner demons and trying to overcome the pain that once had him contemplating suicide.
Today, Kreelak is all about helping others, and he's spent the past five years as a resolution health support worker in his home community for the Pulaarvik Kablu Friendship Centre in Rankin Inlet.
Kreelak conducts both individual and marriage counselling in Baker.
He said when people need to talk to him, he's there to listen.
"The work I do can be intense and sometimes it's really overwhelming," said Kreelak.
"The reason I like to help people is because of all the baggage I carried for so many years, until I realized there is help out there.
"I've been on my healing journey for the past 30 years, and I'm still on that journey today.
"I used to wonder where all this I had inside of me was coming from, and it always goes back to the little boy of my childhood who has been crying for many years."
Kreelak said he still cries today, but as his soul heals, he is able to stand up and acknowledge that there is help available for people who are hurting.
He said no matter where he goes, in every community he visits, he sees people hurting.
"A lot of people are hurting, and there's a part of me that wants to help them all so badly.
"For many years as I was growing up, and as I became a teenager, a part of me was hurting.
"And, as I was carrying this pool of pain, I got married and started raising children, but there was always this vicious cycle that I'd keep going back to, and living in a vicious cycle is not a fun place to be.
"I would think life is not worth living as I kept going back to that vicious cycle, and, when I reached my last stage, the only thought going through my mind was the only way out is through suicide."
Kreelak said doors started opening for him when he earnestly began seeking help about 10 years ago.
He said the Christian-based workshops he attended started to help him heal and for the past few years he's been taking a Biblical counselling workshop.
"I still have a lot of work to do to heal myself.
"But, as I heal from within, the me inside that was hurting as a little boy, now wants to help individuals, or husbands and wives, who are hurting.
"I want them to know they can heal and there is help for them to do it."
