January 28, 2015... still here, still kicking!

 

It is what I suppose you would call the night of Bell Let’s Talk rather than the eve.

But evenings, nights, those long, dark, quiet periods of time, can be the toughest for me when I am in a period of mental darkness.

I have struggled with depression since I was a teen.

Many years ago, I tried to take my own life on more than one occasion, though less with conviction than with a need to be understood.

Obviously, and thankfully, I was unsuccessful in those attempts. I think that is the first time I have been public with that statement.

I credit my children for saving my life, because for over two decades now, even in my darkest moments, which are these days far fewer, I could never contemplate taking my own life and leaving them in pain.

I have run the gamut of pills, mental health clinics and med appointments. Read books, worked out (and I have to say, the exercise was probably the most successful remedy in my case), talked to friends, my doctor, and wrote a series about mental illness in The Echo in my days of committing journalism.

I even won the Ma Murray award for community service with that series. Received this great big silver sculpture of beaver on a log…

And Clara Hughes Ride For Mental Health and Bell Mobility’s Let’s Talk day have been something I have followed quietly with interest over the past five years.

I am not ashamed to say I have struggled.

I am not ashamed to say there are days I still do.

But I have found a groove that helps me get through it, and I am exceedingly thankful I have.

When we talk about mental illness, when we open our minds and understand it, we take away the stigma.

When I did the series I mentioned, many of the people who came forward to talk to me remained anonymous, because that stigma created fear.

Fear they would lose respect. Fear they would lose their job. Fear their friends and family would look at them differently.

And let’s be honest: their fears were not without justification because as a society, we have tagged people with mental illness as “those people.”

So let’s change that.

Let’s keep talking. Let’s understand mental illness. And let’s, if nothing else, understand there is help out there, and no one, NO ONE, should be afraid to reach out for that help.

No two paths are the same. But the destination is.