Pubdate: Fri, 13 Jan 2017
Source: Abbotsford News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2017 Abbotsford News
Contact:  http://www.abbynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1155
Author: Kelvin Gawley

'I'M STILL STANDING AND I'M STILL SMILING'

Margaret Trudeau gives impassioned speech on mental illness at
UFV

Margaret Trudeau, a self-described hippie child of the 60s and 70s,
has spent much of her 68 years in the spotlight - a light whose glare
has been less than flattering at times.

Her name was first plastered across Canadian headlines in 1971, when
she married Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, a man nearly 30 years her
senior.

She remained in public view for many years after, as that marriage
fell apart, as she partied with celebrities, when her youngest son
died and, more recently, when her son Justin Trudeau, followed his
father's path to the prime minister's office in 2015.

During much of those years, Trudeau suffered from bipolar disorder, a
mental illness that she says robbed her of life and nearly killed her
at one point.

Trudeau came to the Student Union Building on the Abbotsford campus of
the University of the Fraser Valley on Tuesday, Jan. 11 to share
stories from her life and advocate for mental health awareness and
treatment.

The lecture was organized by the school's student union.

Without notes, Trudeau gave an animated and often humorous speech for
roughly 50 minutes in front of a crowd of about 360 on Tuesday afternoon.

"I'm not bragging about my life because the only thing that I have to
brag about is that I'm still standing and I'm still smiling," she said.

Trudeau said she suffered from bipolar disorder her whole life,
although it was not diagnosed until later in life.

"As Lady Gaga pointed out, 'I was born this way,'" she said, to
laughter from the crowd.

Trudeau said her childhood in North Vancouver had all of the right
ingredients to keep mental illness at bay: an active outdoor
lifestyle, healthy food and ample sleep.

But those three ingredients were "thrown out the window" when she
began studying political science at Simon Fraser University, allowing
the mental illness to creep into her daily life, she said.

"As students, you're a hot bed for mental disorder and chaos," Trudeau
said.

Trudeau recounted the first time she smoked marijuana with friends,
around that time.

"We went to a friend's house with a Beatles album... and a big bag of
grass," she recalled. "I took to it like a duck to water."

Trudeau pointed out that the marijuana she and her friends were
smoking in those days was much less potent than the drug available
today.

After the talk, she told reporters she continues to smoke pot, on
occasion.

But she also said that she is concerned about more people using the
drug to self-medicate their own mental illness once it becomes legal
in the next year (as her son's Liberal government has promised.)

She said she is particularly concerned about marijuana use among young
people.

"Don't smoke pot until you're 18 because it will change the way your
brain develops and you might never have true happiness and peace of
mind in your life," she told The News.

Trudeau spoke at-length about her struggles with depression, a part of
bipolar disorder and her feelings of isolation while raising her
children in the prime minister's residence in Ottawa. She described
being surrounded by staff doting on her but seeing her husband for as
little as an hour and a half each day.

"I call 24 Sussex the Crown Jewel of the federal penitentiary system,"
she joked.

Trudeau also described the flip side of depression:
mania.

The state of increased impulsiveness led her to jet-set around the
world and leave Ottawa behind, she said.

"You don't access reason; you don't access good thoughts [when in a
manic state]," she said.

Trudeau spoke frankly about the 1998 death of her youngest son,
Michel, who was swept into a lake by an avalanche.

The devastating loss pushed Trudeau into a deep depression, she
said.

"I didn't know there was a line between sanity and insanity but it was
so easy to cross, I didn't know," she said. "I pushed everyone away,
my [second] husband, my children, I got a big bag of BC Bud and I got
lots of Scotch... I didn't want to live, I had lost my will to live, I
just wanted to die."

Trudeau said she went into a period of psychosis, which included
filling her dresser drawers with sand but she was eventually admitted
to a psychiatric ward and got the help she needed from a doctor who
gave her an ultimatum - die or get help.

Trudeau credits taking prescribed anti-depressant medication and
professional counseling with saving her life and she urged others
suffering from mental illness to seek professional help as well.

"As soon as you talk to a professional... your burden is lifted and
you realize you're not alone and it gets easier," she said. "It took
me three years [of therapy] and I managed to switch my brain from a
very dark and bitter and angry old shrew into a positive happy person.
I really highly recommend it."
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MAP posted-by: Matt