Toronto, November 1st, 2011
I am very proud to be honoured by the Mental Health Association with a Public Service Award.
Since I was told I was receiving this award, a grand-daughter of dear friends took an overdose, I visited the family of a 15 year old who killed himself, and have received countless messages from people who have either suffered from mental illness themselves or who are struggling with how to care for loved ones or friends. Just last week I met with a soldier who had been in Afghanistan and described in compelling terms how many of his colleagues were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
At the age of 24, I woke up one morning with a deep sense of anxiety and depression that was debilitating for the better part of a year. At times I could scarcely get moving through the day, and found talking to anyone difficult. I was paralysed by self doubt, cold sweats, and no reassurances of, friends and family could convince me that I had much self worth or hope for the future. Some friends trying to be helpful said “shake it off, you’ve got everything going for you”. As well meaning as that advice was, it ignored the simple fact that I was struggling with an illness.
I took the “talking cure”, and slowly began making decisions which allowed me to get back on my feet. I had the benefit of good friends who insisted I seek help. I had the support of a family that, while taken aback by my description of what was happening, gave me the love and support to find my way. I realise now how incredibly important those two things were.
As I began to deal with the challenge I was facing, I slowly began making decisions that would help me get better. The first was to go and work in a housing and legal aid centre, to confront my anxiety directly by engaging with other people. I can remember helping a distraught mother of two whose life had fallen apart and realising that I could show normal compassion and help make a difference in someone’s life. The second was to go and see as many funny movies and shows as I possibly could. Even today, my family are embarrassed by how quickly I am moved to tears, and how much I love to laugh, and laugh so hard I start to cry.
I was a student of political philosophy at the time, and a kind teacher urged me to get help, and to read John Stuart Mill’s autobiography, which I dutifully did. Mill had grown up as a “thinking machine”, and suffered a mental breakdown when he came to realise that there was no love, laughter, music, or beauty in his life. His recovery took a long time, but he went on to become a giant of political and economic thought.
Mill described his breakdown in this way :
“I seemed to have nothing left to live for. At first I hoped the cloud would pass away of itself; but it did not. I carried it with me into all companies, into all occupations. In vain I sought relief from my favourite books….Advice, if I had known where to seek it, would have been most precious.
The fountains of vanity and ambition seemed to have dried up within me. Neither selfish nor unselfish pleasures were pleasures to me. Two lines of Coleridge were often in my thoughts, not at this time but in a later period of the same mental malady. Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve. And hope without an object cannot live.
I frequently asked myself if I could, or if I was bound to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself, that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year.”
Science and understanding the mind and emotions has advanced much in the nearly two hundred years since Mill’s breakdown. Technically speaking, there are indeed no cures yet – but there is much we can do to put symptoms on the back burner, to improve people’s ability to work and have strong relationships and to minimize the intrusion of illness.
Politics is a life that allows me to help people in practical ways, do the thinking I have to do, and provide whatever leadership and inspiration I can. My life is very full. I’m not John Stuart Mill but I have been a very lucky man.
Several things happened as a result of my living through a mental illness. The first was that I quickly realised how many others went through similar experiences. The second was that I realised the darkness and anxiety can clear. I have had moments – in particular the time when my late brother David died – when I have felt great sadness, but it was nothing like the earlier experience. Don’t let anyone tell you that, with the right help, people can’t get better.
I have tried in my political life to open people up to the realities of mental illness. Whether in opposition or government, I have done what I could to help people understand that treatment must be improved, that access to prompt and effective care must be ensured, and that above all we have to bring this issue out of the shadows. I have been helped along the way by many people who have insisted that there was much more to be done. Dan Offord was a mentor of mine, a pioneer in child psychiatry who also ran Christie Lake camp. He kept pushing me to understand that early identification of the signs of mental illness in kids can take us a long way. I know we still have such a long way to go to achieve his dream.
My friend and political colleague David Reville was a pioneer in empowering the clients of the mental health system, and many of the changes we now see in respecting the lived experience of people struggling with illness every day is because of David and many thousands like him.
And my good friend Dr David Goldbloom has been a consistent source of good humoured advice that has helped me to see the big picture of what can be done.
The debates and discussions around this issue have changed substantially, and positively, since I entered public life over thirty years ago. But we still have a long way to go.
Mental illness is not about being sad. While the stigma in public opinion has diminished, it has not disappeared. Treatments have improved dramatically, but individuals and families still face the worlds of autism, depression, schizophrenia, and a wide range of disorders without the deep assurance that in every instance “we know what causes it and we know how to make it better.” But more people are recovering, and better treatments are being found every day.
The recent debate in the House of Commons on the need for a national suicide strategy was an
eye-opening experience for all of us. Members came forward and shared their own experiences, there was no name calling, partisan chippiness or the usual antics that go with a House debate. There was a sense that we are all in this together.
So that was progress. The next step is to match the words with even more deeds. There is a desperate shortage of help out there, and families with children all too often feel they are on their own. It will take a greater commitment of dollars and resources to make things happen, and that’s harder to do in tough times. But it can and must be done.
The problems won’t go away on their own. My grandmother Nell had a wonderful expression whenever she encountered a mountain of a problem. “Take the human footsteps”. That’s what we can and must do.
Mr Rae I greatly appreciate your remarks here. You’ve touched on a few things very personal to me.
Yes I’ve struggled with depression off and on for many years, but a few years ago I had the privilege of being a full time volunteer at a facility that catered to the re-rehabilitation of those suffering from many forms of mental illnesses. In the process of caring for and watching other people care for these individuals I gained enough from experiences to be more than be able to cope with my own disparities.
One person I got to care for there was my own sister who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and prior to being allowed to come to this facility spent many years in institutions making little progress to return any level of functionality. However after a few short months with the care she was given in this facility, she made remarkable progress. In fact so remarkable was her progress that that we were the recipients of a letter of accommodation from the Head of psychiatry for the Province of Saskatchewan
Although that was almost ten years ago, today my sister is able to make wonderful conversation, lives in a group home, where she come and goes freely ,holds down a part time job and volunteers in a number of capacities throughout the community. So, as I read your remarks your words rekindled a resounding effect in me.
Thank you very much for your candor. I now have an very special reason added to looking forward to meeting you in person someday.
I had heard about depression and how depresion hurts, but until I saw my own husband curled into a fetal position and sobbing helplessly I didn’t understand. Thanks to the help of three dedicated prodfessionals he is gradually recovering. It is a long and difficult road. I wish there was some way we could make more people understand that depression isn’t something that you can just “get over”, it is real and it does hurt.
Mr. Rae, you are to be commended for addressing an issue that is often overlooked by political parties. I have been a practising psychologist for 38 years now, and I have seen an exponential growth in anxiety disorders in both children and adults. I hope the Liberal party can develop a comprehensive mental health policy, something that is far more vital for Canadians than jets and prisons(I have worked in that venue too!)
Mr. Rae, you are to be commended for addressing an issue that is often overlooked by political parties. I have been a practising psychologist for 38 years now, and I have seen an exponential growth in anxiety disorders in both children and adults. I hope the Liberal party can develop a comprehsive mental health policy, something that is far more vital for Canadians than jets and prisons(I have worked in that venue too!)
Bob…I wonder if you realize just how significant your story is. I will be 70 next year, but until I read your highly informative words I had no idea what I may have suffered as a child.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing me to a most shocking realization, something I don’t think would have happened had I not been a member of the Liberal Party, and thus being made privy to your comments.
Again, my sincere thanks.
THIS IS LEADERSHIP!
Mr. Rae, as a huge fan and your biggest critic, thank you for this leadership. Leadership is the courage to reveal the person behind the words, behind the deeds and in so doing, put a light on the real challenges of life and being together.
Your testimony is compelling and your empathy rings so true to me.
thank you!
I’ve always tried to take comfort at low moments[ albeit after the fact] from this Quote taken from the great Italian holocaust survivor Primo Levi in ” If this be a man.” It and the book itself are astonishingly enough both sobering and hopeful. While noones life is perfectly happy neither is it possible to be perfectly unhappy.
“Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite.”
― Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz
As always, Mr. Rae delivers a learned and thoughtful commentary. Mental health is one of the most neglected areas of our healthcare system: no leadership (in Ontario); piecemeal funding; lack of good and safe housing for the mentally ill; poverty. There are many wonderful people working in the system, but there is little they can achieve in the face of societal and governmental neglect.