Trudeau shares personal story of struggle with mental illness

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This article was published 02/05/2013 (4752 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

From her carefree flower child days of the ’60s to the extreme highs and overwhelming lows of bipolar disorder, Margaret Trudeau spoke of it all.

Trudeau, a mental health advocate and former wife of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was a special guest at the Manitoba Nurses Union annual general meeting in Brandon Wednesday.

Speaking in front of hundreds of nurses, Trudeau gave a candid speech about her life, and her own personal mental health struggles.

“At just about 18, I started feeling overwhelmingly sad or very excited about life,” she said. She recalled feeling full of energy at times, overcome with the feeling of dread at others.

“I didn’t know it was just the beginning bits of the depression and the mania that would haunt me for the next years,” she said.

It was around that same time that Trudeau (then Margaret Sinclair of Vancouver) went on a family vacation to Tahiti, where she captured the heart of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

“Oddly enough Pierre was exactly the same age as my mom,” she said.

Eventually, Trudeau said they “fell in love deeply.” In 1971, she became the youngest first lady in Canadian history, at age 22.

She recalled an exciting, glamorous life that was mixed with years of undiagnosed mental struggles. Trudeau said she experienced postpartum depression and hypomania, however thought it was all normal ups and downs of life.

Trudeau talked about divorcing the prime minister, moving to New York to study acting, welcoming her children into the world, and remarrying.

She talked about the profound grief of losing her son Michel, who was killed in an avalanche while skiing in 1998.

“I went absolutely mad with grief,” she said. “It pushed me into the deepest depression.”

Trudeau was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She said it took about three years to “get back onto the level playing field.”

She said she has gotten to the point of self-monitoring, and hasn’t experienced depression for several years.

“I have my medication with me all the time and I take it if I feel my brain is starting to get manic,” she said.

One of the main messages Trudeau said she wanted people to take away from her speech is that mental illness is a real illness.

“It impacts everyone — yourself and everyone else in your life,” she said. “The shame is not having a mental illness, the shame is having one and not getting it treated.”

The other message is that, unfortunately, people can’t fix the mental suffering of others with love and good intentions.

“The biggest thing we could do for them is help them get help,” she said. “I really think it’s important that we start the conversation on mental health or mental wellness.”

Justin has ‘always been a leader’

As federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau gains popularity in Canada and continues to follow in his father’s footsteps, a proud mother is on the sidelines supporting her son every step of the way.

“We’ve known for a long time that Justin was heading in this direction because he’s always been this way,” said Margaret Trudeau while in Brandon Wednesday. “He’s always been a leader, he always has wanted to make a difference and to change the world.”

She said she’s very hopeful for her son’s political career, although she added “it’s not a life I’d wish on any of my children.”

Trudeau said the attack ads created about her son are simply a form of bullying.

“I wish I could go to the principal and say that one of my boys’ peers is really slandering him and misdirecting people’s thoughts about him,” she said. “The thing about bullies is that we must feel sorry for them and try to help them get better.”

Trudeau recalled the great pride she felt when Justin was elected leader of the federal Liberal party last month.

“It was all part of the big excitement,” she said. “What was more moving to me was the next day when he went into question period and Bob Rae handed him Wilfrid Laurier’s pen … I didn’t know that was going to happen.”

Trudeau’s father was an MP, and she said he would have been so proud “that Justin now has this wonderful position to hold and he will do it well.”

» jaustin@brandonsun.com