Achieving Mental Health
Margaret Trudeau — On living with Bipolar Disorder
Nearly a quarter of the country’s working population is currently affected by mental health problems or illnesses leading to turnover, absenteeism and “presenteeism” (attending work but being less than fully productive). About 30% of short- and long-term disability claims nationally are attributed to mental health concerns. Of the total economic burden caused by mental illness in Canada — about $51 billion per year — a staggering $20 billion stems from workplace losses.
There are solutions. But first, be inspired by this story to help raise awareness of the stigma around mental illness.
Margaret Trudeau, ex-wife of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, understands the maxim: The only way up is to hit rock bottom.
At the Conference Board of Canada’s “Workplace Wellness and Mental Health 2014” conference held in June in Toronto, Ontario, a poised, polished and often hilarious Margaret readily shared her journey from the darkness of bipolar disorder to a new life as a mental health survivor and advocate.
While she was always a little different, a self-described firecracker — easy to laugh, easy to cry — the stability and balance of adequate sleep, healthy food and exercise that Margaret’s family provided, kept her bipolar symptoms at bay.
For most sufferers of serious mental illness, symptoms emerge between the ages 18 and 22. For Margaret, life began to unravel when she entered university at 19. The pressures of university life drove her to poor sleeping and eating habits and some experimentation with marijuana. She says, “I think those things are what started to trigger me into much more anxiety than I’d ever had before. I experienced much more sadness and I started to make some pretty bad choices.”
Margaret’s life would take a radically different turn after her father took her and her sisters on a trip to Tahiti. There she was smitten with an attractive ski instructor from France but ended up talking to the “old man he was dragging around” — Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
She was clueless about Trudeau’s notoriety until her mother informed her that “Pierre from Montreal was the black sheep of the Liberal party.” Although they spent more time together over her holiday, marriage was far from Margaret’s mind. He had, however, apparently confided in his colleagues that, “If ever I marry, she’s the one!”
Sure enough, after Margaret returned home from an eventful hippie trail, Pierre showed up at her doorstep to take her on a date and they soon fell in love. After a few years of a relatively hidden relationship, they were married.
A much unprepared Margaret moved into 24 Sussex Drive, what she now calls “the crown jewel of the penitentiary system.” There, the young woman from the large, close-knit family felt isolated and purposeless. Her ennui turned to joy with the birth of her first son, Justin; however, by the time Sasha was born, her bipolar disorder once again reared its ugly head.
“About a month after the birth of Sasha, the weeping began. I didn’t know how to stop,” she says. She continued nursing and doing what she had to do as a mother, but really did not want to participate in life. When she finally went to see a psychiatrist, he brushed her symptoms off as “baby blues”. He merely told Pierre to pay more attention to her. He did, and for a time, things seemed better.
Another bout of mania with an unexpected trigger was soon to strike. Campaigning for the federal elections, Pierre wanted her by his side.
Since she had been absent when he had been elected Prime Minister in 1972, he needed her there in 1974. “This time was very exciting: crossing the country, whistle stops on trains, huge crowds and many wonderful people.”
With the election behind them, following his win, Margaret’s mania began. She ran off to Paris alone without a passport. When she tried to enter Crete, she was forced to obtain a passport at the Canadian Consulate. That’s how Pierre discovered her whereabouts. Margaret explained, “I didn’t know what it was. I just knew that my mind was racing. I could find no balance. I could find no rest. I could find no peace.”
Pierre had her admitted to a hospital in Montreal, where she felt isolated and out of control. Following that stint, however, she continued her downward spiral, making choices with terrible repercussions. She blamed everyone but herself.
She continued her wild phase — partying with the Rolling Stones, spending money crazily and believing that she was a direct channel to a higher power. In her manic phase, she “suddenly became superwoman, feeling like [she] could conquer the world.” Margaret emphasizes that her bad decisions were a reflection of her illness, not of her true character.
She cycled in and out of psychiatric hospitals and was unsuccessfully treated for her illness. The second time she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital it was as a result of a poorly prescribed drug called Prozac, which can boost people with bipolar disorder into mania. When her doctor quickly pulled her off Prozac and put her onto another drug, she declined further, losing 80% of her liver function and ending up in the hospital again.
Her rock-bottom moment and eventual turning point began at age 50, when everything converged in her life. At that time, she had come out of the hospital, at the same time that her son Michel was recovering from a car accident. They took care of each other that summer. She finally had a knowledgeable doctor and was trying to get better.
Then Michel was killed in an avalanche. “The emotions I had after the death of my boy were complete and overwhelming — hopelessness, despair and guilt. In fact, I was just overwhelmed,” she recalls, with tears welling up in her eyes.
A few years later, Margaret and the boys helped Pierre — by then her ex-husband but still a good frien — when he was ailing. When he died, she went into a state of psychosis.
“In psychosis you stop connecting the dots. You have no ability to understand who you are, why you are, where you are. I was very, very lost,” she explains.
When her son intervened, with the help of a persistent friend, she finally got the complete help she needed. But she didn’t surrender easily. She went to the hospital the way most people with severe mental illness do — strapped to a gurney with police escort.
Margaret’s recovery period was an arduous three years. She was malnourished and very ill. She was finally diagnosed correctly and her doctor prescribed the right medication to calm her mind.
He also gave her the choice of staying in the hospital for 72 hours or going home. She desperately wanted to get better. “I chose to get well. I chose to change my mind,” she says. “This did not occur overnight. There was a great deal of trial and error with different drugs, a process that the University of British Columbia hopes to alleviate with its new research on how much of each medication each individual needs.” She also learned how to think again via cognitive behavioural therapy and how to express emotions appropriately via cognitive emotional therapy.
Margaret is now an advocate for mental health. “One of the things I lost when I was mentally ill and in the throes of something so awful that I did not understand, was the ability to articulate how I felt. So by writing my book, and by publicly speaking about my experiences, I want to sensitize people to what it feels like to be mentally ill. One out of three of us in our lifetime will suffer a mental illness, but it can be corrected.”
The correction could be relatively simple. She explained, that, “it’s a combination of three things — sleep, good nutrition and exercise — that has given me my recovery, my health, my vitality and given me my balance.”
She returned to the crux of her message. “We cannot fix ourselves.” I looked everywhere for peace of mind. I thought I would find it all by myself, but I could not. I needed professional help. So my message to you all and certainly in the workplace is nip it in the bud. We have to be attentive, we have to be mindful and we have to be optimistic because there are huge, huge discoveries being made now about mental health.”
As a healthy Trudeau herself demonstrated, mental illness is not a death sentence. Rather, we can celebrate the gains we’ve made in our understanding of mental health over the last 40 years that enable people with various mental illnesses to lead rich, full lives.
Christelle Agboka is a freelance writer living in Toronto.
Originally published in volume 16 issue 5 of Your Workplace magazine.
