Margaret Trudeau, I Love You!

Confession time (bait), if truth be known (set), I am in love with Margaret Trudeau (hook).  See how easy that was to get your undivided attention, that’s how a writer reels in his audience, and it works every time.  Now, the hook has to be relevant to the story, and in this case it is, but it’s also a little deceptive because I go on to tell you that my love for Margaret Trudeau is not a romantic kind of love, although she is quite an attractive and personable woman, more of a platonic kind of love.  What I am in love with is her brutal and candid honesty, her ability to speak so easily about moments others would hold private, and her openness to discussing her own mental illness to motivate and help others.  I love her for all those things.

I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Margaret speak on two different occasions, the first was a few years back, just after I had been diagnosed with a major depressive illness myself, and then more recently a little over a week ago, a year after my depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder decimated parts of my own life.  Those audiences weren’t planned, they just happened at an opportune time.  My higher power meant for me to be there, of that I am certain.  Of course, I knew in advance that she would be the keynote speaker at the conference I was attending, but I knew I was participating in the conference long before I knew she would be there.  As they say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and this student was ready.

My foray into mental illness took a different path then Margaret Trudeau’s and expressed itself much differently.  I didn’t get the mania, just the depression; I didn’t do wild and crazy things that I would eventually be able to laugh at, no my depression took me to a place where I had convinced myself that I was going to die no matter what so I just gave up.  In public, I put on a brave face, acted as if everything was fine, and quoted all kinds of positive quotes, but in private, oh boy, I braced myself for my sure and certain demise and would get angry because it took so long to come.  Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t suicidal, I didn’t want to die, I just convinced myself that I was going to.

Of course, there was a physical cause for my depression and for my PTSD, and I will discuss that at length in my next blog, but for now it suffices to say that like Margaret, I knew something was wrong with me, but unlike her, I was unwilling to talk about it, I was in deep denial and put up a front, pushing away the people I cared about so they wouldn’t know I was hurting.

Through her honesty and openness, Margaret unwittingly helped me get past the stigma, inspired me to face my demons by talking about them, and showed me that there is hope after mental illness.  Yes, I love that woman very much but not in a superficial, romantic kind of way, but in a deep, eternal, and grateful kind of way.  I am doing much better now, but I’m still not perfect, and the truth is that I probably never will be, but I am coping well, and my life is getting better and better each day!  I Love you, Margaret!  Thank you!

PS:  If you haven’t read it yet, I would definitely recommend reading, Changing My Mind, by Margaret Trudeau (Harper Collins)