“What had happened to our beautiful happy life? Could it really be over for us? I just wasn’t sure if our love was strong enough to keep us together. I probably believed it wasn’t.”
It was an idyllic marriage. John and Marion were high school sweethearts who married and began a successful life together. He, an internationally respected scientist in his field and she, a business woman in her family firm. With three children and finally settled in Victoria. BC, Canada after stints in Vienna and Australia, tragedy struck.
Despite the eventual and probable diagnosis of late-onset schizophrenia, John and Marion struggled to hold their family together and to deal with an illness that usually strikes much earlier in life. This is their story of what happens when the mind betrays you.
When Steve Hartwig, Jason McKenzie and Scott McFarlane arrived in Antigonish, Nova Scotia on September 7, they paused at the downtown cenotaph honouring fallen soldiers from World War I. They were close to reaching the end of their march across Canada to raise awareness of PTSD among Canada’s veterans.
Nearly one in five Canadian children and adolescents will be touched by a mental disorder serious enough to cause social, emotional or academic problems. They will not outgrow what ails them: 70 per cent of adults with a mental illness first experienced symptoms as children or youth. Timely treatment can prevent years of struggle — but only if parents know when and how to take action on one of the most daunting challenges any family can face. [
Vancouver Island hip hop artist Matt Dunae—aka SirReal—has released the official music video of a single from his upcoming mixtape; both are named Not Like Me. The song, as SirReal describes it, is a micro story, a “culmination of experiences and harsh realities brought to light.”
After two decades of helping clients battle addiction, Mike Pond, a successful therapist, succumbs to one himself. He loses everything and ends up destitute in a rundown recovery home populated by a cast of characters straight out of Dickens.
Monique Gray Smith, an accomplished consultant, writer and speaker, was at the Gabriola Island Public Library earlier this year discussing her new book about a First Nations woman’s journey to sobriety.