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Margaret Trudeau: You're terrified, you feel so ashamed, you can't look people in the eye,
and that's the way I was. And we had to get through all of that, at one point he said
to me, "Margaret, you'd think you were an axe-murderer for all the guilt you carry.
Why can't you forgive yourself for your little mistakes you made in your youthful folly,
in your anger, in your fury at being trapped and imprisoned in a life that you didn't belong
in. Why can't you accept yourself as you are and forgive yourself. So, forgiving yourself
was the first big step you have to do, for the mistakes you've made and then you have
to be generous enough to forgive all the others who have hurt you, because they didn't understand.
They just did not know and they didn't mean it. And you don't take it personally anymore,
you think, "If only I had been able to get the help then that I got now, everything would
have been so so different, but I didn't." And the reality is that I was ahead of my
times in terms of getting help.
MT: Now there is help. It wasn't until 1985 that Prozac came on the market and the anti-depressants
that replaces the serotonin that's missing in your brain and cause why you stay in depression
for so long. Why you can't get out of depression. Because you get serotonin from running, jumping,
laughing, dancing, singing, having healthy sex. Who does that when you're depressed?
I mean even the thought of it all. And you don't eat well, you don't sleep, you sleep
way too much. You're not functioning well. So you don't get the serotonin back in your
brain. So, when the 1985, serotonin came on the market at the uptake to give it back,
that was the biggest breakthrough for people suffering bipolar or depression. And one out
of five Canadians by the way will be depressed in their lifetime. I think that statistics
underestimates it completely.
Susan Delacourt: You write a lot in the book and I think this hits home to a lot of people
about your attempts to self-medicate, and I use that term in its most liberal... You
thought that throwing yourself into work would do it. A lot of people I think, think work
will fix it.
MT: A distraction and escape. A lot of people use alcohol. Alcohol wasn't my deal, I loved
marijuana.
SD: Yeah. Tell them about marijuana.
MT: What a great drug, I thought.
SD: You've heard of marijuana, has anybody here inhaled?
MT: It was this exchange, I remember my boyfriend coming to me at the university, in the cafeteria,
in the morning and saying hi, and he said "Margaret!" Instead of saying hi he said,
"Margaret, strawberry heals forever." [laughter] He said, a friend from UBC had brought over
last night to their house some marijuana, "You've got to try it." I said, "But it's
illegal." We were only gonna smoke it way up north near Prince George. I took to it
like a duck to water. It probably did give me something that was missing in me, but it
wasn't the right thing, because it does make me feel very good. It did make me feel very
good and I had to learn that, whether it's marijuana or alcohol or shopping or workaholic
or anything that you're using as, with abusing to make you feel better, to give you...
MT: Pierre would say, when I would pick up a glass of wine, while I put it down he'd
say, 'cup of purge Margaret'. He didn't drink and he would see that I was trying to get
myself, so that I would go out and do the things that I had to do. Alcohol was never
really the problem with me, but anything could have been the problem with me at that time
because I wanted to fill the hole that was in me, all by myself. And I didn't realize
that what I really needed was just a little pill that would give my brain the right balance
of chemicals, so that I could function with a clear mind and a clear view of life. So,
I always say I'd rather be a pothead than an alcoholic, but why do I have to be either?
SD: Before we go to how you live today, just tell them, you weren't a big fan of AA meetings
though. They did...
MT: Well, I was made to go to AA. I thought the 12 steps... My doctor wanted me to go
to AA, not because I had an alcohol problem, for the marijuana problem. He didn't want
me to go to NA, Narcotics Anonymous. Because he said, "Margaret!" And he was absolutely
right 'cause I did go to a couple of those meetings. "There's bad boys there with drugs
in their pockets and looking for a pretty girl." And I went, "Yes there certainly is."
It was too tempting to go to NA and they had candles on the table and it was all kind of
a bit lala. Although again the 12 steps. What was important, my doctor thought was the 12
steps, particularly the one of forgiveness, of making amends, of understanding that you
weren't alone.
MT: But I found that because I just called AA and they told me... I gave them my address
which is the rather [unknown word] part of Ottawa, and the closest AA was the one in
the worst... Ottawa doesn't really have the worst part, but in a poor part of Ottawa close
to us in Vanier, where a lot of homeless men and women were. And what I saw there was that
there was just, what I call Woundology. Every meeting, these poor poor people would, I don't
mean poor in the sense of not having money, but the sad sad people would be patting themselves
on the back by talking about how horrible they were when they were alcoholics. And now
that they are no longer drinking, how much better it is.
MT: And I'd be looking at them and I said, "But is it really... I guess what I saw, again
and again and again was evidence of severe mental illness and yet the comfort of the
AA and the kind of religious connotation at the AA, it's a very Christian organization.
That's how it started and with Dr. Bill and his blue book in the late '30s. And it is
a very good organization, but they think that I felt that there should be a little team
of psychiatrist on the side to also help these people. The disease actually isn't alcohol
in many cases. Alcohol was the symptom of the disease, which was a mental illness. So,
when we see that with the homeless people too. I did elevate myself to professionals,
lawyers, doctors, and people more like up to my education and social and economic background,
and in those meetings I did find great help because it was feeling not alone and understanding,
but we were all struggling with our own demons and together we could do so much more.
MT: And me as a quite a literate person and I do read voraciously and I found the cliches
and the hand holding and always repeating the same thing every time there, but with
the Grace of God, blah, blah. I just found that ritualistic and a bit of brain washing,
not actually answering the individual needs, but making it a cult, not cult, I would never
say it was a cult. But I do believe that AA would be well served with the new blue book
that is today's blue book, instead of still living by the Dr. Bill from 1938, whatever.
And I see they are updating it as well. I think it is a very good organization. I equally
think the Canadian Mental Health Association is a very good organization. That there is
also a society for grandparents. Anything that you can get into congregation with other
people, like people who are suffering in the same way as you are, whether it be trying
to give up alcohol, trying to give up drugs, trying to give up gambling, trying to give
up a sex addiction, whatever.
MT: You can't do it alone, it's not a battle you can do alone. So it provides all those
organizations, provides you with the community that can help you, a community that can support
you, and basically understand mental illness, isolates you so much, you feel so, so alone.
You push everyone away and you are pushed away. That your family finally gets just tired
of you. Why not, who wouldn't be, and everyone is tired of you. And so you end up backing
off, backing off and then you find yourself in a dark cave with no friends, no work, no
family, and you're alone. And that's the point you have to say, "This is not enough, I need
help, I cannot do this alone."
MT: We can't battle alone, we are not meant to battle alone. That's why we have hearts,
that's why we love each other, that's why we have compassion, and we want to help alleviate
other's suffering. We are good people, Canadians, I see it in every room I go to, I see it and
I... Everyone tells me that, my mother, my sister, my brother. They all have a story
of somebody in their family, in their inner circle, who is suffering a mental illness.
And the people who want to help don't know how, don't know where to begin. Of course,
the person is in such denial, they don't want help. But how do you do, how do you get them
help, how do you do it? And that is what my book tries to address is not only how it feels
to be the person who is suffering from a mental illness. But how the family feels, how the
sisters feel, how the husband feels, and what you can do. And the main thing you have to
understand is that you can't fix the person for...