From the Editor

Sick with depression, he decided that the burden was too great. The suicide attempt failed, but after he was admitted – when I met him on the inpatient ward – he told me that his family wouldn’t visit. He explained that they couldn’t accept that he had mental illness.

He was right.

Times have changed, but stigma continues. This week, we consider the comments of two advocates.

In the first selection, lawyer Beth G. Beattie describes her illness and her fears. She also discusses her decision to speak out. Noting how few lawyers talk about mental illness – in part, because of the fear of job loss – she has written for a law publication. “The profession is in desperate need of role models, namely, lawyers who live with mental illness and are well established in our positions and prepared to share our stories.”

A waiting crowd in front of a microphone and podium

In the second selection, the University of Toronto’s Dr. David Goldbloom, a CAMH psychiatrist, remembers the silence on the topic of mental illness not so long ago. In an interview with CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, he notes that the silence was due to “secrecy, shame, stigma.” He weighs the progress that’s been made in recent years and he mulls the work to be done, particularly to reach “all communities.”

DG

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