Do you have a hero/heroine for Mental Health awareness? Someone well known or not who has championed and made a difference to you or the mental health world in general?

Mine is Margaret Trudeau. In the 1970s she was married to the then Canadian Prime Minister. Her manic behaviour at the time was extremely public and she was treated terribly by the international press. The worse of it all was the way her husband the PM treated her. He basically locked her away and took her children from her.

In recent years she resurfaced as an advocate for Mental Health and quite publically identified as bipolar.

Well, how things come around. Her son just became himself the Canadian PM and he proudly had his mom by his side throughout it all. She is now being lauded for her efforts to reduce the stigma of mental illness making it a very current (and much needed) topic in the media.

Go Maggie!