David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Margaret Trudeau: forgiveness.gratitude.wisdom.
By Charles Anzalone
bp Magazine, Winter 2008 issue
For many years, Margaret Trudeau thought her up and down moods were just part of life. After all, her story resembled a movie script. Still a teenager and vacationing with her family in Tahiti, she won the heart of dashing Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who would soon become Canadian prime minister. Then in 1971, the former Margaret Sinclair of Vancouver married Trudeau and at 22 became the youngest first lady in Canadian history.
Thrust into an international spotlight, Trudeau reacted to the loneliness and structure of public life. For those over 40, Trudeau needs no introduction. In the 1970s, she was one of the world?s most glamorous and scrutinized women, visiting heads of state with her husband and bringing along her sometimes erratic behavior. She was an A List celebrity, an It Girl, as capable of attracting headlines as Princess Diana.
?I thought my life was just taking me high and low,? she says. ?I had been given so many rich opportunities in my life.?
As is often the case, this celebrated life was not as it seemed?the drama of her highs and lows continued. Those decades of Trudeau?s public life were filled with deep self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy as a wife, mother, and woman. (?I remember thinking I was just a cosmic joke,? she once said.)
Her separation and eventual divorce from Trudeau left her struggling for an identity and an income. Her ups and downs continued after marrying Fried Kemper, a Canadian real estate developer. In 1998, when Michel, her 23-year-old son with Pierre, was killed in an avalanche while skiing in the Canadian wilderness, she could no longer avoid her fate.
In 2001, a year after Pierre?s death and her second marriage in trouble, Trudeau ended years of denial and checked herself into an Ottawa hospital, where she was diagnosed with bipolar. Five years later, when she felt her recovery was as complete as it needed to be, Trudeau announced at a hospital fund-raiser that she had been struggling with bipolar for years and had been misdiagnosed for decades.
?It?s not just what life throws at you,? says Trudeau. ?Bipolar is an exaggeration of your emotions, so when you do get knocked down by life?which you will because everyone will be knocked down at some point?it?s very hard to bounce back. Some people can live with sorrow for awhile and get on with their lives. I didn?t have that ability. What I learned is that it?s awfully hard to do it on your own.
?And that?s my message: to reach out and get help.?
So consider this the latest chapter of Trudeau?s remarkable life: She?s an eloquent and compelling advocate for people with a mental illness, in particular those living with bipolar. Instead of running from reality, she flies across North America to discuss that reality with eager audiences, delivering more than 20 speeches last fall alone. Now she uses the celebrity?celebrity that once seemed to her more like ?infamy??to bring attention to worldwide causes: She is honorary president of WaterCan, an international organization dedicated to helping the poorest communities in developing nations build basic water and sanitation services.
Just as essential to Trudeau?s new identity is her devotion as a mother and grandmother. She now lives in Montreal, close to Justin, 35; and Alexandre (?Sacha?), 33, her surviving children with Pierre; and her grandchildren, toddler Pierre-Emmanuel Trudeau and infant Xavier James Trudeau. Alicia Kemper, 18, her daughter from her second marriage, also attends college in Montreal. Trudeau guards her family's privacy with a fierce maternal instinct, but ask her about those grandchildren and watch her face light up.
?I don?t care about the power, I don?t care about the glamour, and I don?t care about the prestige,? she says. ?What I do care about is my sanity so I can raise my children. I did manage to keep my family.?
?Not the Margaret Trudeau the world used to know,? is how one national magazine in Canada described her. But at 59, there?s still plenty of the spark and personality that captivated the late prime minister and many of her fans when she was a free spirit in an age of nonconformity. She still talks with that same breathy voice. Her large blue eyes still reflect the range of human emotions.
?For years and years, I didn?t get proper treatment,? Trudeau says. ?I didn?t accept I had this disease of the brain. I didn?t accept it because I didn?t think I was crazy. I didn?t want to be thought of as crazy. I just thought my emotions were getting the best of me.
?The shame is in having a mental illness and not facing it and getting it treated, because you?re going to destroy your life and probably destroy your marriage and probably destroy friendships,? she says. ?You?re probably going to disappoint people; you?re probably going to have trouble keeping your job. The shame is in other people being ignorant and the lack of education of what it is that happens to people suffering from mental illness.?
Trudeau still seems to thrive in the limelight and is the first to embrace everyday drama. Now, however, she has this undeniable humanity, a presence that only comes from someone who has hit bottom and fought back. She has emerged from that lifelong struggle of highs and lows with a strong, clear message for others who are living with bipolar. She gives great wellness tips. And her formidable communication skills and most amazing array of adventures provide a wealth of stories and personal history she can draw from.
?I think I came out of this whole experience with a certain amount of wisdom, because when you are bipolar, it is a gift,? she says. ?You get to experience the gamut of human emotions deeply and profoundly. And, yes, you get to feel an excess of sorrow and an excess of joy. A lot of people who live in the so-called normal state?I don?t know what that is except maybe a safe place where they feel neither up or down?they don?t have the same degree of compassion bipolar people have.?
Trudeau was alone at the movies when the darkness returned. She was watching Into the Wild, the 2007 Sean Penn film telling the true story of Christopher McCandless, a privileged young man who died overcome by the elements in the Alaskan wilderness. Immediately, she flashed back to Michel?s tragic death.
?When I came out of this movie theater, I was just shaking with grief,? Trudeau says, her eyes filling with tears as she remembers the evening. ?And I thought, ?Oh no, here I am slipping back into that deep, deep grief I was into.? ?
Then something happened. Instead of sinking into melancholy, Trudeau took cues from her own wellness tips. ?I bought all kinds of food and came home and cooked up a storm,? says Trudeau. ?I filled my freezer and put on some good music and said I am not going to wallow in grief.? She made osso buco and molasses cookies?this flurry of cooking stopped her descent into depression and gave her an appreciation of the small delights of everyday living.
Trudeau tells this story twice in the same fall evening, once while being interviewed by this reporter at the Keefer Mansion in Thorold, Ontario; and again while addressing a capacity audience at Brock University in nearby St. Catharines.
Trudeau?s ability to pull herself out of the darkness after Into the Wild provoked her son?s memory is another example of her growth and recovery, a transformation that has become a source of strength and pride. ?I allowed myself to feel the grief and then told myself, ?Enough,? and moved on,? she says. ?I moved into a place where I could find the light.?
Trudeau does not flinch when reminded that she still is not over her son?s loss. ?There is no getting over it,? she says. ?There is no escaping your life and the tragedies that happen. You have to own them.
?For a good five years, I was a deeply grieving mother. I could hardly exist because of the grief, but it was exaggerated because of the bipolar, and I was untreated and I didn?t have any help. But once I got help, I was able to own the grief, and it deepened my heart and my memory. I?m not trying to forget because there is no forgetting. It?s the opposite. It?s in the remembering that you heal.?
That night at Brock, Trudeau could have held the attention of her audience?students, mental health workers, consumers, and fans?three times the length of the 90-minute program. And her choice of wardrobe?tailored pinstripe suit covering a ruffled white blouse, a red leather belt, and shiny black pumps with pointy heels?is a giveaway that her spirit is alive and well, even after all these years.
Some in the audience wanted to hear about her days with the Rolling Stones. (?No, Mick Jagger wasn?t a nice guy,? she said, answering a question from the audience. ?But Ron Wood was a really nice guy. I really just sat under their piano.?) Some asked about enduring the mental illness stigma.
Seven years ago when she was in Royal Ottawa Hospital, where she would receive her bipolar diagnosis, her second husband was less than sympathetic. ?You really must be crazy if you think I would let my children go into a mental hospital,? Trudeau recalls Kemper saying.
?In two and a half months in the hospital, my children never visited me,? she says, referring to Kyle and Alicia, her son and daughter with Kemper, who are now 22 and 18, respectively. The audience gasped. ?But I?ve forgiven him,? she says. ?It?s part of my Buddhist nature.?
Trudeau remembers her first serious depression occurring after the birth of her second son, Alexandre, in 1973, two years after marrying the prime minister. Then came the ?freedom trip? years, escapes from what she calls the ?long tunnel of darkness? of life as first lady. Her attitude on her mental condition remained as inconsistent as her behavior. Consequences, Trudeau?s second book, published in 1982, includes a chapter called ?On Being Mad? that discusses her first encounters with the mental health system. The chapter ends with a statement about rediscovering her sanity ?on my own, without help? and calling psychiatry ?a gigantic illusion.?
Now, however, Trudeau views those freedom trips as manic episodes, undetected evidence of her condition. She makes a point of not blaming her behavior?whether it was cavorting with celebrities like Jack Nicholson, or her famous photographed appearance at Studio 54 the night before her husband was voted out of office?on her mental illness. Still, she says that her bipolar condition exaggerated her existing impulsive nature.
?With bipolar, while you?re in a hypomanic state, one of the effects is impaired insight,? she says. ?You think you know what you?re doing, but you really don?t. I spiraled into a deep depression and I could not get myself out of it. And it affected my marriage because I could not function. It was evident in the mood swings, the deep depressions. If I had been treated properly, I probably would have had a different life.?
Even with these personal difficulties, Trudeau ?humanized? her husband, the prime minister, particularly in the 1974 campaign, prevailing on him to tear up prepared speeches and instead speak from the heart about his vision for a more just Canada. ?We had a grass-roots-style campaign and we won a large majority,? she recalls. ?As I was just the ?wife of,? I did not have an office or a staff, [but] I wrote thousands of thank-you notes by hand to good people who had reached out to me or sent little gifts to our children.
?My proudest moment as ?wife of? was heading a nongovernmental UN?Habitat forum in Vancouver,? she recalls. ?Margaret Mead and Barbara Ward, plus other eminent environmentalists, were there. That conference inspired me to get interested in clean water as a human right.?
?Many of us have followed her life when she was our first lady,? says Elaine Edmiston, chair of the Canadian Mental Health Association task group that sponsored Trudeau?s talk at Brock. ?More importantly, she is extremely articulate, presents a powerful message of her own experiences, and is able to connect on a very personal level with a large audience. She is also very funny and tells good jokes.?
People who have bipolar can choose to be sane, Trudeau maintains. For her, reaching out means finding someone to guide you through your limitations and helping you to examine your inner life. That almost always means therapy. You need to educate yourself, she says, from the medications that are required to one?s behavioral patterns. ?I?m certainly not going to tell them to just ?buck up,? ? she says. ?That doesn?t work.?
Trudeau also recommends some kind of vigorous exercise routine, although she admits hating to exercise herself. ?I did have a personal trainer for awhile,? she says. ?He was pretty cute. And he made me like it a little more.?
The ?hardest part? to recovery is the spiritual side, Trudeau says. Although Trudeau is a Christian, Buddhism is a way of life for her. Trudeau practices daily meditation, not the formal kind with mantras and rituals, but a ?moment-to-moment? style that encourages her to take the time. She doesn?t hesitate when asked how to repair those damaged relationships, many of which suffered because of her condition.
?You need to develop a sense of forgiveness,? she says. ?Forgiving myself and forgiving others for abandoning me, for hurting me, for their lack of understanding. I have to ask for forgiveness, and I have to forgive myself.?
The other essential ingredient to recovery, Trudeau says, is gratitude. ?When you are a grateful person, you are a generous person, and then you are a happy person. When you give, you get?you certainly do.
?I know what it was like to be so low, and to have that flame of hope?the one you should always have?go out. I have such gratitude for being well and having been given the gifts I have in my life.?
Margaret Trudeau?s wellness tips
By Charles Anzalone
bp Magazine, Winter 2008 issue
For many years, Margaret Trudeau thought her up and down moods were just part of life. After all, her story resembled a movie script. Still a teenager and vacationing with her family in Tahiti, she won the heart of dashing Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who would soon become Canadian prime minister. Then in 1971, the former Margaret Sinclair of Vancouver married Trudeau and at 22 became the youngest first lady in Canadian history.
Thrust into an international spotlight, Trudeau reacted to the loneliness and structure of public life. For those over 40, Trudeau needs no introduction. In the 1970s, she was one of the world?s most glamorous and scrutinized women, visiting heads of state with her husband and bringing along her sometimes erratic behavior. She was an A List celebrity, an It Girl, as capable of attracting headlines as Princess Diana.
?I thought my life was just taking me high and low,? she says. ?I had been given so many rich opportunities in my life.?
As is often the case, this celebrated life was not as it seemed?the drama of her highs and lows continued. Those decades of Trudeau?s public life were filled with deep self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy as a wife, mother, and woman. (?I remember thinking I was just a cosmic joke,? she once said.)
Her separation and eventual divorce from Trudeau left her struggling for an identity and an income. Her ups and downs continued after marrying Fried Kemper, a Canadian real estate developer. In 1998, when Michel, her 23-year-old son with Pierre, was killed in an avalanche while skiing in the Canadian wilderness, she could no longer avoid her fate.
In 2001, a year after Pierre?s death and her second marriage in trouble, Trudeau ended years of denial and checked herself into an Ottawa hospital, where she was diagnosed with bipolar. Five years later, when she felt her recovery was as complete as it needed to be, Trudeau announced at a hospital fund-raiser that she had been struggling with bipolar for years and had been misdiagnosed for decades.
?It?s not just what life throws at you,? says Trudeau. ?Bipolar is an exaggeration of your emotions, so when you do get knocked down by life?which you will because everyone will be knocked down at some point?it?s very hard to bounce back. Some people can live with sorrow for awhile and get on with their lives. I didn?t have that ability. What I learned is that it?s awfully hard to do it on your own.
?And that?s my message: to reach out and get help.?
So consider this the latest chapter of Trudeau?s remarkable life: She?s an eloquent and compelling advocate for people with a mental illness, in particular those living with bipolar. Instead of running from reality, she flies across North America to discuss that reality with eager audiences, delivering more than 20 speeches last fall alone. Now she uses the celebrity?celebrity that once seemed to her more like ?infamy??to bring attention to worldwide causes: She is honorary president of WaterCan, an international organization dedicated to helping the poorest communities in developing nations build basic water and sanitation services.
Just as essential to Trudeau?s new identity is her devotion as a mother and grandmother. She now lives in Montreal, close to Justin, 35; and Alexandre (?Sacha?), 33, her surviving children with Pierre; and her grandchildren, toddler Pierre-Emmanuel Trudeau and infant Xavier James Trudeau. Alicia Kemper, 18, her daughter from her second marriage, also attends college in Montreal. Trudeau guards her family's privacy with a fierce maternal instinct, but ask her about those grandchildren and watch her face light up.
?I don?t care about the power, I don?t care about the glamour, and I don?t care about the prestige,? she says. ?What I do care about is my sanity so I can raise my children. I did manage to keep my family.?
?Not the Margaret Trudeau the world used to know,? is how one national magazine in Canada described her. But at 59, there?s still plenty of the spark and personality that captivated the late prime minister and many of her fans when she was a free spirit in an age of nonconformity. She still talks with that same breathy voice. Her large blue eyes still reflect the range of human emotions.
?For years and years, I didn?t get proper treatment,? Trudeau says. ?I didn?t accept I had this disease of the brain. I didn?t accept it because I didn?t think I was crazy. I didn?t want to be thought of as crazy. I just thought my emotions were getting the best of me.
?The shame is in having a mental illness and not facing it and getting it treated, because you?re going to destroy your life and probably destroy your marriage and probably destroy friendships,? she says. ?You?re probably going to disappoint people; you?re probably going to have trouble keeping your job. The shame is in other people being ignorant and the lack of education of what it is that happens to people suffering from mental illness.?
Trudeau still seems to thrive in the limelight and is the first to embrace everyday drama. Now, however, she has this undeniable humanity, a presence that only comes from someone who has hit bottom and fought back. She has emerged from that lifelong struggle of highs and lows with a strong, clear message for others who are living with bipolar. She gives great wellness tips. And her formidable communication skills and most amazing array of adventures provide a wealth of stories and personal history she can draw from.
?I think I came out of this whole experience with a certain amount of wisdom, because when you are bipolar, it is a gift,? she says. ?You get to experience the gamut of human emotions deeply and profoundly. And, yes, you get to feel an excess of sorrow and an excess of joy. A lot of people who live in the so-called normal state?I don?t know what that is except maybe a safe place where they feel neither up or down?they don?t have the same degree of compassion bipolar people have.?
Trudeau was alone at the movies when the darkness returned. She was watching Into the Wild, the 2007 Sean Penn film telling the true story of Christopher McCandless, a privileged young man who died overcome by the elements in the Alaskan wilderness. Immediately, she flashed back to Michel?s tragic death.
?When I came out of this movie theater, I was just shaking with grief,? Trudeau says, her eyes filling with tears as she remembers the evening. ?And I thought, ?Oh no, here I am slipping back into that deep, deep grief I was into.? ?
Then something happened. Instead of sinking into melancholy, Trudeau took cues from her own wellness tips. ?I bought all kinds of food and came home and cooked up a storm,? says Trudeau. ?I filled my freezer and put on some good music and said I am not going to wallow in grief.? She made osso buco and molasses cookies?this flurry of cooking stopped her descent into depression and gave her an appreciation of the small delights of everyday living.
Trudeau tells this story twice in the same fall evening, once while being interviewed by this reporter at the Keefer Mansion in Thorold, Ontario; and again while addressing a capacity audience at Brock University in nearby St. Catharines.
Trudeau?s ability to pull herself out of the darkness after Into the Wild provoked her son?s memory is another example of her growth and recovery, a transformation that has become a source of strength and pride. ?I allowed myself to feel the grief and then told myself, ?Enough,? and moved on,? she says. ?I moved into a place where I could find the light.?
Trudeau does not flinch when reminded that she still is not over her son?s loss. ?There is no getting over it,? she says. ?There is no escaping your life and the tragedies that happen. You have to own them.
?For a good five years, I was a deeply grieving mother. I could hardly exist because of the grief, but it was exaggerated because of the bipolar, and I was untreated and I didn?t have any help. But once I got help, I was able to own the grief, and it deepened my heart and my memory. I?m not trying to forget because there is no forgetting. It?s the opposite. It?s in the remembering that you heal.?
That night at Brock, Trudeau could have held the attention of her audience?students, mental health workers, consumers, and fans?three times the length of the 90-minute program. And her choice of wardrobe?tailored pinstripe suit covering a ruffled white blouse, a red leather belt, and shiny black pumps with pointy heels?is a giveaway that her spirit is alive and well, even after all these years.
Some in the audience wanted to hear about her days with the Rolling Stones. (?No, Mick Jagger wasn?t a nice guy,? she said, answering a question from the audience. ?But Ron Wood was a really nice guy. I really just sat under their piano.?) Some asked about enduring the mental illness stigma.
Seven years ago when she was in Royal Ottawa Hospital, where she would receive her bipolar diagnosis, her second husband was less than sympathetic. ?You really must be crazy if you think I would let my children go into a mental hospital,? Trudeau recalls Kemper saying.
?In two and a half months in the hospital, my children never visited me,? she says, referring to Kyle and Alicia, her son and daughter with Kemper, who are now 22 and 18, respectively. The audience gasped. ?But I?ve forgiven him,? she says. ?It?s part of my Buddhist nature.?
Trudeau remembers her first serious depression occurring after the birth of her second son, Alexandre, in 1973, two years after marrying the prime minister. Then came the ?freedom trip? years, escapes from what she calls the ?long tunnel of darkness? of life as first lady. Her attitude on her mental condition remained as inconsistent as her behavior. Consequences, Trudeau?s second book, published in 1982, includes a chapter called ?On Being Mad? that discusses her first encounters with the mental health system. The chapter ends with a statement about rediscovering her sanity ?on my own, without help? and calling psychiatry ?a gigantic illusion.?
Now, however, Trudeau views those freedom trips as manic episodes, undetected evidence of her condition. She makes a point of not blaming her behavior?whether it was cavorting with celebrities like Jack Nicholson, or her famous photographed appearance at Studio 54 the night before her husband was voted out of office?on her mental illness. Still, she says that her bipolar condition exaggerated her existing impulsive nature.
?With bipolar, while you?re in a hypomanic state, one of the effects is impaired insight,? she says. ?You think you know what you?re doing, but you really don?t. I spiraled into a deep depression and I could not get myself out of it. And it affected my marriage because I could not function. It was evident in the mood swings, the deep depressions. If I had been treated properly, I probably would have had a different life.?
Even with these personal difficulties, Trudeau ?humanized? her husband, the prime minister, particularly in the 1974 campaign, prevailing on him to tear up prepared speeches and instead speak from the heart about his vision for a more just Canada. ?We had a grass-roots-style campaign and we won a large majority,? she recalls. ?As I was just the ?wife of,? I did not have an office or a staff, [but] I wrote thousands of thank-you notes by hand to good people who had reached out to me or sent little gifts to our children.
?My proudest moment as ?wife of? was heading a nongovernmental UN?Habitat forum in Vancouver,? she recalls. ?Margaret Mead and Barbara Ward, plus other eminent environmentalists, were there. That conference inspired me to get interested in clean water as a human right.?
?Many of us have followed her life when she was our first lady,? says Elaine Edmiston, chair of the Canadian Mental Health Association task group that sponsored Trudeau?s talk at Brock. ?More importantly, she is extremely articulate, presents a powerful message of her own experiences, and is able to connect on a very personal level with a large audience. She is also very funny and tells good jokes.?
People who have bipolar can choose to be sane, Trudeau maintains. For her, reaching out means finding someone to guide you through your limitations and helping you to examine your inner life. That almost always means therapy. You need to educate yourself, she says, from the medications that are required to one?s behavioral patterns. ?I?m certainly not going to tell them to just ?buck up,? ? she says. ?That doesn?t work.?
Trudeau also recommends some kind of vigorous exercise routine, although she admits hating to exercise herself. ?I did have a personal trainer for awhile,? she says. ?He was pretty cute. And he made me like it a little more.?
The ?hardest part? to recovery is the spiritual side, Trudeau says. Although Trudeau is a Christian, Buddhism is a way of life for her. Trudeau practices daily meditation, not the formal kind with mantras and rituals, but a ?moment-to-moment? style that encourages her to take the time. She doesn?t hesitate when asked how to repair those damaged relationships, many of which suffered because of her condition.
?You need to develop a sense of forgiveness,? she says. ?Forgiving myself and forgiving others for abandoning me, for hurting me, for their lack of understanding. I have to ask for forgiveness, and I have to forgive myself.?
The other essential ingredient to recovery, Trudeau says, is gratitude. ?When you are a grateful person, you are a generous person, and then you are a happy person. When you give, you get?you certainly do.
?I know what it was like to be so low, and to have that flame of hope?the one you should always have?go out. I have such gratitude for being well and having been given the gifts I have in my life.?
Margaret Trudeau?s wellness tips
- Self-monitor, don?t self-medicate: ?I had to stop self-medicating. I loved marijuana, and giving it up was one of the hard, mature decisions I had to make. To self-monitor, know when you?re feeling balanced and consistent and able to function very well. Know what that feels like.?
- Don?t try this alone: ?It?s very hard to examine your life by yourself. You need someone who can guide you to understand yourself and your limitations. You need therapy.?
- Find an exercise regimen: ?One of the side-effects of medication is weight gain, so you have to be very careful about your diet. I walk 40 minutes a day and do yoga. I ski. I ride a bike.?
- Get in touch with your spiritual side: ?I don?t live in the future. I live now. I don?t live in my regrets, or my mistakes. I move on from them and learn. I meditate. It?s a daily practice of ?take the time, take the time.? ?
- Find a way to be needed: ?I put my pride aside to take a very small job. It got me outside my world of grief and pain. You have to get out and contribute.?
