When The Globe and Mail launched a 28-part series on mental illness in June 2008, I was one of countless readers who felt like cheering. Those of us who had struggled with an illness of the mind—in my case depression—had been waiting for the day when our invisible affliction would command equal time with heart disease and cancer. We had been ashamed to tell the truth about ourselves lest we be told to look on the bright side. We had put off seeking help because no one—not even ourselves—believed that what looked like a bad attitude was a real and potentially lethal illness. Now Canada’s national newspaper was shining a spotlight on the truth and putting a team of reporters on the case.
Missing from the team was one of the Globe’s biggest names: Jan Wong, whose journalistic swagger had been riveting fans and foes alike for 21 years. Few readers had any idea that she...
Rona Maynard is a memoirist (My Mother’s Daughter, McClelland and Stewart, 2007), speaker and teacher of memoir writing. She has been a mental health advocate since 1997, when she was editor of Chatelaine.
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