Master Corporal Lorraine Marler lives with PTSD. She served overseas in 2008, working for Police Observer Mentor Liaison Team (POMLET) with the Canadian Armed Forces and Afghan police to secure compounds.
Need Help? Call 211 (Alberta only) or the Mental Health Help Line at 1-877-303-2642
Master Corporal Lorraine Marler lives with PTSD. She served overseas in 2008, working for Police Observer Mentor Liaison Team (POMLET) with the Canadian Armed Forces and Afghan police to secure compounds.
“I think of my mental health like an ocean. I envision the levels of the sea to navigate where I’m at. When I’m in my darkest hour, I’m sucked under the ocean floor. And at my best, I’m sitting on the surface with a margarita in hand.” Jay, a firefighter in Edmonton, describes.
“Many of the teens who come through our doors have attempted suicide, thought about suicide, engaged in self-harming behaviours, are struggling with addictions, or they are struggling with a mental illness,” she says.
He recalls crossing the threshold into the psych ward. “My life wasn’t over when I crossed that threshold, it just changed dramatically. It’s like climate change, it doesn’t end, it just changes. Rain falls in new places and it’s warmer in other places.”
Gord was nine years old when his father died by suicide. Gord was a shy child, and after his father died, he retreated even more. He put on a brave face and took on more family responsibilities, but family members worried. He had lost both his father and grandfather to suicide.
Alzheimer's always cast a long shadow in my mother's life because her mother and grandmother had both suffered from it and, ultimately, so did she," says Jennifer. Jennifer's mother was diagnosed at age 70 and she passed away three years later.
Dheny is an articulate 25 year-old Mount Royal University graduate with an endearing, self-deprecating sense of humour. You would never guess she's been struggling with anxiety and depression since she was a child.
CMHA Alberta Division
320 Ledgeview Business Centre
9707 – 110 Street NW
Edmonton, AB T5K 2L9
Charitable Registration Number:
10686 3491 RR0001
Phone: 780-482-6576
E-mail: alberta@cmha.ab.ca
ansi — Cree | Oki — Blackfoot | Aba washded — Stoney (Nakota) | Ɂedlanet’e — Dene | We respectfully acknowledge that we are on the traditional lands and territories of Indigenous people in Alberta. We want to recognize the significance of our relationships with the land and the peoples who call this ‘home.’ We commit to a reciprocal relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews that honour and respect ways of knowing and being.