Margaret Trudeau

0:03Is this Matt? It sure is. Hi Matt, it's Margaret Trudeau speaking. How are you? I'm very well. Thank you. How are you? Oh, Ned mentioned. I'm doing well waiting for your arrival. Well, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, well, let's start with with with I guess two weeks from now June 22nd festival place International Women's Day rescheduled from March. I know. It's okay. We're so kind. Yeah, of course. So you're giving a talk and a book signing. I guess let's start with with a talk changing my mind's the new book. What are you? What are you going to be talking about? Well, what I'm talking about and I've been talking for about four years Christmasing the country to to edit my audience usually is women and people in the mental health care community and people who are suffering from mental disorders and families who are concerned about members who are and what my message is is that we what we have to

0:52look at is brain health our brain health. We have to protect our brains from very young from brain injury because that can lead to dysfunction of the brain and cause problems later on and we have to live properly to nourish our healthy healthy brains when you have bipolar which I have it is an unbalanced of the chemicals the hormones in my brain and that can be corrected with with pharmaceuticals. They can adjust the chemical imbalance and then I can live a healthy happy life. So there is help out there and we have to look at mental health in a different way. We have to look at it at start the conversation, start being ashamed of having a mental disorder and just consider it something that we have to deal with as we would deal with our physical health in every other way.

1:41It seems to be something that's that's more prevalent in society. I know there's a there's a songwriter out of Vancouver Matthew Good who made a record about being bipolar a couple years ago too. It seems to be more in the consciousness of people than I think it ever was. What bipolar is is an exaggeration of our emotions. We go from very high in mania which unfortunately can progress into psychosis and that's where it becomes a severe mental illness. The mania is a disorder. It's a very highly excited time cycle in a bipolar disorder where you are irresponsible. You're lacking judgment. You you are acting on on impulse and that's a that's a dangerous state and the other state is is depression and sadness is part of life. We will all confront sadness and tragedy in our life unfortunately because that's what life is.

2:34But if you have bipolar your sadness will go down into depression and depression is a disease. It's a terrible disease. It steals you of your delight and joy and interest in life. So you by dealing with the depression and by dealing with the mania which is what I have to deal with. I'm able to live a normal emotional range and that's what that all we ask for the medical community is to allow us to to have a normal range of emotions not extreme not exaggerated not emotions to get into as into endless trouble. You said something in there earlier about brain injury. What did you mean by that? How do we say that? Well I think that what you're showing that one of the things that can trigger brain dysfunction and in the wiring of it in the in the cycling and the in the in the

3:24hormone distribution is can be early brain injury. So you have to be careful of your children put them on and helmets when they ride their bikes do and when they ski when they when they all was conscious of I'm not hurting that most important organ in our in our body the brain and if we look at our mental health as our brain health it somehow is an easier more rational approach less stigmatized less shameful. Why would we assume we all have perfect brains? We all don't have perfect bodies. That's for sure. The brain injury thing and and helmets got me thinking about the NHL right now and they have a whole head shots thing where they're trying to avoid people getting hit. Have you spoken to them at all about that? Check the the the collateral

4:10damage that comes from repeated concussion terms in terms of the person who's suffering it and the people who have to live with the person who then becomes disabled mentally by by by the trauma to the brain. So it's it's just essential that we guard our children so that they can have a high functioning happy delightful life that they'll be able to cope with tragedy and and rejection frustration all the things. And this is all that we want is people to have a healthy brain a healthy grasp of reality a healthy expectation of themselves. You know, there's a lot of things that are involved in being a healthy person and it's not just just keeping your body fat. I'm gonna kind of change topics but not really because I heard I think I read somewhere that that maybe smoking marijuana

4:57triggered some of the bipolar disorder and wondering your thoughts on it. It doesn't marijuana actually there is a concern about marijuana with bipolar because it can I had the propensity not causal but it can be one of the triggers that will trigger you up into mania because often you'll use marijuana or you use alcohol or you'll use another kind of addiction to ease your own pain to self-medicate to try and improve the way you feel and marijuana certainly lifts you out of depression so that tackles one part of it but perhaps it can also push you too much into mania and that's a very dangerous state because you're very irresponsible you behave like a teenager even though you may be an adult with adult

5:45responsibilities. Right. I think a lot of people at least my age think it's kind of cool for you to you I assume you smoked in 24 Sussex back in the day. No I really didn't because those were the days when every two years I delivered a healthy baby. Right. I really wasn't. I was a very happy person then until I was hit by postpartum depression and marijuana wasn't the thing that I used to try and get out of it but there have been times in my life there's no question when I found the pain that I was living in physically and emotionally just too much and would reach for something and for me being a flower child of the 60s and not being terribly fond of the effects of alcohol

6:31found that marijuana was the thing that made me feel better even though it was illegal even though I was told that it was not thing to do it seemed to somehow make me feel better but then it becomes an addiction and then it becomes a dependency more dependency than addiction but it becomes part of the problem not part of the solution and it's when we self-medicate we're not allowing the people who have all the expertise in the in the in the workings of the brain the scientists the psychiatrists the researchers we're not allowing them to help us properly medicate and balance our emotions and our lift us out of sadness instead of using alcohol or drugs or or gambling or shopping or sex or whatever addictions we we will escape through and not having to face head on our own our own reality and there is help out there that's the good good news.

7:26Yeah there's certainly well in your book is certainly a start for all that help to. Well I hope it kicks out I think it has kicked off the conversation into our mental health our brain health how we how our emotions control us how our hormones control us as women it's a whole huge area it's kind of the last to boo it's the last area that we really have to examine close manner society and mental health it's it's so important and it has that's quite a little damage that's it's one thing to just let a person keep suffering in the cycle of of madness and despair without any any relief but that will ripple out into the family into the children into the marriage into the workplace so it's something that it really has to be nipped in the butt.

8:11You'd mentioned the 60s and going out and and finding ways to get away from everything and I wonder if you could share a story about Studio 54 or Mick Jagger or Jack Nicholson. I don't know if that was. I know it might be a different departure but New York is it was always I've always considered New York City as sort of the battle for the of the world I mean it's where all the new ideas all the newness congruh gathered and Studio 54 was the place that just in the right time the right place when disco was hot when people were starting to to really network and get together and Studio 54 was an awful lot of fun. And I love dancing. Hi dancing dance. I also met extraordinary people there as well. Yeah, I have no regrets about you. I'm sure you don't. I wish I was there at that time.

9:03And you're off at this oddly enough my my home that I live in now a beautiful condo in Montreal downtown Montreal. It's number is number fifty four. Children call it Studio 54 North. That's fantastic. There's no disco ball just little play kitchens and wagons and books for children. Of course. I'm sure toys that are littered everywhere. I know grandma's my best friend. Is music important in your life? Yes, it always has been. It's Steve's my soul. What song is the most meaning for you that has helped you through the most? Well, there'll be so many but I have to say both the stones and the Beatles because they were so I was so I was so impressionable in my 20s and late teens and twenties.

9:49But I like Bono a lot too. I like his is that the one and I love Leonard Collins. Hallelujah. Hit list my spirits even though it's a sad tragic song about love. There's a lot of music out there. I love jazz. I love classical music. I'm a great buff. I find in music that's where the joy lives. Then there's between the beats. You mentioned a few things in there. I want to touch on one. I guess we'll start from Bono and move to Africa because Bono makes me think of Africa in water can if you'd like to talk about that. Well, water can I've been with water can now for about 17 years and it's an NGO was one that started very small out of Ottawa.

10:34But now we're getting bigger and bigger and it's wonderful. I'm the honorary chairman of water can. What we do essentially mad is we put in clean water where there's filthy water that is killing the children in small villages in Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania is where we're working now. It's extraordinary the difference that the clean water makes. We know it's the gift of life. But for people who haven't got it from others who have no choice but to give their babies their children a filthy water that is only going to take their lives, if not impair them for the rest of their lives and their development. So the water is the gift and I've been very lucky to be with this wonderful Canadian NGO because it's mean and lean and thoughtful and mindful and making a difference and being able to realize how blessed we are as Canadians.

11:32I think we have to take one step forward and allow ourselves to be generous and help those who can't help themselves in other parts of the world. It just seems a good thing to do. How close are we to sustaining clean water for everyone in Africa? Is it even relatively near? I'm dropping the bucket at the beginning. Every single charity that works in Africa, every single group, I like Bono's idea that it's not charity, it's just justice. It's a group that works over there, puts water at its first thing that it does, it cleans up the water because without clean water you can't even start the work of education or growing or agriculture. Because the drudgery is so great for the women when they don't have access to clean water.

12:20And hygiene, hygiene goes sanitation goes hand in hand, we do the both together. You're saying things that makes me think of a quote that Justin said, I think in the fall I read it in the start, it was something about you were way way smarter than Pierre. You know what I'm talking about? But I think that maybe like streets more because Pierre was no question he was his mind, his intellect was just extraordinary. But I have taught a different path in Pierre in my life and I've seen an awful lot and I've been committed to things that I think that he inspired me to get involved in particularly in the water. And my work with mental health has brought me on another level of understanding how much suffering there is going on in Canadian families because of the mental health issue.

13:09And I'm so glad that I'm able to be part of it, part of making a difference there. I'm going to be there on the 22nd with Bells on and I'm so grateful that I've got a chance to come back to Edmonton to do it. And we can't wait to have you before I let you go that we do something called five questions, five quick questions, one word answers. If you were giving a dinner party, who would be your first guest? My...oh...one horn... They're not easy but they're just quick answers though. Oh, very spontaneously. Oh I guess a beloved member of my family. All right, Leninger McCartney. Who's the one person you'd most want to meet who you haven't met yet?

13:56Ariel Huffington, Ariana Huffington. Oh nice. Yeah. What book has had the most influence on you? The E-Ting, the book is changes. And in one word, Margaret Trudeau. Brave.