as published on etalk.ca

Jan. 31, 2018

Marci Ien traveled Canada to talk mental health for ‘the best assignment’ she’s ever had

Marci Ien may have decades’ worth of experience as a journalist, but it’s her most recent project as part of Bell Let’s Day that the journalist and co-host of The Social says is the best assignment she’s ever had. 

In Their Own Words: A Bell Let’s Talk Day Special (Wednesday Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. ET/MT on CTV and CTV Two) sees Ien travel to Halifax, Regina, Iqaluit and Toronto to speak to diverse Canadians living with mental health challenges.

“When Bell started Let’s Talk people came forward in force sharing their stories, and we thought, well what if we go to those people this time?” Ien says. “People have been reaching out for eight years and being part of the conversation and sharing their stories. We thought, well what if we hone in on some of those stories and put the spotlight on… their journeys, which are complicated, full of love, full of hardship, full of perseverance.”

The result, Ien says, was extraordinary. By visiting these Canadians in their homes and settings where they felt comfortable, they were able to open up in ways they never have before.

Kieran, for example, is a Métis and openly transgender teen living in Nunavut who speaks about his life with depression and anxiety; Paulette opens up about how she turned to drugs to numb the pain of sexual abuse; and Lesley and Matt talk about changing the stigma around mental illness within the farming community. 

Here, Ien tells us about the powerful experience of hearing these and other Canadians open up first hand, what surprised her most about the experience, and how she hopes to see Bell Let’s Talk grow even further.  

Tell me a little bit about the Canadians featured in this special. What motivated them to welcome you into their homes and share their experiences?

We really wanted to make sure this was diverse in every way. And when I say diverse, I mean not just gender and race, but also provincially diverse. So we wanted it to represent the country. And we also wanted diversity in the illnesses that we’re talking about as well. So whether it’s bipolar disorder or depression or anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder… we wanted to make sure that when we put this out there that people could identify.

And to a person, even though it was difficult sometimes for them to speak their truth and share, and sometimes there were pauses where it was like “okay take a breath, take your time,” every person said “if this can help one person, if by sharing my story one person is affected, I’m good with that. I will take a sip of water, I will take a breath, and I will continue on.”

Looking through the profiles of some of the people featured, I stopped when I read about Matt and Lesley, who speak specifically about issues within farming communities, because that’s something so specific I hadn’t previously been aware of. 

This was the biggest surprise slash learning curve for me. Farmer depression, anxiety and suicide in this country. Didn’t know it existed to this extent, and I think Matt’s story, Lesley’s story, is really going to touch a lot of lives. And there are different components there. When you drive to the farm from Regina and you start to see the farms, they are few and far between. One farm is kilometres away from the next. They’re not side by side. So you see how isolation can happen when you’re working on a farm.

You also see the small town aspect and Matt talks about this, that he knew he was having panic attacks. He knew his anxiety was high. He felt overwhelmed, he was leaving his wife and kids in Regina to drive to the family farm, work there during the week, stay in a trailer and then return home… And also, there’s a stigma. We think of farmers, they’re hardy. They provide.

What’s happened, and it’s amazing that it has, is that in telling his story others have come forward and they are now working on something where farmers can come together and share and speak their truths online. 

Their story really seems to speak to how even when mental health feels like such a personal, internal issue, it’s influenced by external factors, and also has effects felt externally.

Absolutely. We went from the juxtaposition of Bedford, Nova Scotia, where Ally lives on this gorgeous house on this hill, picture perfect, although she’s suffering inside. There’s this juxtaposition from Ally’s story to North Preston, Nova Scotia, where we find Tyler… it’s a community that’s 98 per cent black on the outskirts of Halifax, and just the low expectations teachers had, others had and he says in our piece “I’m just a black guy from North Preston.” So there’s that weight of now you’re never going to be anything. You’re settled, you’re never going to amount to anything. But what if you have dreams? And what if you rise above that? 

Bell Let’s Talk Day has really grown into such a force over the past eight years through people speaking out, connecting online, and sharing their stories however they can. How does featuring these Canadians’ stories in prime time even further the movement? 

Each conversation that we have breaks down walls. For each of these years, a wall has come down. And when I talked about diversity of illness here, when we talked to Beth in Toronto -- Beth’s a lawyer and was afraid of saying that she had bipolar disorder because she thought she’d lose her job. She also said bipolar disorder is one of those scary ones. That people really don’t want to talk about… Kieran with borderline personality disorder, another story you don’t always hear about, but in sharing their stories more walls will be coming down because we’re pushing forward. We’re not where we started, we opened up the conversation eight years ago and people got engaged and we‘re widening that net because we’ve got different voices speaking from place that they are at and it’s amazing.

How would you like to see Bell Let’s Talk Day continue to grow? 

There’s so many more stories to tell. I felt when we were on the road, there’s so many stories to tell and maybe even checking in with those that we’ve told. And to see a year later where everyone is. As long as the conversation keeps going in some way, as long as we broaden it in some way and push the envelope a little further each and every year, we’re good. It’s not about, well we talk about it one day and we close the door and no one ever speaks about it again. It’s highlighting it in this way on this one day that then has reverberations for all of the other days. That’s what this is about. This one day moves us forward to all the others. 

In Their Own Words: A Bell Let’s Talk Day Special airs Wednesday Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. ET/MT on CTV and CTV Two.