She’s a daughter, sister, girlfriend, employee and a friend.
Rachel Scott-Mignon is just like you, or someone that you know, the 27-year-old told hundreds at the Ottawa Civic Centre yesterday.
But she’s also the face of mental illness, she said.
“The reason I’m so eager to share is because, for the first 23 years of my life, I hid the symptoms and feelings I was so ashamed of,” she said at the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health’s Leaders for Mental Health breakfast yesterday.
She’s been an inpatient at the Royal Ottawa Hospital several times, once for nearly six months.
“The Royal is a wonderful place with wonderful people, but it is not the place you ever imagine spending your 20s,” she said.
She’s gone through electroshock therapy 12 times, tried 25 different medications and seen psychologists and psychiatrists.
Yesterday’s event was “one more step in order to break down the stigma,” said Ottawa Senators Captain Daniel Alfredsson, a spokesman for the foundation’s You Know Who I Am campaign.
“My motivation for getting involved with the campaign is because of my sister’s battle with generalized anxiety disorder,” he said.
