The statistics on mental health are staggering. Behind these figures, there are people: patients, their loved ones and the professionals who treat them. People to whom Karina Marceau gives the microphone in a radio documentary broadcast starting this Monday on ICI Première.
One in five people suffer from a mental health problem, it is established in the first minutes of the series. Relatives: mental health supportby Karina Marceau. It is impressive, but this fact hides another: the challenge or sometimes the shock wave that it creates in the entourage of the sick person.
Statistics say that four out of five people have a loved one who has a mental health issue. It could be a friend, a neighbor, a child, a work colleague. We can say that it affects almost the entire population at various levels.
Karina Marceau, documentarian
This simple observation justifies the interest she has had for several years in mental health issues, which she has addressed in various documentary projects such as The voices in my head Or Fist careShe also devotes herself to it because she is personally concerned.
In her documentary, the host and director recounts having experienced an episode of depression when she left elite sport (she was a speed skater), discusses the psychosis of a former lover and also her role as a “big sister” to a woman living with schizophrenia. She therefore knows a lot about daily support and the maze of the health system.
A megaphone
Her radio documentary, produced in collaboration with the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal, gives the microphone to the main stakeholders. “We give voice to people who live with mental health issues. We do this in the first episode and it continues in the others,” she explains. “It was very important to hear them, because there are conditions that are much more stigmatizing.”
The people whose voices she gives voice to live with disorders whose names can be frightening, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
In the first episode, Karina Marceau also talks with caregivers, especially parents, who are helpless in the face of a teenager’s crises. What comes out of all this? A lot of loneliness.
This feeling is extremely widespread, confirms the documentary filmmaker. “I think all patients and all loved ones experience it,” she says. “And the system is excessively complex. I have been navigating it for 35 years and I have the impression that the system is there to put obstacles in our way, when our goal is simply to help a loved one.” This mentality must change, according to her.
Of evils and resources
Karina Marceau emphasizes open discussion in her radio documentary, recorded in the presence of various speakers. She first speaks to patients and their loved ones, then invites specialists to her table. “I wanted the professionals to hear what people are saying,” she explains. This process gives the listener the feeling that the speakers’ comments are more grounded in reality.
“There are a lot of pilot projects being set up at the Institut en santé mentale de Montréal in particular, which will potentially be deployed throughout Quebec,” she emphasizes. The documentary filmmaker also highlights the existence of resources in her series, including the organization Arborescence, which helps caregivers with mental health issues.
Karina Marceau is doing a useful job by orchestrating this taboo-free dialogue, one of the stated goals of which is to combat persistent prejudices against mental health disorders and the people who suffer from them. “We must not face all this alone. There are resources, people who are there to help us navigate a health system of inhuman complexity,” she says. Because the role of a caregiver is not to become an expert in bureaucracy, but to be in touch with the person who needs support.
Relatives: mental health supporta series of four episodes broadcast from this Monday, 9 p.m., on ICI Première