Imagine that your bright and beautiful 12 year-old daughter has just started junior high. She plays sports, does well in school and has a busy social life. She’s not immature, but overly mature (12 going on 16). Life is rolling on and things are as they should be.

Then during her grade seven year you notice – gradually over time – that she’s not talking with friends as much, she’s staying home more and more, her sleeping patterns are a bit off, and you’re not seeing nearly enough of that beautiful smile.

You wonder, “Is it the new junior high, it’s a big school after all, maybe it’s just scary for her.”

But it intensifies… And slowly your little baby girl falls in to a dark and reclusive place, disconnects from long-held friendships, becomes increasingly quiet, and hides away in the basement all alone with the TV. She lays awake most of the night and then struggles to function at school the next day.

You get to the point where you stop wondering if you’re over-reacting and succumb to the scary realization that something is terribly wrong here. You carefully suggest that maybe you could take her to see a doctor but she insists she isn’t sick, instead she feels she’s just a bad person and everything is her fault.

Then when tidying her room one day you find a journal carefully hidden under her bed, describing frightening dark thoughts, self-hatred, hopelessness, and thoughts of suicide. Your heart screams, your stomach rises, your muscles constrict, you can’t breathe. You are immediately struck with fear and panic. No in fact it’s actually horror.

This is the story of my oldest daughter and the very beginning of her decline in to mental illness.

After I read the journal I didn’t know what to do. But I knew Jenna needed help. We made an appointment with our family doctor who was quick to refer us to a psychiatrist but then we got put on a waiting list. At that point it was anywhere from 3-6 months. Can you just imagine how LONG 3-6 months feels when you’re in this kind of crisis?

While we waited for our appointment things got worse. I was spending HOURS talking with her, often staying up all night long. And it was relentless. All the while we’re waiting, hoping. Eventually the situation is so critical I go back to our doctor and insist we need help.

Our doctor has some connections, makes some calls and, because of this, Jenna was actually admitted. The mental health care professionals were wary but over the next couple of days she did get interviewed. Jenna wasn’t wielding a knife, she wasn’t living on the street, she wasn’t bleeding and she wasn’t saying, “Yes I’m working on a plan to kill myself.” In fact she wasn't saying much except that she was a bad person. My account of the extreme changes that I observed in my daughter's behaviour and thinking did not seem to be taken seriously. So she was sent home on a weekend pass with an ultimatum, "to decide whether she was sick and wanted help or not".

That week-end was the first time Jenna picked up a razor and cut herself. I witnessed her scream, crawl in to a fetal position and sob. She was 13 years old. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. This was further evidence to her that she wasn’t really sick, that she was just a very bad person who doesn’t deserve help.

Naturally things got even worse. Consultations and medications did not result in significant improvement and new psychotic symptoms developed as time went on. Then when she turned 19 she was referred from the IWK to the adult system and she was completely lost. We had a referral from the IWK to the Abbie Lane, we had a referral from the inpatient unit to the outpatient unit - here we were in the system but we still couldn’t get a psychiatrist. I called and called and called but never had a call back.

At this point she is having psychotic episodes and access to care was virtually impossible. Eventually we started seeking treatment outside this province. And for two years we travelled to the US every eight weeks. We were fortunate we could afford to do that.

Of course we know that mental illness is much like so many physical illnesses such as cystic fibrosis for example, where there are acute episodes and you need to catch them fast. Well during one of these episodes, we didn’t get to Boston fast enough.

Jenna passed away by her own hand at the age of 23. After an 11-year struggle to find meaning and hope, she told me in her own words, “I can’t do this any longer.”

Losing her was a profound tragedy for our family and those who had known her. The war she fought in her own mind she felt she could never win. I suppose it’s like going untreated for cancer and, all alone, trying to will yourself to get better. The difference is we’re investing immense resources in physical illnesses yet we aren’t even meeting the current need for mental illnesses.

As sad as it is that we lost our first born, it’s also profoundly sad that this is not a unique story. My experience with family support work shows that although the stories are very unique there are striking similarities. The impossible wait times, the absence of follow-up, the lack of access to inpatient care... Thankfully not everyone dies but there are so many people who hit walls. These are the things that break families and scar communities.

So how do we turn this around? How do we create equality for all and knock down barriers to recovery? We demand it. We insist on it. We start screaming for it. And instead of watching our elected citizens skirting around the issues, finding a cheap “path of least resistance”, we insist they do the right thing: develop a meaningful REAL strategy that has meaningful REAL results.

In memory of Jenna and the countless others who gave up hope, and in support of the 181,000 Nova Scotians who are fighting right now, today, we literally can’t wait any longer for action.