Like most of us, I have had many roles in my life: daughter, sister, mother, wife, therapist, friend. I have also lived through mental illness, and I am a settler descendant learning, slowly and imperfectly, to see more clearly. None of these identities exist in isolation. They shape how I understand suffering, responsibility, care, and what it means to belong. 

In 2007, I was certain I was finally seeing my life clearly. I was trying to leave my marriage, a painful and uneven process, and I felt steadier than I ever had — while those around me watched me unravel. I was hospitalized against my will in British Columbia. When I was released, I didn’t walk back into the life I’d left; I stepped into the long work of making sense of what had happened to me.

I remember sitting with my sister, and asking, now what? It felt like I was in a million pieces. She suggested something that felt almost radical given my state: return to university.

That decision changed everything.

I enrolled in courses within what was then called the Aboriginal Studies program, where the history I encountered stood in stark contrast to what I had been taught. . 

The narratives were unfamiliar, unsettling, and impossible to unsee. They revealed how colonial myths are sustained — not only through policy, but through education, silence, and selective storytelling.

As someone already questioning reality in a profound way, I couldn’t ignore the parallels. I began to see how a nation, like a person, can construct stories in order to survive — and how those stories, when left unexamined, can cause deep and lasting harm.

This site exists at the intersection of mental health, history, and responsibility. It reflects an ongoing effort to understand how personal healing and collective reckoning are deeply intertwined.

I invite you to walk with me.

Yours in solidarity,
Natalie Lebel, MA, RP