Tracy Holman- 2004 Courage to Come Back Award Recipient

Rosseau, Ontario

May 2004

Tracy Holman always felt different.  As a young girl, her third grade teacher would ask her if it was Tracy 1 or Tracy 2 attending school that day. Tracy would either appear happy and joyful or she would sit at her desk and not participate in anything.  No one recognized that there was a problem. Tracy would continue to be extremely energetic for months and then sink into depression for weeks at a time. It wasn't until she was in her early thirties following a two-week cycle of severe depression that she talked to someone for the first time about the symptoms she had been experiencing.  

As a mother of four, Tracy noticed that her kids would skulk around the edges of a room trying not to attract her attention when she was manic.  Due to her mania, people couldn't keep up to her.  When she was depressed, her thoughts turned to suicide. Eventually, Tracy was diagnosed as having Bipolar Affective Disorder.   She tried many medications and eventually ended up in the hospital with Lithium poisoning.  Eventually she was able to find a medication that helped keep her mood stable, allowing her to focus on herself. 

Throughout all of her trials, Tracy's marriage of eleven years had fallen apart.   She moved out and her oldest son and daughter soon joined her while her two youngest children stayed with her husband.  Tracy was first hospitalized a year later and her children were sent back to live with her husband.  After being released, she reconciled with her husband and family, but things had changed.  After only three weeks at home, Tracy attempted to take her own life.  Tracy was hospitalized once again.

When Tracy's two youngest children were lost in a custody battle her life was dramatically changed including her role as a full-time mother.  She began to sink into another depression and she craved death.  She stopped eating and yearned to drown herself in the icy water outside the doors of the hospital.  She realized that she had to let go of the life she had known - including her two youngest children - in order to embrace a new life, to have hope.

Tracy made a pact with herself that suicide was no longer an option.  She began to learn what her triggers were and to manage her illness. She now looks for things to celebrate. Her new husband and her two oldest children keep her grounded and she prays that her two youngest children will be reunited with her again someday.

For three years, Tracy was a Peer Support Worker on an Assertive Community Treatment Team.  She is now a Program Counsellor with a Native Mental Health program of the same agency. Tracy has been a director for the Board of the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario, has co-founded a Mental Wellness support group in Parry Sound, volunteers with victim support group, has participated in Talking About Mental Illness, to encourage teenagers into recognize and ask for help with their symptoms.  She is a member of the We All Belong Campaign as a presenter.  Although Tracy still copes with adversity in her life, she feels that the expression "consumer survivor" is too limited; she says she has decided to be a thriver.

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