Megan Durnford (photo courtesy of Charlotte Dunford-Dionne by way of the Westmount Independent
Well, in the category of “better late than never,” I just discovered that Megan Durnford won one helluva an award back in May*. The award is the Betty Youson Award for Best Canadian Short Documentary and is for Megan’s short documentary LAST RESPECTS (more on that in just one sec). As some of you know, Megan is also the writer and director behind I AM STILL YOUR CHILD, a documentary dealing with so-called COPMI (“Children of Parents with Mental Illness”). Yours truly was in that film, dealing with my mom’s diagnosis of schizophrenia and what growing up in that environment was like.
Regrettably, I have not seen LAST RESPECTS as of yet, but the film deals with a part of our culture that is really never talked about, at least publicly. As Megan noted, “What happens to Montrealers who die alone and whose bodies are not ‘claimed’ by loved ones?” As she began doing research, she came across a short article that discussed Father Claude Paradis and his annual ceremony for these forgotten people of Montreal. Rather than have me blather on about it, though, you can read Megan’s own thoughts about the film by reading her essay at https://povmagazine.com/reflections-on-the-making-of-last-respects/. The trailer for the film is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8vOsGlC5BQ
The film also led to a really unique collaboration. Megan worked with her son, Hugh Durnford-Dionne, a cinematographer and editor in his own right and the two were able to mesh their skills as they developed the film project. While I’ve only met Hugh briefly, it is really neat that the two of them were able to work together in such a fashion. Not every family could actually complete a journey like that.
As the HOT DOCS — Jury statement notes, “For its human, simple and necessary approach to the universal theme of the dignity and value of every single life that stands out by virtue of its compelling, skilfully crafted visual language as much as its personal story and message.” And Instagram has a snazzy photo of Megan accepting her award!
I would encourage you to seek out the film, as I plan on doing, and also follow along with Megan’s career. And remember: she is not only a filmmaker, but is an author.
Salut, Megan!
* Yes, May, but I only came across the news yesterday courtesy of Westmount Independent, based in the island of Montreal.
2025 UPDATE: Please visit the following link for more details and thoughts about Diamond Comic Distributors. Some of what’s discussed below "elided" certain issues, but this the new post discusses the situation more openly now (and that means I’ll probably revisit the post below with updated information, too): https://www.vonallan.com/2025/01/Diamond-Comic-Distributors-Wolfs-Head-and-Me.html
Whew, boy, what a tough couple of months. While there has been some
joy (receiving the
City of Ottawa grant and being shortlisted for the Peter
Honeywell award being the best), for the most part it has been
one helluva frustrating slog. I’m going to do my best to outline
what the current situation is, mainly to help solidify
my own thoughts on what’s gone wrong. Or, to put it another way,
what hasn’t?
To put it bluntly, sales are not good. Worse, every attempt I’ve made
to mitigate that has failed. In different
circumstances, that would be enough to shut the series down. In fact,
I have
done exactly that
in the past (specifically with my previous graphic novel series
STARGAZER, ended
after two volumes,
and with the digital-only series METAL GODS, ended
after four issues).
What
makes WOLF’S HEAD
different from those two? The biggest difference is that WOLF’S
HEAD has never reached the Direct Market and, as a result, has been
cut off from its largest potential audience: comic book fans. Mixed in
with that are the aforementioned awards and grants; these have been especially
important in teaching me that WOLF’S HEAD does
have merit in certain (local) art circles, but there’s a “circuit
break” between that and the larger comics community world-wide.
In
fact, one of the biggest examples I could point to in terms of
specific
my role with in
the comics community is the utter lack of media coverage and interest
in my work. Not just with WOLF’S HEAD and not just recently; a
significant disappointment to me was when the documentary film I’m
in (titled I AM STILL YOUR
CHILD) received no traction whatsoever with comics media. If the
film had been covered, then more people might have been introduced to
both me and my work. I
had partially launched WOLF’S HEAD with exactly this in mind: maybe
my role in the film would help galvanize interest and awareness in
the series. Since
that didn’t happen, WOLF’S HEAD did not receive the momentum from
the film that I hoped it would.
Diamond and the Direct Market
This
has been difficult for me to place, mainly because getting a direct
answer from Diamond
Comic Distributors has been so difficult. For those who don’t
know, Diamond is the largest distributor of comic books in North
America and Great Britain and they also distribute comics and related
merchandise throughout the world. Prior to 2020, they were a de
facto
monopoly in
the world of comics;
however,
with DC Comics breaking from Diamond in early June 2020, the monopoly
label is harder to apply. Diamond was also a de
facto
monopsony; though that, given
DC’s departure,
is harder to apply,
too.
For
a small press like Von Allan Studio (that’s
me, folks),
Diamond plays a critical role in facilitating sales of comics and
graphic novels to comic book stores. Fortunately, I have an account
in good standing with Diamond; in
fact,
STARGAZER
was
distributed into the Direct Market (under Item Numbers NOV101057 and
AUG111259) through
Diamond a decade ago. Unfortunately, my amazing sales rep departed
the company and his replacement has been fairly problematic. This
is key: while
Diamond never outright
rejected WOLF’S HEAD, they’ve never accepted the series, either.
In other words, WOLF’S HEAD exists in a sort of limbo
for the past few years.
That
has been dismaying for a few reasons:
WOLF’S
HEAD is a far stronger work than STARGAZER and it remains baffling
to me why the latter was accepted for distribution while the former
hasn’t been.
“Limbo” also means
that WOLF’S HEAD could be accepted for distribution with
Diamond
tomorrow…
or never.
The
specific
format
of
the
print versions of WOLF’S HEAD was a result of attempting to meet
Diamond’s specifications.
While
I don’t want to stray too far into the weeds here, the basic
process works like this: once Diamond has agreed to take on a title
for distribution, each issue/volume has to maintain a minimum sales
threshold or risk cancellation. That threshold is based on total
dollars; so selling 1,000 copies of issue 1 of a $2.99 US series
results in a total dollar amount of $2,990.00, but selling 600
copies of issue 1 of a $9.99
US
series results in $5,994.00! But that requires a print format that
justifies the higher cover price. To
do just that, I
went with a trade paperback trim size and approximately 60 pages of
content per
issue for
WOLF’S
HEAD.
I
felt that this would give the series the best chance of meeting
Diamond’s benchmarks while still giving readers a terrific
experience.
Now,
if Diamond had formally declined distributing WOLF’S HEAD, then I
would have went in a very different direction with the print version
of the series. Since I was in “limbo,” however, I decided to go
ahead with it, hoping that, as the series progressed, Diamond would
get on board and
distribute the series.
Sadly, that has never happened, leaving me with a print format that
I’m not particularly happy with.
I did
manage to get a few Canadian stores to pick up the series. But a
combination of the pandemic (see below) and bad luck have basically
ended that experiment. The store that did the best with the series
was Librairie Astro in Montreal. Sadly, they closed in the summer of
2018 and I lost one of my biggest advocates. Strange Adventures in
Halifax was
carrying the series,
but has apparently stopped. I say ‘apparently’ because I’m not
exactly sure what happened; I suspect the audience simply never
developed for the series.
What format
would
I be happy with? Well, either
a saddle-stitched periodical series (i.e.: ye olde 32 page comic) or,
better, a
beautifully
produced hardcover
series that collected each story arc.
As
it stands, I suspect the next release of WOLF’S HEAD (issue 7) will
be the last with
this 60 page format.
Comics Media
Without
Diamond distributing the series, gaining
media attention for WOLF’S
HEAD
from “comics media” (for lack of a better phrase) has been
problematic. Some of this is understandable; a lot of comics media
supports the Direct Market and are
very
plugged into Diamond’s distribution
cycle. WOLF’S HEAD lack
of distribution with Diamond falls outside of this purview and,
as a result, few media outlets have been interested in discussing the
series.
What’s
been frustrating to me is that WOLF’S HEAD is
broadly distributed. Finding the series is not difficult for either
readers or retailers, primarily because WOLF’S HEAD has world-wide
distribution through Ingram. This also means that the series is easy
to find at
online at retailers like Amazon,
Barnes
& Noble, Chapters/Indigo,
Waterstones, and
so on. However, from the point of view of “comics media,” this
isn’t
enough. Worse, this
lack of distribution from Diamond has
also disqualified WOLF’S HEAD from the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic
Book Creator Awards (while
I’m not positive on
this score, I
believe that the “Shusters” require distribution through Diamond
for eligibility).
More
importantly, the lack of media attention has meant that the series is
pretty much unknown with the audience I need the most: comic book
fans. Especially comic book fans who
like independent or alternative comics (or “comix”). It
is very hard to grow a series if your
key demographic doesn’t know you exist.
Comics
Media are
also tricky to talk about because there’s a split in what
and who receives
coverage. More mainstream sites like Comic Book Resources or
Bleeding Cool
tend
to focus on corporate intellectual property. This means titles from
Marvel, DC, as well as licensed properties. Sites like The Comics
Journal focus on more literary titles. Unfortunately, either due to
the lack of distribution from Diamond or other reasons, I’m persona
non grata
with both. And that’s certainly not for
lack of trying on my end.
The
knock-on effects of all this is problematic. As a simple example,
there is now a great deal of scholarship being conducted on comics
with some truly fascinating insights from
some remarkable scholars.
Unfortunately, comics scholars aren’t, as far as I can tell, aware
of my work. Or even aware of me, for that matter. A
second example are librarians.
Librarians
have become key advocates
of comics, but I’ve never managed to gain library support for
WOLF’S HEAD outside of my
own
local Public Library. WorldCat
certainly illustrates
this plainly.
This
is disappointing because my work has
been
in libraries in the past,
but without awareness of the series it would be difficult for a
librarian to justify the purchase of the series, especially given the
times of austerity we’ve been experiencing for the past twelve
years.
COVID-19
The
pandemic has effected everyone. In the face of the death toll (it
boggles my mind that 200,000 people have died in the United States
alone and we’re not that far from 1,000,000 dead throughout the
world), it’s a bit hard to think of anything else, but there have
been knock-on effects for everyone, even those who haven’t directly
been hit by the virus itself.
Obviously
declining retail sales are a significant example. The effects are
more horrifying when you think about food scarcity, layoffs,
evictions, and the like. Yes, it could certainly be worse; in fact,
I’d argue that one of reasons that COVID-19 has not been as
horrific as, say, the 1918-19 Influenza pandemic is that there are
still enough social programs by various levels of government to help
prevent the situation from spiraling out control. Plus science has a
far greater understanding of how pandemics spread than it did back in
1918-19. Still, the official governmental responses has been
problematic (really? 200,000 dead in the US?) and we are clearly not
out of the woods yet.
Since
art tends to be a discretionary purchase, in the face of the global
pandemic my print sales have declined. Not that sales were robust
before 2020, but the pandemic has destroyed them. While book sales in
general slumped when the initial lockdowns occurred, there seems to
be some evidence that book sales are now stronger,
at least in some
markets. Unfortunately, this has not led to any sales growth for
WOLF’S HEAD or any of my other backlist, though this is not
surprising given what I’ve outlined above.
Digital Comics
What
about digital sales? WOLF’S HEAD is available on both ComiXology
and Kindle and released in periodical format (i.e.: approximately 30
pages) for $1.99 US each. This
format has not led to strong sales. In fact, sales have been very
weak. Kindle is almost a non-starter; while it doesn’t take too
much work to format titles for Kindle (using the Kindle Comic Creator
software), I’ve only had a handful of sales in this format. My
ComiXology sales have been marginally better, but ComiXology (and
Kindle, for that matter) really require reader awareness and interest
when
seeking
out titles. What
do I mean?
Well,
there’s
a conundrum with digital discovery
that I don’t think has been solved yet. In a ‘brick and mortar’
environment, people can stumble
across titles that they might not have known about simply because they are
on a shelf, let
alone activism from a passionate sales staff.
While COVID-19 has obviously effected the ability of people to enter
into retail stores of all types, this
is still a key element of what makes ‘brick and mortar’ stores so
compelling. Wander in, stumble across something interesting, buy it,
and try it. With digital comics, it would appear that you really need
to know what you’re looking for. I realize that
digital does allow some
degree of browsing, but (at least from my point of view and
experience), this doesn’t seem to work all that well in
practice.
As
a result,
my digital sales have been very poor. What I find interesting about
this is that my 2020 experiences with Kindle and ComiXology mirror my
2014 experiences with ComiXology and my series METAL GODS. Things
really haven’t changed all that much at
all.
Where Things Are At
As
disappointing as this has been, the good news is that the comics art
grant from the City of Ottawa has helped mitigate some of the damage
detailed above. In fact, if it was not for the art grant and the
Peter Honeywell award shortlist, I suspect I would cancel WOLF’S
HEAD immediately. As it stands, WOLF’S HEAD will continue, at least
through the current story arc, and then I’ll revisit in 2021.
Self-publishing
is hard. Frankly, I’ve never wanted to do it, not because I’m
against self-publishing per
se,
but
because of the immense
amount of work
involved in doing
it. Hell, I already wear all the hats (writing, art, production,
etc…).
Adding “publisher” to that list is a
bridge too far.
I badly need a publisher. I badly need an agent, too.
With
WOLF’S HEAD, it’s hard to know how things will go. My efforts to
find a publisher for the series will continue, though that is one
helluva slog right now (my jealousy of authors with formal publishing
contracts knows no bounds!). For the short term, this means that
WOLF’S HEAD will probably be turned into a webcomic.
Webcomics
actually terrify me. While once-upon-a-time I did do
a
webcomic through Girlamatic
(THE
ROAD TO GOD KNOWS...),
that
was both a long time ago and with a group of allies. Doing it alone
is scary. And WOLF’S HEAD was never
designed to be a webcomic; I’m leery of how transitioning the
series to that format will work in practice. At the same time, I know
that a
WOLF’S HEAD webcomic might be the best (only?)
chance
that
the series
has to find a real audience.
To
paraphrase one of my favourite movies, “art is a cruel mistress,
but she is her own reward.” Easier
said then done. I
don’t like writing and drawing in a vacuum. While I’ve never
minded the solitary nature of the craft, my stories are meant to be
read.
I’ve
never wanted to make ‘outsider art’ that few if anyone reads. My
goal was never to ‘hermetically seal’ my work from the world at
large, either.
It’s
not a fun feeling to be where I’m at, struggling to find an
audience and struggling to make a living at it. Solutions
are difficult to find. And the loss I’ve been feeling is difficult
to place. Given the state of the world (not just with COVID-19 but
with the wildfires in California and Oregon, the explosion in Beirut,
and so on), there’s a lot to be thankful for. There really is. Art
and writing bring me a great deal of joy, not to mention the fact
that I’ve grown
a great deal as an artist.
I’m
extremely proud of WOLF’S HEAD, despite the terrible sales and lack
of awareness that it even exists. I think it’s some of the best
work I’ve ever done. And it’s been a joyful experience, too.
It
would just be truly awesome to be able to share that joy with
readers.
In a
surprise (well, at least to me!) turn of events, I’ve received a
$4,000.00 grant from the City of Ottawa’s Arts Funding Program (the PDF announcement from the City is here). The
grant is in support of my ongoing comics project WOLF’S HEAD and
represents a significant step in my arts career. Why significant?
Well, bear with me here for a sec and I’ll try to explain.
As
I’ve struggled to cobble together an arts career, there have been a
number of obstacles that I’ve had to overcome. This is not unique
to me, unique to Canadian comic artists, unique to visual artists, or
unique to the arts in general. Despite certain stereotypes of artists
(“heads in the clouds,” blah, blah, blah), it’s quite a tricky
career to manage. There is not a lot of support “out there” for
artists, either. Most artists I know are forced to manage their
careers as best they can and there really isn’t a road map to help
along the way. That’s been very true for me. While a lot of words
come to mind to describe this — ‘challenging’
being a very good one — it just is what it is. And there is a
certain truism to the notion that by the time acknowledgement does
come (usually in the form of awards, accolades, and sales), the
artist doesn’t need as much support as they once did. That’s
definitely not true of me.
Let me say that again: That’s definitely not true of me.
It’s been a fight every step of the way. The first fight was simply to
become competent and that might have been the toughest battle of them
all. The learning curve, at least for me, has been extremely steep
with a lot of false starts and dashed hopes along the way. Then, the
next fight is to survive. Truth be told, that’s been tough, too.
Being pretty much a fringe artist at the best of times and a true Outsider most of the time meant that building awareness for my work has been a
never-ending struggle. Pragmatically speaking, surviving as an artist means generating an
income. In my case specifically, that primarily means selling my
comics. And that has never been easy.
As some folks know, I really had hopes that I AM STILL YOUR CHILD, the
documentary film I’m in, would help build awareness for my art.
That really hasn’t happened, at least so far, and the
disappointment was hard to place. That doesn’t mean I’m not proud
of my role in the film. Far from it! And I still think the film is
important for shedding light on parental mental illness, a taboo
subject to this day.
That said, as my wife is fond of saying, the film was ‘kindling’ for
my arts career and represented a milestone in its own right. While it
hasn’t changed awareness of my work in the larger comics community,
it has led to growing awareness in the local arts scene. I’m pretty
sure that I wouldn’t have been a finalist for the Peter Honeywell Award without it. And I certainly wouldn’t have won a CBC Trailblazer Award without it, too.
And
with today’s announcement of winning a grant from the City of
Ottawa, I’m pretty confident saying that it wouldn’t have
happened without the film and the other awards. One thing does lead
to another. And the grant is important from another point of view; it
really does give some much needed financial support for my comics
endeavours. As I’ve noted, being an artist is not an easy path and
every little bit of financial support helps. When a jury of my peers
determined that my application was worthy of financial support, my jaw dropped. And it’s taken a bit
of time for me to really get my head around it. I’m both honoured
and pleased as punch to receive it. And in these pandemic times we
live in, it is one helluva lift.
So yes, Von Allan Studio (that’s me, folks!) gratefully acknowledges
the financial support of the City of Ottawa. Boy, do I!
Not to be outdone, I was also interviewed on the Out of the Basement podcast. Out of the Basement is a local podcast from here in Ottawa, but with social distancing due to COVID-19, it was handled remotely. This chat ranges from comics to D&D and was a lot of fun. This interview can be found at https://outofthebasement.ca/pod/ootb/out-of-the-basement-podcast-episode-91/ or downloaded directly as a MP3 here (again, just right click to download).
When I was invited by filmmaker Megan Durnford to participate in the documentary film “I Am Still Your Child”, one of the unique aspects of the film is that Megan wanted to include some of my artwork from my first graphic novel “the road to god knows…”, originally published in 2009. I’m proud of that book, but the artwork is rough. Megan’s request made me pretty damn nervous but we worked out a solution that we were both happy with.
Alan Neal: A new documentary called “I
Am Still Your Child” opens with two powerful statistics. One in
five Canadians experience mental illness. 60% of them have children.
It kind of sets up the film telling the story of children with
parents who’ve struggled with mental illness. Local comic book
artist Von Allan is one of the people featured in the film.
Von Allan (Excerpt
from the Documentary Film): “We came to Ottawa, I think, for my mom
to try to get more education and sort of change her circumstances. My
mom was very ill, mentally ill, which is something I didn’t quite
realize when I was very small. But we were struggling with poverty.
She just declared bankruptcy and was going through bankruptcy. So,
welfare, bankruptcy, schizophrenia, all of that together. This was
tough stuff. Later on, I started to realize that I wanted to draw.
And I really felt that drawing something that was close to me would
be a good way to start.”
Alan Neal: And he
did draw something very close to him, a graphic novel that drew from
his childhood experiences titled “the
road to god knows…”, which we talked about here on the
program back in 2009, I believe. Years later, this documentary has
given Von Allan the opportunity to revisit both that artwork and his
story.
He’s with me now
in studio. Hi there.
Von Allan: Hey.
Alan Neal: Obviously
you were familiar with telling your story when “the road to god
knows…” came out. You were very open about it then, too. Was this
something different once a documentary filmmaker comes in and says,
“now will you retell your story with me being in control of it?”
Von Allan: Yeah, it
really was. It took a while to get used to it. And it was a strange
experience to do. I had moved on. So I had done the graphic novel, it
was fine. And it was my first book so it’s kind of rough. I had
moved on to other projects. I think it was about a six year gap,
between when Megan, the director, first contacted me to when the book
was actually published. So at that point, I was like, “Whoa.” And
then when she said, “we want to talk to you about your story about
the situation,” everything you just described. And we want
to use some of the artwork in the documentary. I kind of went, “I’m
not so sure about that. It’s kind of scary for me.” So to make a
long story short, they chose images that they wanted to use and they
allowed me to redraw them.
Alan Neal: And was
that what was scary? I mean, people may hear that and think, “Oh,
what was scary? He doesn’t like his artwork as much from 2009. Was
that really… what
was scary?”
Von Allan: In some
ways, yeah, because I’ve had such an up and down experience with
art. Certainly talking about my mom, and talking about my childhood
and what have you is not something I find all that easy to do. And it
is weird when there’s cameras in your house, sound recorders in
your house, and everybody’s great. And I have talked to Megan quite
a bit about this since particularly now that the film is out. I’m
not in control of it, I had to put a lot of faith and trust in her
that I’m not going to look like an idiot. I’m not going to look
insensitive, that it’s going to come across well. And it’s also
going to work because there’s two other young women involved in the
film as well. So it’s going to intercut
everything really well. But I find it always tough. I was poor and,
you know, my mom died at 48. So she died pretty young. I have a lot
of wistful “what ifs,” that maybe she could have beaten it and
she didn’t and sort of gotten herself into a better place. And the
reality is, as she had gotten older, things got worse, mainly
because — and one of the things with mental illness for a lot of
people is — the illness itself is a struggle. And then, if
you’re younger, your body…
you have these physical situations that make it tough, too. So
my mom’s health, physical health deteriorated on top of all the
mental stuff, the schizophrenia that she was dealing with. And my
feeling to this day is that that all sort of became a perfect storm
that caught up with her. I’ll never know exactly what happened, but
it was probably a simple heart attack. And that was it.
But too young to die
and talking about it on camera is not an easy thing. That combination
of, you know, visiting the artwork, revisiting the artwork, wondering
“what if the graphic novel had been a bit stronger?” It did fine.
But I mean, you know, I am a very different artist than I [am] now.
How I approach things is different. So there are some wistful “what
ifs” on that. And the story itself.
Alan Neal: I’ll
come back to artwork in a moment, but were there elements of the
story that you found yourself telling on film that you were not able
to address back in 2009? Were there ‘pieces’ that you found
coming to the surface that had not come to the surface before?
Von Allan: Yeah, in
some ways, for sure. Because one of the major differences between me
doing the book and the film experience is Megan had questions.
And she had questions and she was pretty specific about it. So it
wasn’t just me rambling or me in control of the script. She wanted
to talk about very specific things. And that was new for me.
I have been
interviewed a lot. But being in a situation where somebody is asking
fairly probing, pretty sensitive, but pretty probing questions about
aspects of my childhood. A good example is “how did I find dealing
with friends and what have you?” Well, I fictionalized a lot of
that in the story. But the reality of it was, I was a pretty shy kid.
I was pretty ashamed of our living situation and my mom’s
situation. I didn’t understand my mom’s situation all that well.
So talking about that and getting into that, and some of that didn’t
make it into the film completely. But that was hard.
And they filmed a
lot. I mean, one of the amazing things about this is my screen
time is like 12 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever. But the reality is
they were at my place twice on two separate filming occasions for
probably six hours each time. So 11 or 12 hours of film. So we talked
about a lot of different things. And it was also interesting to see
in the final screening; I hadn’t seen it until just Friday night,
this past Friday night. What made it in, what wasn’t in, you know,
and how it all came together. It’s a very unique experience.
Alan Neal: Is there
any part of it that you’re not comfortable with how it was
edited? Obviously, editing choices have to be made.
Von Allan:
Absolutely.
Alan Neal:
Sometimes, though, editing choices are made to form a narrative, too.
Were there things where you’re like, “oh, that’s not quite what
I meant?”
Von Allan: It’s
hard. I think the only thing I was sensitive to is I can babble and I
can talk quite a bit about it. It’s a shorter film. It’s 45
minutes. So certainly, there are times where I wish we could have
gone into more. More context. I think one of my takeaways —
and it’s certainly a part of the film —
is poverty and how that affects you. Dealing with mental illness,
dealing with trying to pay bills. But for my life, and I think for
some of the other people involved, and particularly a lot of other
people in general who are dealing with this stuff and kids, that’s
a huge aspect of it. And if I had a very mild criticism is it would
have been awesome for more of that to be [covered in the film]. But
it might have been a different film if it was done. It would have had
a different focus. All of a sudden, you’re bringing these financial
things into it. So, no, I think they did an amazing job with it.
I probably can’t
even stress the financial aspects. With my mom, the welfare stuff, I
wonder sometimes as an adult —
because I was a kid —
is what was it like to have the self-awareness and said, “I can’t
make it? I need help.” And I have to go to the government. I have
to do this. And I know that in terms of our extended family —
that I’m not close to —
that was a major sore spot.
One of the things
that’s not in the film that I remember vividly is my mom
having to ask family for financial help. And instead of trusting my
mom and going, “here, Judy, here’s 100 bucks, here’s whatever
you need.” They made decisions for her. They were like, “no,
no, no, we don’t trust you with money. We’re gonna…
if you need money, you must need groceries. We’ll buy
you groceries.”
We had bills to pay.
Actually food at that time might not have been an issue. That kind of
thing. And what that does to somebody’s dignity. She also had to
explain it to me. “This is why you don’t have the greatest school
clothes. This is why you don’t have all the great supplies that
other kids have.” I went to Glebe
[Collegiate Institute]. I went to Mutchmor
[Public School] and Glashan
[Public School] in Ottawa. So there were some relatively affluent
kids. It was very apparent to me that I wasn’t
one of them. And for my mom…
I’m a stupid kid. You are just sort of aware of what you don’t
have or what other people have. And if it was now, I would love to
know… I think it
would have been very tough on my mom to have to make those types of
sacrifices and choices.
Alan Neal: Before I
let you go, you mentioned redoing the art. And I still remember
elements of “the road to god knows…”,
where the scene where the main character is floating in the sky and
all these things are swirling around her, conveying how her brain
works at that point, or how she’s dealing with what she’s been
going through.1
Were there major changes to the artwork? Or was it just a matter of —
did you change the actual way you portrayed an image like that?
Von Allan: It’s a
tricky. It’s hard to answer is because Megan had chosen what images
she wanted to use. So she said “page 30,” “this panel on page
35.” So I knew what she wanted and I felt I was obligated to
maintain that. So what I tried to do was use the page as a thumbnail
and basically not change the compositional approach, not
change anything like that, but just approach the page, the redrawn
page, with
better craftsmanship.
And it was kind of
freaky because I hadn’t really revisited the book at all. I sort of
put it aside. And I think a lot of artists might pull out an old
sketch book, sort of flip [through it], but you don’t get an
opportunity to compare the art literally side by side. And that,
particularly after I had done it and started looking at them side by
side was pretty remarkable. I wanted to keep the tone of it the same.
I wanted to keep most of the composition the same, but I wanted to
approach it with better craft. And I think that’s what I was able
to do. But it was weird.
Alan Neal: I’m
encouraging people to check this out. The documentary aired over the
weekend, but you can still stream it online. It’s called “I
Am Still Your Child” by Megan Durnford. We will tweet out the
link from CBC
All In A Day. Von Allan is one of the people featured in it.
Thanks so much for coming.
Von Allan: That’s
fantastic. Thank you.
Alan Neal: Von
Allan, comic book artist based here in Ottawa. Once again, the
documentary, “I
Am Still Your Child” is streaming online right now. And we will
tweet out that link from CBC All In A Day.
Footnote
1This
is fascinating, because I don’t know what Alan is referencing, but
this scene wasn’t in “the road to god knows…”.
I would love to know what the source is, so if anyone reading this
knows, please
contact me!
On September 27, 2018, I was part of a panel discussion during the 2018 Low-Beer Memorial Lecture that followed a screening of the documentary film "I Am Still Your Child." The film and panel discussion were presented by AMI Quebec (Action on Mental Illness) and was held at Concordia University's Oscar Peterson Concert Hall in Montreal. It was a pretty amazing evening!
The panel discussion was moderated by the always awesome Loreen Pindera from CBC Montreal and featured Megan Durnford (the film's writer and director), Rebecca Heinisch, Marie Leavens, and myself. AMI Quebec's Dr. Ella Amir added closing comments. It took a little while, but I'm very pleased to announce that the audio recording of the panel discussion from the panel discussion is now available! Yeah!
Marie Leavens: I’m Marie Levens. I’m Sarah’s mother.
Rebecca Heinisch: Hi, my name is Rebecca
Heinisch. I’ve been working with children who have parents
suffering from mental illness for the past, I would say, 14 years. I
wrote a children’s book to help children better understand what is
going on in their families when the parent is ill. And I’ve also,
with my husband, founded a non-profit organization and we run
programs for these children. And they’re for children between the
ages —
the program’s between the ages of 7 and 17.
Loreen Pindera: And Marie would like to say something about that
program.
Marie Leavens: Sarah is actually part of that program when she was
8 years old and it really, really helped her.
Rebecca Heinisch: Thank you.
Loreen Pindera: I have… I think you can hold off on the applause
till the end now. Or we’re going to get really tired.
It’s the third time I’ve watched the film now in the last few
days. And what I notice is every single time I take something
different away from it that I didn’t notice the first time. And
then I thought “oh look, there’s these things that are…”
some of that is just the fantastic editing job I think, Megan. But
one of the things, I actually pulled out a pen and jotted down this
time one of your lines, Von, which was, “I was trying to go to
school. I was trying to live my life.” And I thought, “what a
challenge that must have been.” And I thought maybe we could just
start by you talking about how you managed to juggle school, work,
friends, and caring for a parent, at the same time.
Von Allan: I’m not great
with these things, so bear with me. You know, the thing is it’s not
like there’s a blueprint for anything. You’re in it and things
are happening. And then you’re reacting to what’s happening. So I
think if I had known some of what was eventually going to happen with
my mom, that might have made my childhood and teenage years a lot
harder. But it was tough.
It’s very hard to be — for me — being in a public school. It
was never a particularly safe environment. And I never particularly
had — you know, you hear stories of the fantastic mentor-teacher
that you can really bond with. I never had anything like that and I
was bullied and picked on and what have you, as well. It helped being
tall early. That aided me a little bit. I hit the height I am now at
about 13, so that kind of helped. But for the most part, I kept my
head down. And I tried to get through the day and just get through my
school time as much as I could.
And I was lucky in some ways; while I’m not close to my father
at all, my dad also lived in Ottawa. My mom and dad got split up very
young, when I was very young. And it meant that there was somebody I
could go to during the times my mom was hospitalized or in deep
crisis. And it’s unfortunate; my relationship with him sort of fell
apart in my early 20s. I haven’t seen him since 1998. So, yeah,
it’s been a long time. But I’d be lying if I said he actually
wasn’t there for me. He was. And he did what he could.
So a lot of it is just, “it sucks.” It’s hard to go through
this. And it’s hard because you don’t know how anything is gonna
play out. You don’t know what the other end looks like. You have no
idea of what the future will bring. And you just muddle through. And
that’s basically how I view most of my childhood and teenage years,
is I just “muddled through” as best I could.
Loreen Pindera: I’m gonna turn to you now, Marie. I saw in all
three of the protagonists in this film some incredible strength of
character. And also the challenges. You, Megan, put the stat up very
early on that 30 to 50 percent, I think, of people who have parents
who have a mental illness can come into a mental illness themselves.
So that’s been… that is clearly a struggle for Sarah throughout.
And we have a little hint of that, that she’s not going to school
that you homeschooled her. Do you want to share a little bit of that
story?
Marie Leavens: Well, when Sarah was in kindergarten, she missed a
third of the year because of a different illness. She had a surgery
and stuff. And by the end of the year, you know —
well, because we read a lot at home —
while the other kids at school were able to put two, three
words together, my daughter was able to read entire books in English
without help, and in French with a little bit of help. So we’re
like, “what’s she gonna do in grade one?”
My husband already couldn’t work at that time. For various
reasons, but mainly his mental illness. So he’s like, “well, I
might as well, you know, let’s do the homeschooling routine.” And
we’re sure glad we did. She performed really well.
And then in 2015, my eldest son passed away. And that really had a
big impact on Sarah. And according to psychologists that we saw, if
she had been in school, she might have fell in a crack. So it was a
good thing she was home. This year, she’s back at school. She’s
at adult ed, because she’d like to have a diploma. But as you saw
in the movie, she mentioned she had anxiety, and so it’s been
really tough on her. Especially math, causing her a lot of anxiety,
which is why she couldn’t be here tonight. Her anxiety was too
strong. She just couldn’t get out of her room. But on the whole,
she’s still very strong. She has her days like anyone else, but
she’s still very strong. And we finally just managed to get her
some counselling.
Loreen Pindera: That, I’m sure, is a whole other chapter that
would take us in another direction. Focusing on the issue tonight of
carers, Sarah —
because she was home with her dad a lot —
took on this role of carer along with you too. Do you want to
talk about how that affected her?
Marie Leavens: Yeah. Well, especially at the beginning, because I
was the breadwinner, so I was out of the house up until the end of
2012, I was out of the house. So her dad was taking care of her, but
then he got sick around, oh my gosh, 2007, roughly. And so Sarah was
taking care of him. He couldn’t bend down to do things, because
he’s physically ill as well as mentally ill. So, yeah, she had to,
on a very early age, you know, “Sarah, can you do that?” “Sarah,”
all the time. And then he had his episodes once in a while. So she’d
just hide in her room, and I’d come home at night, and you know,
she’d be crying.
Finally, by the end of 2012, my husband couldn’t be left alone,
so I came home with her. But many times we heard her say —
not many times, but a couple of times —
we heard her say, you know, “I can’t ever leave my
parents, because they both need me.” Because, of course, with the
mental illness, I also had depression. So there’s been a time where
she’s been picking me up, as well. So it’s been tough on her. But
eventually, my husband and I convinced her that she has to have her
life. So I’m glad to say that she’s looking forward to that.
Loreen Pindera: How old is Sarah now?
Marie Leavens: She’s going to be 18 in a few weeks.
Loreen Pindera: I want to turn to you now, Megan, if I can. Just
talk about what drew you to make this film. Why did you feel it was
an important subject to tackle?
Megan Durnford: Well, the way that came about is quite a
complicated story, but I’ll just sum it up. I have a friend who
organizes TEDx youth talks in Montreal. So she’s always looking for
speakers. And at one point she invited me to go hear the story of a
young woman in St. Jerome. And this woman was going to talk about
what it was like to grow up —
everything was quite fine. And then, suddenly, her mother went
into a depression when she was 14. And so she was going to talk about
the next 10 years, what happened after that, how they both came out
the other end. So I went and I heard this young woman, and then my
friend said, “well, do you think this could be an interesting topic
for a documentary?” And I said, “well, I certainly don’t know
now. I have to do so much more research. I have to see is this a
typical story? What is the incidence? What’s the international
context? What are the resources?” But then as I started to look
into all these other issues, I realized,
“my goodness, it’s an extremely common situation that isn’t
especially well known. And there are potentially very serious
long-term repercussions for all of these children and teenagers.”
And so I realized, “yes, there is absolutely a potential to make a
documentary, and absolutely there is a need to raise public awareness
about this.”
Loreen Pindera: Do you want to tell us a little bit about the
process? How did you find your amazing protagonists?
Megan Durnford: That took a long time. That took a long
time. Well, the first step was I had to pitch a project to a
producer. So I pitched it to Katarina
at Catbird Productions. And she was able to pull together money
for research and development. So then I was travelling in different
parts of Quebec and meeting families who were living with this
situation. And you can imagine each situation was so different,
right, depending on the age of the child when this happened. I mean,
in many cases the child grew up from babyhood on with the parent
already suffering from mental illness. In many cases it sort of
happened suddenly. Huge range of different disorders. And then I was
sort of looking for commonalities
in the young people’s experience. I would say the hardest part of
all, though, was not finding people to tell me their stories.
The hardest part was to have someone agree to be filmed while
telling me their story. So, yes, so thankfully, Jesse, Sarah, and Von
agreed to participate and I think really they realized that —
although it was, of course, going to be difficult for them to
do that —
they realized that they could help other people through
telling their stories.
Loreen Pindera: That’s a good segue to pass the mic back over to
Von, perhaps, and ask you that question. Why did you agree to put
yourself out there like this?
Von Allan: Well, Megan and I first started talking, it was a while
before —
it was a slow developing process, with me sort of constantly
thinking, “this thing isn’t going to happen. It’s going to fall
through.” But it didn’t. And, well, no, obviously, I mean,
who knows how it was going to play out. But I felt I had the
advantage, I think, of having…
my mom died in 1994. So there’s been a certain amount of time
that’s gone past with that. And I felt getting involved in the film
was for some very similar reasons for why I wanted to do the graphic
novel [“the road to god knows…”].
I thought it was an interesting story. I thought in many ways that
what happened to my mom —
and I still think what happened to my mom —
isn’t fair. And I think that talking about that helps. It
doesn’t solve anything, but getting some of those experiences out
there can’t hurt. And there is —
and I’m sure everybody here knows this —
but there’s still a lot of stigma, still a lot of
stereotypes with it. So anything you can do to sort of punch through
that is great.
Really, the best thing I can use as an example for how things have
changed is I said earlier my school life wasn’t great —
and it wasn’t —
but I had the opportunity this past May to go back to my
junior high school —
Glashan
[Public School] —
and they were doing something which would have been
unthinkable when I was a kid is they actually had, for grade eights,
a mental health
week. And they had a mental health symposium and they had all
kinds of different guests and public health advocates and what have
you. It was really neat. And they invited me. And it was weird
to go back into that school that certainly was not a happy fun place
for me, but talking very openly, very similar to what’s in the film
and what have you —
and I’m pretty open when anybody talks to me anyway —
it was really neat to talk to kids that were 12, I guess,
grade eight, and then have, at the end, some of them even share some
of the stuff they’re going through. And that, again, would have
been unfathomable when I was a kid.
Loreen Pindera: Of course, one of the purposes of AMI-Quebec’s
existence is to network and make some of these connections and to
find ways to provide some of these resources. So maybe you could just
talk about what you were missing as a kid. What might have helped?
Von Allan: Money!
Loreen Pindera: Okay, start with that.
Von Allan: Well, because it’s still the thing that poverty made
harder. And the courage my mom must have had —
I’m only more aware of now as an adult —
to navigate Ontario —
we were in Ontario —
so to navigate Ontario’s social services system when she was
at her worst. And, we were on welfare. So there was a constant battle
of “there’s not enough money, how are we going to make rent?
Where’s food going to come from?” She went to food banks. She got
help and aid anywhere she can, any way she could have. And I don’t
know how she did it. And she shielded me a lot from it. So I only
became vaguely aware — more when I was getting into my teenage
years — about what she was doing. And it was just…
it was brutal. And that was under —
to be political —
that was under Bob
Rae’s NDP government in Ontario. And she died the same year, I
think, that Mike
Harris’ conservative government came into power. And at that
point in Ontario, welfare, social services, mental health, took a
massive hit. And I don’t know how my mom would have handled that.
She was already holding on barely at that time. And there would have
been a massive reduction in what meagre income she was getting into
the later part of the 90s.
So first and foremost, it’s not that money cures everything, but
it can take some of the pressure off, the pressure of how you’re
going to make rent, the pressure of how you’re going to feed this
kid. Or this kid needs clothes for school, this kid needs some
various support. And I know — particularly as an adult, because we
all go through this — but looking back on it, the anxiety that must
have been terrifying to deal with, on top of everything else. And
then the rest of it is certainly a better, a more easily navigatable
social services system. My mom bounced around. So, there was — to
this day, I think — that the one big thing she was missing was an
advocate. Somebody that could have spoken for her,
particularly when she was going through —
again, at her worst — to get help, to have somebody there
who could represent her.
And, on a personal note —
it’s already a personal note, but on a more personal
note —
my wife has gone through five physical surgeries now. So,
she’s fine mentally, but she has gone through a lot. And I’ve
been able to go with her. And it’s hard. It’s been interesting to
watch her talk to her surgeon or various physicians and what have
you. And, you know, be anxious, to be sort of struggling and to be
like, “well, you’re going to go into surgery and we’re going to
do some stuff.” And it’s been nice to — for the most part, keep
my mouth shut — but then to be able to go, “oh, you wanted to ask
about this.” Or, “can we talk about this?” To have somebody as
a third person —
and I love her —
but to have somebody as a third person being able to help
navigate the system. My mom had nothing. And, wow.
Loreen Pindera: To what extent, I want to hear from everybody else
too, but while we’re on this track, to what extent, Von, did you
play that role as advocate as a kid?
Von Allan: Not as much. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. And I
think it’s twofold. One, a lot of it is I was really young. And
then secondly, I think my mom really did try to shield me from it.
And that broke down as I got into my teenage years. So she got more
open as I got older about what she was going through, but I think her
ability to shield me from it also deteriorated. But it wasn’t like
I was going to into psychiatric wards with her, except to visit her.
And she had a psychiatrist that she was seeing. And I mean, I would
sometimes go with her and wait in the lobby, but that’s it. It
wasn’t like I was going into the room with my mom.
So really, at the end of the day, my mom —
she was still on her own. So I could help at home. I could
take some of the pressure off at home. I could clean. I could do
certain things. But it was still tough. And in some ways I wish I
could have done more. But I think the film —
it says it in the film pretty well. “At what point do you
stop living your life?” And I was 18 and 19 just at the very end.
My mom died when I was 20. So my life might have been very, very
different.
Loreen Pindera: I’m going to take the mic away from you and pass
it over to Marie and ask some of the same questions, from the context
of Quebec, about the resources that you could have used for Sarah
that maybe weren’t there to start with.
Marie Leavens: Well, I think we’ve been very blessed as a family
here because I have a big mouth, so I’m able to barge through
stuff. And I have learned very early that I had to, you know, when I
go to a doctor, it’s like, “yeah, she needs this, she needs
that.” But sometimes it’s very difficult. Sarah is finally going
to get help from the Jewish hospital for her anxiety disorder. They
refused to have her diagnosed, to diagnose her earlier. They refused
to try to diagnose her earlier. They just diagnosed her with ADHD.
She was too young, apparently, to be diagnosed for bipolar disorder.
Today we’re finally getting somewhere. We met with a
psycho-educator just this past week. It’s been four or five years
now that I’ve been trying to fight my way there. Especially since
2015 when my son died, it really hit hard on Sarah because he was
like her second dad. She’s been seeing a psychotherapist for two
years now, but she can only see her once a month because I can’t
afford more. And, you know, when she went to the CLSC for
counselling, first of all, it was all in French. Yes, I am French,
but my daughter is a lot more comfortable in English than in French.
And the psychotherapist refused to acknowledge her faith as something
to help her. So Sarah was feeling really bad about that because her
faith — as you’ve seen — she’s very connected with the
church, with the youth especially at the church. And it’s really
helping her. These kids have really been supporting her throughout
everything, although they don’t understand everything. But just the
fact that they’ve been praying for her, being there when she was
crying, you know, it’s really been tremendous for Sarah, that
network.
Loreen Pindera: I want to come back to that, Marie, and I’m not
forgetting about you, Rebecca. But, Megan, maybe you could talk about
why that was so critical to include in the film. Because the church
scene and… what were
you trying to show there?
Megan Durnford: Well, in fact, that was absolutely essential
because that is a huge part of Sarah’s story. Because I spent quite
a bit of time with Sarah and Marie and Andy. And I could see that
even though Sarah hadn’t really found a lot of help through the
social services yet. They were waiting and now, finally, success.
They had, well, a lot of really strong emotional bonds within the
family. But I could also see that the church was a very important
source of support for Sarah. So it was essential to include the scene
because that is part of what was helping Sarah deal with the
situation that she was in.
Loreen Pindera: There’s also her friendship with Helena. Helena,
is that…
Megan Durnford: Marlena.
Loreen Pindera: Marlena, sorry. Yes. And I guess it’s the same
thing in terms of community and friendship.
Megan Durnford: Right. And as she says in the film, she says that,
of course, obviously they’re teenagers. They have a lot of fun just
goofing off. But both of them can relate to each other on a very deep
and serious level about anxiety and other mental health issues. So I
could sense that right away and hopefully you can from the film that
they’re very tight.
Loreen Pindera: Von, maybe I could ask you the question about
friendships and whether, you know, how isolated were you as a kid?
Were there people you could talk to? What other resources did you
draw on to become so grounded as you are today?
Von Allan: [Laughter] Well, I don’t know about the last part,
but I did have a small collection of really good friends, some of
which I’m still friends with to this day.
But. I was pretty embarrassed about how I lived. I knew we
were poor and I knew our place was pretty crappy. And I was pretty
shy and —
I don’t know if I would use embarrassed, but it’s probably
the best word for it is —
talking when you’re 12 or 13 with other friends about my
mom’s situation was just a non-starter. So I didn’t do it. And I
can only look back and go, “yeah, I probably was more isolated than
I realized.” But at the same time, I don’t think one can
overstate the ability to just go hang out with friends and not
have to stress about this stuff and not have to think about
it. And that, I think, in hindsight, helped me far more than I ever
realized. You know, I was a geek so I like comics, I like sci-fi, and
I like role-playing games, and being able to go do that on a Saturday
afternoon or after school or something like that was probably far
healthier than I ever realized.
Loreen Pindera: Would it have been helpful if someone had said to
you, “there’s a group of other young people whose mothers are
schizophrenic, would you like to go talk?” Would you have even done
it?
Von Allan: I really don’t know about that. I really don’t. I
get asked this sometimes, “what if there was a great teacher? What
if…” When I did
the presentation at the junior high, at the end one of the
[sessions], teachers were like, “well, where do you suggest
somebody in your situation go?” And I’m like, “Kids
Help Phone? I don’t know!” This is not easy things to deal
with. And it really depends on the kid. It’s going to depend
very much on who you are rather than having the right… So yes,
obviously more things out there, more supports, more public supports,
more obvious supports, but different… there will be different
solutions or maybe no quote-unquote “solution” at all for kids.
And I don’t think, when I look back at how I was when I was 12 and
13, that I would have even been comfortable broaching the subject,
particularly to strangers, even if I knew they were going through
something similar to me.
Loreen Pindera: Okay. Did you want to say something, Megan? Yeah,
okay. I’ll pass that back to you again, Marie, just to talk about
does Sarah participate in such an organization? Would it be helpful
for her or…?
Marie Leavens: Well, like I said, Sarah has done the Anna workshop
and that has really been a big, big help. There she’s learned how
to relax when there’s a crisis in the house and how to cope with
it. But the other thing that Sarah’s had an advantage with is
because of our church, because of the co-op where she was going,
though the people there were like a big family. There’s no
judgment. There was nothing. So she was always able to speak freely.
It took a while because when she was very young, my husband was
very upset when I would talk about this. And one day I said, “listen,
Andy, I’m the kind of person I can’t keep things in. To cope with
it, I have to talk it over. I have to share with my friends. For them
to pray with me and try to understand what I’m going through. So if
you don’t let me speak about it, then I’m going to end up with
having a problem myself.” Finally he said, “okay.” And after
that, he found it freeing for himself to be able to talk about it.
Because everyone at our church —
we’ve been there since Sarah was born —
before Sarah was born. So we’re well-known and
well-grounded. And everybody knows about these issues. So whenever,
even if he’s at church and he flips, nobody is surprised. There’s
support. There’s a network. So because of that, Sarah knew she
could open up very early. So that’s always been, I think, a great
thing for her.
Loreen Pindera: I’m going to ask you to pass the mic over to
Rebecca now. And maybe I could get you to start by telling us —
it’s 14 years now since the book came out.
Rebecca Heinisch: Correct.
Loreen Pindera: Tell us what led you to write the book in the
first place.
Rebecca Heinisch: Well, there are two things. One of the things is
personal experience. Direct personal experience. I was raised
in a family where mental illness was present. In my case, it was my
mother who was suffering from mental illness and from a very young
age, from the time that I was born. And I can relate to many of the
things that Von said, that Sarah has said, that Jessie said also,
about having to live that situation, but in silence —
being isolated. In our family, it was never ever
addressed. Mental illness was not addressed, despite the fact that
there were many hospitalizations, many suicide attempts, and so on.
And just the fact that it was not addressed, that it was so taboo,
really impacted me. And I felt that there was nothing around —
being very isolated — there was nothing around to help. And so, I
just kind of had to, as Von said, keep my head down, push forward, go
on autopilot, and just move on and cope with the unpredictability,
the fact that everything is very unsettling. And as Sarah said, life
is like a roller coaster, very much like a roller coaster.
So, having lived the experience myself as a child and growing up
and becoming an adolescent and really having no one to speak with, I
realized that there needed to be resources for children to help them
understand, “well, what’s going on in my family? Why is my parent
acting like this? What can I do? And is it normal that I have all
these conflicting feelings? Is it normal that I want to help so much?
Is it normal that I feel angry?”
Also, I drew on experience as a teacher because I was working in
the elementary schools and it’s such a prevalent issue. It was not
rare in a class of maybe 20, 25 kids to find six of them or seven of
them who were living with a parent having mental illness. And I was
seeing these children in class being totally dysfunctional on the
social level, on the academic level, and yet they were totally
isolated, also. And this really shook me to the core. I could relate
to them, I felt for them, and I just felt — even as a teacher, we
didn’t have the tools, as a teacher. The schools didn’t have the
tools to help these children — and so I felt compelled and called
to write a book and help bring awareness to the fact that many, many
children are in this situation.
Loreen Pindera: So, “Anna and the Sea,” maybe you can tell us
why it’s called “Anna and the Sea.”
Rebecca Heinisch: Well, the protagonist’s name is Anna, and she
is a young girl. Her mother suffers from mental illness. And the
setting is in a village by the sea. And Anna finds comfort through
two different characters who come from the sea. A crab named Gustave
and a turtle named Tremender. And they are actually very therapeutic.
They’re like counsellors for Anna. And in meeting with these
characters she’s able to voice her questions and realize that her
feelings are normal. And also she receives several tips, help about
self-nurturing and also validation that it’s okay for her to want
to invest in her own life.
And this is an issue that’s very critical for children growing
up with a parent who’s mentally ill. Because to separate from your
parent brings on feelings of great guilt because you feel like you’re
abandoning them. So in the book she is given the permission through
this very important creature, the crab, given the permission to be a
child, to have her feelings and become and develop and become all
that she can be.
Loreen Pindera: So you have, it’s gone from a book to a resource
that’s being, we were discussing earlier, widely used. In fact, I
discovered in my web search today that they’re crazy about this
book in Australia! So maybe you can tell us the short version of how
it got where it is and how it’s being used today. How the book and
the resource workbook are being used.
Rebecca Heinisch: Well, I can just sum it up in one word. It’s
snowballed. And never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that it
would grow and become a resource and a non-profit organization. I
just wanted to start with a book, something that could help address
the issue. And there was a great response from the mental health
practitioners who began requesting, “well, the book is wonderful,
but do you have any educational activities? Can you go further? Is
there anything else out there?” And I thought, “well, maybe there
could be.”
So I took sabbatical leave from teaching and I began a pilot
project with some children and began creating activities —
educational activities —
and then presented them to practitioners and they felt it was
a worthwhile endeavour. And so we received funding from the Alcoa
Foundation to produce the first program, which is the Anna
Workshops. And we began promoting the workshops all throughout
Quebec. We’ve trained practitioners in 29 cities. But what we did
was we set up in Trois-Rivières the organization where we began
intervening and creating other programs, programs for adolescents,
and a very important program, which we set up quite early, which is
the Navigators. It’s a respite program.
Because —
Von, if I can just bounce off something that you said earlier,
if it’s okay with you —
you said the power of getting together with friends and just
hanging out and doing things, the power of getting together. So
through one of the programs we created, we allow the children to hang
out, but to do activities. We bring them horseback riding, fishing,
to museums, and these activities go on all throughout the year. And
this is a very, very important part of the resources that we offer,
because the kids need to get out of the house. And they need to get
out, they need to be together, and they need to have fun. It’s the
power of pleasure. And it’s a very long process for a child growing
up with someone who’s mentally ill to realize that they are allowed
to experience pleasure.
Loreen Pindera: Thank you very much. Marie, maybe you could talk a
little bit about Sarah’s experience with the program.
Marie Leavens: Yeah. Well, like I said, she’s learned to really
relax in crisis and that kind of stuff. But she also has done the
respites. And you know, like Von talked about poverty; because of my
husband’s mental illness, because he didn’t take care of himself,
now he’s physically ill, so I had to leave my full-time job, take
care of him full-time as well. So we live on welfare. Because when
you have a husband who’s bipolar, you don’t have a lot of
savings. It’s almost a taboo word in our home.
So, because of that, we could never offer Sarah activities like
that. And through Alpabem —
which is similar to AMI-Quebec
in Laval, where we live —
Sarah’s been able to do climbing. She’s been able to go to
some museums, all kinds of activities like that. Some workshops, like
bead workshops. And she would come home beaming. Because, you
know, it was something that she could never have dreamed. And for
that little bit of time, she was a kid. We talked about relationship
earlier. And that’s one thing for Sarah that’s always been very
difficult. She never had friends around our home. The few times she
had friends, she was bullied. She was not… She was never happy
there. So that’s why we kept in contact with the youth church,
because there she was never judged. Same with the homeschool co-op.
Those are the place where those were her havens. But having this time
where she could just do something very special. Something that she
could come back to co-op to her friends at church. “Guess what I
did this week? I went rock climbing!” And, you know, she could hear
the others talk about that. But she could never even dream of it. So
for her, that was really big.
Loreen Pindera: I think we have to wrap up quite soon. But I want
to touch on a couple of other things. Von, just having heard what you
heard there. I know we’re talking a quarter of a century later, but
do you think some of those resources would have made a difference?
Von Allan: Maybe. It would have been helpful to know that
something like that was out there. I think that’s probably about as
far as I could go with it, because I have no idea. I mean, I was… I
cannot over-emphasize how shy I was as a kid. And a lot of things
changed as I got older. But I was really, really introverted when I
was young. To feel safe in an environment where you could actually
open up? That’s tough. But to be able to get away from it and to be
able to just not even have to think about it and do other things.
That was huge. And because we didn’t have a lot of money, one nice
thing —
it’s changed a little bit now, but particularly then —
was comics were cheap. Role-playing games were pretty cheap.
And because of the nature of the game itself, you could just play it
basically forever. You don’t need a lot of stuff aside from paper
and pencils and dice. So we could tell stories. We could do goofy
things. And that —
particularly for low income [families] —
that really —
more so than I probably ever realized —
really helped me through. And libraries helped and stuff like
that too.
Loreen Pindera: I want to… when we first met this evening, I
said to you, “wow, it’s so interesting that all three of the
protagonists in this film are such creative people.” Do you play
the guitar too, by the way?
Von Allan: No! Not a musical bone in my body!
Loreen Pindera: And you said to me, “and there’s the dog
theme,” which I didn’t notice until the third time. But maybe you
might… you clearly feel great affection for your dog, or you
wouldn’t carry him around. Maybe you could just talk about that —
and maybe Megan wants to talk about it, too —
but how the… and I’ll see if you want to say something
about that too Marie, but I think it was worth touching on because
clearly the dog was important and is important in everybody’s
lives.
Von Allan: Dogs are amazing. I’m a huge believer in cats and
dogs. I’ve had multiple in my life. And they are always in
the moment, they are… there’s unrequited love. They are who they
are, and they are amazing characters. Corbin,
my dog, still my dog now, is a rescue
husky from Iqaluit who does not like to walk. [Megan]
didn’t believe me, and was like “no, let’s get some shots of
you walking your dog in the film.” And I was like, “this is not
going to go well.” And it didn’t. He walked for a bit, and then —
he just he does not love leaving the house.
And it’s also been interesting to watch a dog who has also gone
through some trauma. He is a perfectly happy, healthy dog, but he
doesn’t like leaving the house at all. So, yeah, dogs. Amazing!
Loreen Pindera: I wonder if your choice of a dog who’s gone
through trauma has something to do with your childhood. I’m not
going too far here.
Von Allan: I like rescues, so it was probably more dumb luck. Our
previous husky who died, Rowen,
she was also a rescue, but was much more of what you think of as a
husky, which is “you point them in a direction and you walk
forever.” That dog would walk all over the place. So we’ll never
know exactly what Corbin’s mix is.
He’s a husky mix of some sort, but he bonded to us. He bonded to
his home, and that’s magic for him.
Loreen Pindera: I think that I’ve gone through my question list
here, and it’s probably… you probably have your own, and I think
we’ll have a little time afterwards to have one-on-one
conversations. Is there anything else that anyone would like to say
before I wrap? That perhaps I haven’t… go ahead.
Marie Leavens: Yeah. You’re talking about the dog. In our home,
Drake is called the “Dog-ter.” Because he really, really, really
helps my husband. It’s amazing, amazing how much he points us like
a lot. My husband, like when you heard me scream at some point and
the thing went black, my husband hadn’t died. It looked like
that when you look at the movie. But he has those fainting spells.
Well, they’re not really fainting spells. It’s like narcolepsy.
He falls asleep on his feet, but it’s due to another side of his
mental illness. When anxiety goes high, he starts passing out. And
that was at the beginning where we weren’t quite sure what was
going on. Now we know a little bit more. And the dog could tell us up
to 10 minutes, 15 minutes sometimes, ahead of time, that he was going
to have a spell. It’s pretty amazing.
Loreen Pindera: A last word to you, Rebecca. Is there anything
you’d like to add?
Rebecca Heinisch: I would just like to say that this film, this
documentary, is so powerful. And I’m just so grateful and
thankful that you’ve made this documentary, Megan.
Von Allan: Yeah.
Loreen Pindera: Yes. Megan, maybe you could just tell us what life
the film has now? Where does it go from here?
Megan Durnford: I don’t necessarily know the answer to that.
We’re waiting to hear back from… Well, there’s a conference in
Oslo in May that is considering it. There’s various film festivals.
There’s plenty of community screenings. Actually, apparently in
October it will be screened in Australia, the community screening.
So, it’s just getting going.
Loreen Pindera: Oh, is it going to be translated? There you go.
Megan Durnford: There is a French version.
Loreen Pindera: And I think you all know that you can find it on
CBC
online. If anybody doesn’t know how to find it, I think
actually all you have to do is look up cbc.ca
and the name of the film and you’ll come straight to it. It’s
very easy to find and it’s going to stay online for some time… I
think forever, for a long time.
Ella Amir: So thank you very much, everyone. Thank you very much.
I feel it was really a powerful and remarkable documentary. And I
know that it will have… I’m sure that it will have life of its
own, not only in Australia and New Zealand, but also here, because we
really do hope that it will help us to put young carers on the map
and this is certainly a good step forward. So thank you very much,
and thank you very much, and see you next year.
It’s always a bit weird to be writing this, but here goes. I’m
one of the winners of a 2019 CBC Trailblazer Award. With a trophy and
everything! I have to admit to having mixed feelings about awards*,
but it’s still pretty neat to have won one. And since this is
the second award I’ve won for my art-related activities, it is
another “arrow in the quiver,” especially given how hard
it’s been to get to this point.
Hard?
Hell,
yeah.
Art,
as a career, is not the easiest thing in the world to make a “go”
of, especially given the austerity-fueled times we live in. And it
has taken me a long time, longer than I would have liked, to reach
the point that my art is, for lack of a better word, “professional.”
‘Course, one of the interesting things about art is what one
means by “professional” can take on all kinds of
different meanings. It really depends on who you are and what you
like.
In
my specific case, I knew I was pretty rough, but we really do learn
by doing.
“Doing”
also meant falling on my face. A lot. I’ve covered that in a
piece I wrote called “On Getting Stronger” so I won’t
cover that again here.
And,
more concretely, it’s given me an opportunity to talk about my
mom. Not just her battle with schizophrenia, but also the poverty we
battled combined with the lack of social programs to help her. To
talk about the immense courage she showed (courage I’ve
really only became truly aware of as an adult) while she fought a
lonely and often terrifying battle to navigate a truly unforgiving
health care and social aid system. And
what it was like to grow up with her, for both good and ill.
It’s
funny; my mom died pretty young, at 48. And I’m slowly but
surely approaching that age myself. In fact, I’ve now lived
longer without her in
my life than I did with her (she died when I was 20, and I’m
now well-past 40 myself). But the memory of her stays with me still.
That’s partially because I loved her, of course, but also
because I still find, to this day, how unfair her situation was. And
the fact that it never had to be that way. Despite all of the “by
your own bootstraps” nonsense we live in (you know, that idea
that any failure, let alone any health issue, is a sign of personal
rather than societal failure), what happened to my mom was grossly
unfair. What is heartbreaking to me is that the unfairness she
experienced is experienced by so many other people right to this very
day.
Yeah,
yeah, awareness about mental health and mental illness is better.
There’s more open and frank discussion around it. Sure. But
poverty has not gone away. The lack of social support really hasn’t
changed. Welfare rates for anyone (let alone single moms) have, if
anything, gotten much worse. We can talk about “resilience”
and “perseverance” as much as we’d like. We can
even point to individuals who’ve managed to do just that, but
what about those who can’t? There’s still a chronic lack
of systemic support.
There’s still a culture that desperately needs healing (don’t
believe me? Look at the
suicides that are still occurring in the wake of the Parkland
shooting).
I’m
pleased to do what I can to help. And I’m proud, damn proud, to
talk about my mom. To help put a face on what otherwise might be
simple dry statistics.
To use my art, as best I can, to show what some of this is like. But
it’s hard not to escape the idea that in a very real way, the
2019 Trailblazer Award should not have gone to me.
It
really should have gone to my mom.
She
died in 1994, alone and isolated. I had moved out some months before
because I had to, for my own sanity and self-esteem.
What
I try to stress to people, though, is that she had hopes and dreams.
Things she still wanted to accomplish. Who knows what she might have
done if she had managed to beat a truly vile disease and get
healthier? She’d be 73 right now, probably feisty as all get
out, and probably telling her own story to people, trailblazing
change.
I
don’t doubt that for a second. But it was not to be.
I
placed, a long time ago, the grief along with the disappointment of
what could have been. It is what it is and it happened a long time
ago. But other people, right now, are going through similar things.
And even if mental illness is not a part of it, there is still
crushing poverty, a cold and often hostile health and social services
system, kids going hungry, massive personal debts, and horrible
unhappiness. All the celebratory economic statistics in the world
doesn’t change that. There is a lack of solidarity with each
other, not just with our fellow citizens but a lack of solidarity and
fellowship with people around the globe (don’t believe me? Look
at all the hate against immigrants and refugees we’re seeing
now).
We
have to overcome this.
And
what about me? Well, I continue to grow and get stronger, especially
with my art (both visual art and my writing, too). And with my art I
try to not just focus on the past (though always to honour it), but
to move forward with new stories and new adventures. One of the
things about falling in love with art, with comics, and with visual
storytelling, is that the growing and learning never stops.
Using
comics to tell stories has been, I think, the most rewarding thing
I’ve done as an adult. And I can still remember where I was
when the journey started to where I am now. Harder than hell, yeah,
but rewarding all the same.
I
can’t wait to see what happens next.
*
The late Harlan Ellison, back on the “Awards” episode of
the TVOntario program PRISONERS OF GRAVITY said it best: “I
think awards are bullshit. I think awards are detrimental to
the writers…You win a Hugo, you win a Nebula, you win a Horror
Writer’s Award, you win an Edgar, I’ve won all of them in
multiples for god’s sake. What you’re getting are
popularity awards.
If you were a good boy that year. If you were published in the right
place. If the right people read
it. If stories that were five times better than yours were published
in places no one saw them. Then you get an award. They’re
meaningless.
They
had value, years ago, as being, you know, you could put them on a
cover of a paperback. “Hugo Award Winner.” Well, every
book you pick up now is a Hugo Award Winner or Hugo Award Nominee. Or
someone thought this should have won a Hugo. They
don’t mean squat.
The
minute you start thinking that you’ve won an award because
you’re a terrific writer, you’re dead.”
Always
good to keep in mind, right?
Postscript
Here's the CBC Video Interview with me about the Trailblazer Award:
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