They say everybody gets a second chance in life.  

I must be one of the lucky ones, because I got three.  

Three years ago, I was lying on a hospital bed, unconscious, intubated and recovering from serious injuries from a second suicide attempt. It was a time in my life when I had given up on everything and everyone around me.   

Today, I am preparing to once again return to work at the Senate. My newborn son, River, brings a smile to my face every day. And I’m building a new life with my soon-to-be-wife, Marie-Claire, who means the world to me.  

My friends and family played a crucial role in my recovery, especially my dad, Marcel, who brought me back to basics and to what really matters in life. But there was one person — a stranger — who made me realize, at my lowest point, that life is worth living.  

As I sat at the end of my bed at the Hull hospital, a surgeon came to see me. I had just woken up from a medically induced coma, yet I felt like I was still living a nightmare. I was in complete shock and scared.  

But what happened next changed my life.   

After asking the standard medical questions, the surgeon lingered. He began to talk to me on a deeper, more human level.   

Shaking his head, he asked me what I was doing in that hospital bed. He told me I was lucky to be alive.  

I recall him saying, “You’re better than that,” as I lay back in the bed with tears welling up in my eyes. He went on to tell me I had so much more to contribute to the world and to keep on fighting.  

He knew that I am a senator and he even mentioned my previous role as national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, but we were still complete strangers. At the end of the conversation, I shook his hand and he suggested I seek treatment after I leave the hospital.  

I admitted myself to the psychiatric ward at the Hull hospital for an assessment. Over the following two years, I also saw two psychiatrists who helped me process the events leading up to my near death. 

I uncovered a lot about myself in those sessions. It wasn’t always easy or pleasant to examine my own life so closely, but I learned my struggles stemmed from bouts of depression, anxiety and PTSD from turbulent moments in my life that overwhelmed me. For the first time in a long time I began to feel like I had control over my life again after years of personal and professional turmoil had eaten away at me.  

I never saw that surgeon again, but I want him to know how much his words meant to me that day and that I am OK. Sometimes, all it takes is genuine human connection, even between strangers, to help someone who is in crisis.  

One in five Canadians will suffer from a mental illness in their lifetime. I am one of those statistics but I’m still standing today and talking openly about mental health because that’s what saved my life. Stigma is the main reason why Canadians who suffer from a mental illness don’t seek help. That’s why events like Bell Let’s Talk are so important because they help break the silence surrounding mental health. 

It can be difficult for men in particular, to ask for help. I want men and boys — especially Indigenous men and boys — to know there is no shame in asking for help when you need it. It’s a lesson I will pass on to my newborn son. Every day that I see him, hold him, hug him and kiss him gives me strength. When I gaze into his loving eyes I know that life is indeed worth living and I feel it in my heart.  

Senator Patrick Brazeau represents the Repentigny division of Quebec.   

This article was published in the January 30, 2019 edition of The Ottawa Citizen.