‘I’m the most stable I’ve been in years’: Calgary organization helping people living with mood disorders

Many people living with mood disorders say they feel alone and vulnerable. The Organization for Bipolar Affective Disorder, or OBAD, is here to help.

The Organization for Bipolar Affective Disorder (OBAD) hosts weekly meetings virtually and in person, with facilitators who possess lived experience.

Eric Bergeron, OBAD’s peer program co-ordinator, who came to the organization after being diagnosed with bipolar II in 2019, says it helps people living with a number of different mood disorders.

“Bipolar, depression, borderline personality disorder—kind of different things that affect the brain, your emotions and cognitive skills,” he said.

OBAD and its facilitators have created a supportive community where individuals can share their experiences, learn coping strategies and openly express themselves.

The key to the program is the people helping those in need all have lived experience and share their stories of leading a healthy lifestyle with their disorders.

OBAD got its start in Calgary in 1998.

Anthony Preston, OBAD’s executive director, says once the organization went online, it started receiving inquiries from all over.

“We had one person from Iceland (contact us), which I thought was interesting,” he said.

“I’ve had phone calls from people recently from Chicago, from Toronto, and what they’re talking about is they have a sibling or a friend or someone in Calgary who’s in crisis, who needs support and they ask, ‘What can I do? What information can you provide? What support can you provide?’”

Bergeron says facilitators always let peers know they are not medical professionals or psychiatrists, but they are there to listen.

“I’m the most mentally strong I’ve been in years and it took a while to get to this point, but I want to show people that there is hope for actually getting better and getting stable and recovering from whatever traumas people go through,” he said.

“Instead of just learning to live with it and to kind of let it win in a way.”

Roch Bergeron, Eric’s dad, says his son found the right help from OBAD when he needed it the most and was able to embrace his diagnosis and pay-it-forward to help others.

“He’s the happiest that my wife and I have seen him in over a decade,” he said.

Dominic Demierre is a facilitator who’s living with bipolar I disorder.

“I like to call the 2010s my decade of depression,” he said.

“So that’s all of my junior high years, that’s all of my high school years, that’s the better part of my university years and in 2020, with perfect timing, the levee broke and I had a major nervous breakdown that winter.”

Demierre was hospitalized and says when he was released, he never felt more alone, vulnerable and scared.

Through OBAD, he was able to become part of a community and says being able to share with others who have lived similar experiences has changed him.

“Nowadays, it feels different. It feels like I actually have a reason to open up, to make myself clear to other people, so I find myself genuinely trying to take better care of myself,” he said.

“I truly do not feel alone anymore. I recently had to go to the hospital again for depression and it was almost overwhelming the support I received. I really feel like through OBAD, I’ve made some of the best friends in my entire life.”

Demierre says the constant battle he and others face is the stigma surrounding mood disorders.

He wants to see that change.

“People who live with mood disorders are not injured,” he said.

“They’re not birds flapping their wings at the window. They’re just people.”

You can learn more about OBAD at https://www.obad.ca/about.