On May 6, Jade Dulle will embark on a gruelling bike trip from Prince Rupert to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Dulle is biking the months-long trip to advocate for better mental health services, an issue she has felt personally.
“Around the age of 18, I started experiencing symptoms of a mental health concern” said Dulle. “I didn’t actually know what it was. I went to the Saskatchewan emergency room as I was experiencing quite severe mental health concerns. I was told that they didn’t have the resources for me.”
Dulle was adopted at the age of two and later discovered she was predisposed to schizophrenia through her biological parents.
“So for the next eight years, I lived with something I didn’t understand as I didn’t have a lot of history on myself. My parents didn’t really know and we asked for help. I went into the emergency room over 12 times in a mental health crisis, and I was sent home every single time.”
Dulle’s negative experiences inspired her to go into the social work field, though she again found herself disillusioned with a system that was failing to aid many of those she worked with.
“I was a social worker, I was advocating for these people. I learned how to navigate the system, but was still sent home,” she said.
“There has to be something more that we can do to improve things because obviously the system is flawed.”
This is not Dulle’s first major cycling tour, as she biked across Saskatchewan to raise money for mental health awareness in 2017. This time her mission is different though, as Dulle said conversations around mental health are frequent, but the health care systems in place are not sufficient.
“I was basically trying to decrease mental health stigma and a lot of campaigns during that time. We were just trying to normalize talking about mental health. And I truly believe that my campaign, along with many others, have succeeded, as now we definitely talk about it,” Dulle said.
“My new mission statement is now we’re talking about mental health, but now we have to do something about it.”
Dulle — who expects to complete the journey in about three months — is seeking stories of folks across the country who have had challenges with mental health service gaps in Canada, and is looking for cycling partners along the journey.
The ride and the conversations she has along the way will also be the subject of Dulle’s thesis for her social work master’s program at the University of Regina.
“It’s kind of an informal type of research,” she said.
“I’ll be interviewing people along the way and I want people who feel comfortable to share stories and their viewpoints about how they think the mental health system can improve, because it’s not just my story. It’s not just other people’s stories. It’s our entire nation’s story.”
Those who want to follow Dulle’s journey or donate can visit her website.
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