selected articles

Actor and mental health advocate Victoria Maxwell suffered from a mysterious mental illness for eight years before being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and finding an effective treatment: a combination of antidepressants, mood stabilizers, therapy and mindfulness meditation that she learned on her own through books.

Eliminating the stigma that surrounds mental illnesses is a top priority for Victoria Maxwell. She knows firsthand about the accompanying shame. Her credentials are a little different from those of therapists, doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, however. The initials that follow her name on her business card are BFA and BPP: bachelor of fine arts and bipolar princess.

You know that feeling you get when you are watching something wonderful, like an amazing singer, and this warm feeling crawls across your chest while goose bumps rise up on your arms and across your neck? You are on the verge of tears, and then laughter explodes from your body. Friday night brought out a range of such emotions for a group of over 125 people at Cawston Community Hall.

It was time to go looking for God again. Victoria Maxwell was sure she could find Him. She had experienced Him at a meditation group in Vancouver, where she lived. She was hospitalized after that, where she refused medication and was eventually released. In that meditation group, something had happened to the then 26-year-old actress. The doctors called it psychosis. She called it truth, and had seen the light coming out of her own head

If life hands you a lemon, you make lemonade. It’s an entrepreneur’s mantra and Victoria Maxwell has employed it quite well. Maxwell, an actress, writer and mental health-awareness advocate, was diagnosed 10 years ago With bipolar disorder, usually called manic-depression, after suffering several “quite spectacular psychoses.�

Healthy spirituality is not only at large in the public imagination, it’s in fashion, even in the corporate world. Spirituality has reached senior management. Consultants and conferences abound, all hell-bent on helping companies get in touch with their souls and spiritual leadership facilitators are billing the Blue Chip names for some serious meditation time.

A winner in the 20th annual Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards Special Awards Gordon Armstrong Theatre Artist Rent Award: Winner – Victoria Maxwel