Ride Don’t Hide Blog

Read blog inspirational blog posts by Ride Don’t Hide participants and people’s personal experiences with mental illness.

May 8, 2013—Why Do I Ride? Because, In My Family, Mental Illness Runs…err…Rides Deep and Wide
By Victoria Mawwell
My name is Victoria Maxwell. I’m so excited to be part of the Shopper’s Drug Mart Ride Don’t Hide Campaign supporting women’s mental health. Why? For very personal reasons: I was diagnosed with mental illness years ago; so was my mother; so was my cousin; so were two other cousins. All women. [read more...]

May 1, 2013—I Rode the World to De-stigmatize Mental Illness—Part 2
By Michael Schratter
The second motivator for Ride Don’t Hide was the idea that the only way to fight ignorance was through education and creating awareness. As a teacher and part-time journalist who believed in the power of story telling, I had an obligation to try and tell a different story of what mental illness was really about [read more...]

April 24, 2013—I Rode the World to De-stigmatize Mental Illness—Part 1
By Michael Schratter
People have often asked me as to what was the motivation behind Ride Don’t Hide? Why the bicycle and why the global ride? And why for this particular cause which is the de-stigmatization of mental illness? The easy answers to the question are, as mentioned in my previous blog post, that I have bipolar and secondly that I love to cycle. The rest of the answer is a bit more complex [read more...]

April 11, 2013—What kind of person would bicycle around the world telling everyone he is crazy? A crazy person, of course.
By Michael Schratter
My name is Michael Schratter and I am bipolar. I also happen to be a Canadian Jew, a teacher, a part-time journalist, a husband, a brother, and a son. But for me it is the label of mental illness that carries the most weight on my shoulders [read more...]