For the first 20 years of her life, she lived with undiagnosed mental illness. Today, she is a beacon of hope for others.
Our series of Courage To Come Back award profiles begins with a look at Laurie Edmundson of Abbotsford, the recipient in the Mental Health category.
Edmundson had a childhood filled with panic attacks, unexplained and disproportionate rage, self-harm, and overwhelming emotional pain. Part of the problem was her inability to express what was happening inside her.
“It’s really difficult when you don’t have that vocabulary and that label because I didn’t have any idea what was wrong with me,” she said.
“So, I knew something was wrong, and I knew I was very different from others, but didn’t have an explanation. So, I felt like I was just like a horrible human being.”
Edmundson says that only when she received her borderline personality disorder (BPD) diagnosis at age 19 did things become clearer.
“And looking back at my records from when I was a kid, it’s so obvious that they could have provided me and my family with an explanation, you know, 10 years earlier than they did.”
Edmundson has paid dearly for her BPD, from difficulty holding down a job in her younger years to strained family relationships, even now.
“I mean, I have unfortunately alienated a lot of family because of my reactions to things when I was younger. But as a child with undiagnosed, untreated mental illness, I was reacting in the only ways that I knew how,” she said.
Edmundson is a self-described “super feeler” – someone who feels things deeply, perhaps too deeply, by some clinical standards. Still, she chooses to look at her mental illness almost like a superpower — a guiding principle for her Super Feeler podcast and global peer support network.
“I’m not saying it’s an easy life. I’m not saying that it’s all positive, but there’s so much more positive that we can highlight that really isn’t highlighted elsewhere.”
She also has a full-time role with BC Mental Health and Substance Use, developing and leading a brand-new peer-support program. Edmundson originally wanted to be a forensic psychologist, but her experiences in the health-care system led her to get a Master of Health Administration degree instead. Today, she is doing the kind of work she wishes existed when she needed it most.
“So, it’s been really cool to see going from being told, in health care, ‘You can’t do peer support with these high-risk populations,’ to then leading a project that is literally doing peer support for high-risk populations within 10 years is literally a dream come true.”
Edmundson hopes her Courage To Come Back Award serves as an example to others.
“I’m really honoured to be this year’s winner, and it still feels a bit surreal,” she said.
“I would love to come on here and say, everything is great. I’ve done no wrong. I’m a perfect human being, but that’s not the case. And there’s so many people struggling in the world that feel alone or they feel like nobody else is like them.”
Her message: being a “super feeler” like her can be a good thing.
“Having a borderline personality disorder diagnosis is not something that is a life sentence. You can overcome it. And the families that are listening to this, who maybe are struggling as well, that there is so much support out there for you.”
1130 NewsRadio is a proud sponsor of the 2026 Coast Mental Health Courage To Come Back awards, which will be handed out Thursday night at the Vancouver Convention Centre.