Pauline Spurrell

My name is Eugenia Pauline Spurrell (Pauline). I was born in Come By Chance NL during the fall of 1962, and raised by loving parents in the seaside community of Swift Current NL. I grew up calling Woody Island, an island in Placentia Bay, my summer childhood home. From those early memories, I learned to draw solace from the ocean to ease the pain of a mentally unhinged life.

In 1979 I graduated from high school with honours, and  three years later received my RN diploma from the SAGGH School of Nursing.

Undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, and mistreated mental illness, took my budding healthy intellectual teenage self on a spiral of mania, depression, grief and despair. My childhood gift for words fragmented, and the puzzle of my life was left in scattered pieces. I lost clarity and focus; my inner child was silenced.

I have called many places home throughout my lifetime, with varying places of employment; from Goose Bay NL to Inuvik NWT. The constants in my life are my True North (my devoted loving husband), and our son.

Following decades of poor mental health, I now claim an increase in clarity and wellness. I hear the voice of my inner child and, day by day, I continue to heal my mind with the words of our reunited soul.