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Two years ago, Dustin Garron tried to end his life for the seventh time. Today, the 18-year-old student at Ottawa’s Carleton University focuses on helping other teens who may be contemplating suicide.

“Working in the field of mental health has helped my recovery so much,” says Garron, who founded the Mental Health Project for Youth in 2011, just days after being released from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). “I can help because I understand how stressful today’s world is for teenagers. They have to face such a wide range of stressors at school, with siblings and family conflicts, in relationships and over body image or memories.

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“I stick on that one. It’s hard to move on when you think about the past.”

Garron has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a condition in which people have long-term patterns of unstable or turbulent emotions and tend to see things in extremes. He says that the tipping point for him came between January and March 2011 when his family went through a financial crisis. Simultaneously, he was reeling from disruptions in his personal life.