KITCHENER — When Orlando Da Silva feels low, he reads a letter he wrote to himself when he was feeling good.

It reminds him that this too will pass, that there are better days to come.

The Kitchener native knows low better than most, having tried to kill himself six years ago.

With his marriage on the rocks, the high-profile lawyer and 2008 Kitchener-Conestoga federal election Liberal candidate went home, drank a bottle of wine and swallowed handfuls of sleeping pills.

"I took 180 pills and was told for someone my size, 30 was the fatal dosage."

Before losing consciousness, Da Silva called his estranged wife. She called 911. A quick ambulance response saved his life.

If he ever falls that low again, he will read the letter he wrote to himself and remind himself that things will improve.

Today, he is president of the Ontario Bar Association and is getting married on Friday.

"So there were indeed better days to come," Da Silva, 46, said in an interview on Monday.

Last Friday, Da Silva and the bar association launched an initiative in Toronto to break the stigma of mental health problems. Called Opening Remarks, it encourages public dialogue about mental health through an interview series and large-scale summit.

The bar association is the largest voluntary legal association in the province, representing more than 16,000 lawyers, judges, law professors and law students.

Da Silva began his one-year term as head of the association in August and has made it his mission to talk about his experience with depression. He has been telling his story to law schools, government agencies and reporters.

"What I'm trying to do by putting this front and centre is make it easier to talk about and to show by example that if I can do it, you can do it," he said.

"It's a full-on war against the stigma."

The stigma is what made Da Silva keep depression a secret. He did not tell his wife. After his suicide attempt, he informed friends, family and co-workers that it was a physical illness.

Da Silva was worried people would see him as weak. Now he realizes depression is an illness — not a weakness.

"Those that I know who struggle with depression are some of the strongest people I have ever met."

Da Silva said people with a mental illness need to tell just one person, be it a friend, family member or health professional.

"They don't have to tell everybody. They don't have to get on a bullhorn — just tell somebody."

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That's the first step in getting help, Da Silva said.

Since launching the initiative, he has received hundreds of notes from people. Some told him they had attempted suicide and applauded him for encouraging people to talk about depression.

Da Silva works in the the attorney general's ministry, defending lawsuits tabled against the provincial government.