How do the beliefs of the day shape the understanding of mental illness? This clip explores how biases, have formed the basis of many mental health diagnoses. Until late into the 20th century, for example, hysteria was a diagnosis given to any woman who didn't fit the archetypal female stereotype.

In 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it did not help those like Mia Yamamoto, who question their gender identity. Mia spent most of her life being made to feel like she was 'mentally ill', even by therapists. The delisting of homosexuality exposed the fluid, even arbitrary nature of a diagnosis.

When Lorina Gutierrez came down with a terrifying illness, her family thought might be possessed. Psychiatric doctors could find no medications that alleviated the symptoms, and it wasn’t until they looked for a medical explanation that it was discovered she was suffering from a virtually unknown auto-immune disease, given the name 'Brain on Fire'.

Michael Walrond began to experience bouts of depression in his twenties. He didn't seek help because mental illness wasn't something people talked readily about in his community and, as a black man, he didn't want another label. After becoming a preacher he felt that admitting his illness would show a lack of trust in God, and so for years, Michael suffered in silence.

Until recently, very little was known about PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). With new technologies, such as brain imaging, scientists have begun to search for trauma's biological fingerprints, and it's become clear that experience can produce physical changes in us. Advances in the biology of the disease, and in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, are helping many patients to cope with their PTSD.

In the U.S., as recently as the early 1970's, homosexuals were considered mentally ill. Watch this clip, in which a board-certified psychiatrist, 'Dr. Anonymous', at a 1972 American Psychiatric Association conference, announces "I'm a homosexual, I am a psychiatrist." See how, over the decades, and as defined by the APA, the boundaries shifted between the so-called ill and the so-called healthy.

What is mental illness and who is normal? Definitions of these have been defined differently over the centuries, but the boundary between illness and sickness remains very fluid. There are no biological tests to diagnose mental illness, so societies decide what constitutes behavioral and social norms, and where the lines of deviance exist.

Treating Schizophrenia early in a person's illness can increase the chances of success. Like many suffering from hallucinations, however, Cecilia McGough found that the stigma around her illness made it very difficult to talk about. After an incident put her in a psych ward for ten days, Cecilia gathered up the courage to open up about her illness using social media as a platform.

Like other healthcare industrial complexes, the mental health field operates around a centre defined by a whiteness of theory and practice. It’s a colonization that has rarely ever been questioned and the need to dismantle it has never been more urgent. Mental health practitioners serving racialized groups come together to shed light on the racism that undercuts their progressive practices.

This video is a call to action to invite discussion, through social media platforms, on the topic of mental health. We hear from five people appearing in the series 'Mysteries of Mental Illness', who each give a brief description of the struggles they face. In an effort to de-stigmatize mental illness, we ask the question 'What is Your Normal?', understanding that it is different for everyone.

A preview of DECOLONIZING MENTAL HEALTH, an original digital series that dismantles the racism underscoring the mental healthcare industry. By focusing its gaze on the transformative work of therapists and individuals of color, it calls for redressal of the ways in which we define psychiatric illness and health.