Mysteries of Mental Illness

Cecilia McGough has struggled with hallucinations since she was a little kid. Growing up in a religious community she hid what she was going through, fearing it was some kind of punishment. Even as a young adult, while making a name for herself in astrophysics, she couldn't escape the stigma of her illness, even in mental health settings.

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.

Ginny Fuchs discovered boxing in college. She is now an Olympic boxer and rates in the top three in the world. Though she has the self-control to spar eight rounds, hit the bag for six rounds, and do a 30-minute run, she can't clean a countertop and wash her hands in less than two hours, due to her OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). She is working to understand why.

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.

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.