Two professionals meet at a street corner in downtown Victoria. They set their laptop cases down and begin to talk to each other. One of them leans against the wall of a building. Suddenly two police officers arrive and start yelling obscenities at them. They point out a no loitering sign in the window of a nearby restaurant and while one officer demands identification and issues trespassing tickets, the other confiscates their laptops as abandoned property and throws them in the trunk of a police cruiser.

Does that sound familiar? Of course not. This type of thing would never happen to people who look like consumers or property owners. If you read that paragraph again, replace "'professionals"' with "'homeless people."' It makes much more sense now.

Description(English follows):

Le mois de la santé mentale est enfin arrivé! Ce mois consiste en une série d'événements qui met l'accent sur la santé mentale dans toutes ses contextes. Les événements seront à la fois amusants et aussi éducatifs -- Joignez-vous à nous! Consultez notre horaire - quelques événements sont ci-dessous et il y a plus à venir!

Atelier de musicothérapie Studio danse de Montpetit

People with mental illnesses are often forced into the Canadian psychiatric complex, whether through inpatient detainment, prescription of drugs or other ways. Mad movements in Canada mirror much of the same principles as the disability rights movement, by using mental illnesses as a source of pride and an identity.

Though there is nothing wrong with voluntarily seeking counselling or drug treatments, when these are interventions taken on behalf of people's well being by the system things become problematic. Often the rights of people in the psychiatric complex are trampled, they are manipulated and coerced.

Bracing for the Winter blahs? Dreading the dumps? There's hope!

Come to a free seasonal "Food n' Mood" workshop with Pauline Sok Yin Hwang. Chinese medicine offers time-tested wisdom for rolling with the punches, going with the flow, and balancing yourself through the different seasons. Winter is the season of the kidney-adrenal system, a critically important foundation for the whole body, how we flourish, and how we cope with stress. Learn to use Winter to nourish and rejuvenate your kidney-adrenals, and yourself.

Bring: your dinner - take-out, store-bought, home-cooked, whatever. (Don't worry, you won't have to share it with anyone!)

You'll leave with: helpful recipes, tips, meditations, and a newfound appreciation (or at least tolerance!) of Winter.

As an eviction notice looms over Occupy Toronto, some fear that the loss of the tent city could be devastating for participants with mental health issues who have found themselves in a supportive atmosphere they don't often find in the outside community.

Gail Trottman is a social worker who leads the Health and Wellness team -- a mental health peer support system, staffed by Occupy volunteers -- at Occupy Toronto. She is worried that the anxiety around eviction could trigger a crisis for people who have mental health issues in the park. "With the eviction notice coming up earlier this week, we started to notice people were more tense," she says.

Mad Students Society (MSS), created in 2005, is a community of students who are attending or planning to attend institutions of post-secondary or adult education and have past/present experiences with psychiatric/mental health systems.

We meet monthly and communicate through an email listserv to support each other, discover tools for self-advocacy, and connect with our history and broader social movements.

Our next peer support meeting is in downtown Toronto. The MSS discussion listserv is open to members anywhere in the world. In-person meetings coming January 2012 to Hamilton and North York!

Mad Students Society (MSS), created in 2005, is a community of students who are attending or planning to attend institutions of post-secondary or adult education and have past and/or present experiences with psychiatric and/or mental health systems.