If you don't like the stereotypical role you've been given, why not rewrite the script? That's what three SFU students did by creating and broadcasting videos on YouTube, detailing their personal experiences with serious mental illnesses.

The documentary-style videos were a project for the Canadian Mental Health Association's Mental Health Week. Each tells a story of a young man with a mental illness that could ruin his life were it not treated properly.

Burnaby resident Brent Seal is 26 and in his last year of business studies. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and is the founder of Students for Mental Wellness.

In his video segment, he explains how there were some signs of his mental illness, but he didn't notice them, and then his psychiatrist told him it was schizophrenia.

At first, he couldn't drive, go to school or live on his own.

"I just thought my life was over," Seal says. He did some research, searched for success stories but didn't really find any, so he decided to write his own.

"I'm not afraid of my illness. I feel that it has helped me in some ways because it's made me more appreciative of things. It's made me not take things for granted so much," he says. "It's made me a harder worker and passionate about a new issue which is mental health."

Taylor Kagel, 24, also lives in Burnaby. He graduated in 2009 from computing science and likes mountain biking and hiking.

He had depression and anxiety in the first year of university, but he figured it was the regular ups and downs of life. He wasn't diagnosed till the end of second year, and it took him another year before he could talk to his friends about it. He needed to open up first, to start the dialogue, and he's now committed to staying open about his mental illness.

Joe Roback, 24, is a psychology student with Type 1 bipolar disorder, with severe mania. He is president of SFU's chess club, and he writes music as a creative outlet. For him, the hardest part of having a mental illness is the attached stigma and misunderstanding.

Sitting in the sun on a grassy field atop SFU's Burnaby campus, the three young men recount their experiences of speaking out.

"The idea was just to put a positive face on mental illness, showing that people can get back to school or studies or work and live happy productive lives," Seal says.

"They really are just our personal stories and how we view stigma and how we view possible changes as far as stereotypes and negative attitudes around mental illness," Kagel adds.

The trio describes some of the typical stereotypes of people with mental illnesses: lazy, homeless, unable to take care of themselves, untrustworthy, unreliable.

"It's often made worse by movies and the media and the odd random escapade on a campus and dramatic suicide attempt," Seal says.

What makes things more difficult is those images are often internalized, as Kagel explains.

"Self stigma, that was a big thing for me, I think, actually having those beliefs myself," he says, citing stereotypes of depressed people as being boring or weak.

"I would go to great lengths trying to hide, because I thought that's how people would react, that's how they would see me, because that's how I saw myself at the time."

Kagel says he had to build a stable self-identity that incorporated the illness and a lot of other core characteristics.

Another way of breaking down stereotypes is through positive interaction, as described by Seal when talking about a hiking group they started with Students for Mental Wellness.

Originally, the group was for people with mental illnesses, but they expanded it to include family and friends. They realized that people who don't have mental illnesses need to mix with those who do in order to understand them better. Now, you can't tell who is diagnosed and who isn't, Seal says.

Besides the hiking group, the three are also part of the Lowdown, a speakers' bureau run by the Mood Disorder Association of B.C. The three meet with and talk about their experiences with various audiences - high schools, colleges and police, for example.

The concept is the same one illustrated in the videos: Tell your story, dispel the myths and offer positive alternative to the stereotypes.

All of the public speaking has helped the men immensely.

Seal says it's nurtured his self-esteem and personal development.

Roback agrees, saying you get to make a difference while moving towards self-actualization - to realize one's full potential.

Kagel describes it as incredibly rewarding, almost like exposure therapy that helps with his social anxiety.

In the meantime, Kagel keeps recovery on the mind, but not as a destination per se.

"It's not something that you can just cure. You can get a lot better, but I think it's always helpful to stay aware of it, realize you're going to have ups and downs, bad days, maybe even full relapses, but you still move back completely away from harm reduction and to the recovery model. You hear that saying, 'recovery is possible.' It sounds kind of trite, and in a sense it's true, as long as you view it as a journey of recovery. It doesn't have to seem overly optimistic. It actually happens, and I think perhaps the three of us are examples of that."

For more on Students for Mental Wellness, visit www.sfmw.ca.

To see the videos, go to Jennifer Moreau's blog, Community Conversations, at www.burnabynow.com.