ReThreading Madness

Bernadine Fox
  • 5.0 (2)
  • MENTAL HEALTH
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Bernadine Fox brings a rare and powerful combination of lived experience, long-term disability rights advocacy, and creative insight to her role as host and producer of ReThreading Madness, the award-winning radio show and podcast that dares to shift how we think about mental health. A recipient of the 2022 Courage to Come Back Award, Bernadine is a white settler of Scottish, Irish, and French heritage with a familial connection to the Tsuut'ina nation.  She has spent over 30 years advocating for those with lived experience of mental health challenges including survivors of trauma and therapy harm. She is an intersectional feminist, artist, and author of Coming to Voice: Surviving an Abusive Therapist—a memoir that confronts the devastating misuse of power in therapeutic relationships. Bernadine is not a clinician, but she is a deeply informed mental health advocate with firsthand knowledge of trauma, CPTSD, and disability. Her background includes decades of work as a support worker for survivors of severe childhood trauma, a trauma consultant, and public speaker. She has led expressive arts groups in collaboration with Richmond Mental Health and Gallery Gachet, where she also served on the board and helped publish The Ear magazine. She has served on the board of such organizations as Kickstart (Disability Arts and Culture) which focused on breaking down barriers to creative access for people with disabilities. What sets Bernadine apart as a radio host is her unwavering commitment to telling the truth—even when it's uncomfortable. She doesn't shy away from difficult conversations; she invites them. With compassion and clarity, she brings forward voices that are often silenced, challenges harmful narratives, and explores the messy realities of mental health, trauma, and recovery. ReThreading Madness is more than a show. Under Bernadine's guidance, it's a platform for unfiltered, survivor-centered dialogue—one that refuses to pathologize trauma and instead builds community through shared truth.  RTM won the Breaking Barriers CRABO award through the NCRA.  Bernadine currently lives in the forest with two cats, raises her grandchild, and continues to create, speak, and advocate for a world where mental health care is ethical, accessible, and just. ​ ReThreading Madness is produced and aired on the ancestral and unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.  We extend our gratitude and appreciation to the Indigenous people who have been living and working on this land from time immemorial. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

  1. 4D AGO

    Choosing to Breathe with author Emma Stevens

    Choosing to Breathe with Emma Stevens In this episode, Emma Stevens joins Bernadine on ReThreading Madness to talk about what it means to choose life, truth, and selfhood after years of silence, fragmentation, and survival. An adult adoptee raised to feel gratitude rather than grief, Emma reflects on how early relinquishment, adoption, and unspoken trauma shaped her sense of identity and belonging. She speaks candidly about the long internal work of listening to the parts of herself that were forced to stay quiet, and the moment when merely surviving was no longer enough. The conversation weaves through themes from Emma’s memoirs, including Choosing to Breathe and The Gathering Place, where she traces her search for truth about her origins and the slow, deliberate process of reuniting a fractured sense of self. Emma describes how identity can splinter when a child learns early that certain questions, emotions, or needs are unwelcome, and how reclaiming wholeness requires welcoming even the most wounded parts back into the story. Her reflections are raw, meditative, and grounded in lived experience rather than abstraction. Emma also speaks about her earlier experience of exploitation within a therapeutic relationship, explored in A Fire Is Coming, and how earlier attachment wounds created vulnerability to professional harm. Rather than centering pathology, this episode focuses on agency. On learning to trust one’s own perception, on speaking truth to power, and on choosing to breathe fully into a life that is no longer shaped by secrecy or coercion. This is a conversation for anyone who has felt they were performing themselves for others, and who is ready to begin living from a place that is truly their own. You can find Emma’s books on Amazon Bernadine’s monologue 50 Years After I Fled can be downloaded at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/fifty-years-after-i-fled-rural-alberta-is-still-failing-to-protect-its-children--69044526 Music by Shari Ulrich, Omar Rudberg   Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

    1 hr

  2. JAN 21

    Al Galves on MindFreedom Shield and Human Rights in Mental Health

    In this week’s episode of Rethreading Madness, Bernadine speaks with psychologist and long-time MindFreedom International board member Al Galves about the deep systemic issues in contemporary mental health care. Drawing from decades of clinical practice and activism, Al challenges the dominant bio psychiatric model, arguing that most people experiencing extreme states are not suffering from “broken brains,” but are responding to pain, trauma, and social conditions that have gone unrecognized. He explains how the profession’s unquestioned assumptions shape public attitudes, legal systems, and the treatment people receive — often to their detriment. Together, they explore the work of MindFreedom International, an organization founded by survivors of forced psychiatric treatment who refused to accept coercion as care. Al details the MindFreedom Shield, a global solidarity network that mobilizes members to advocate for individuals who have been involuntarily hospitalized or forcibly medicated. Through coordinated phone calls, emails, and public pressure, Shield members confront institutions directly, helping free people or improve their conditions while offering something even more vital: the knowledge that someone on the outside sees them, believes them, and is fighting for their human rights. The conversation widens to look at why coercive practices persist, how legal systems reinforce them, and what happens when professionals treat trauma as pathology instead of a human response to harm. Bernadine and Al discuss the dangers of a society that equates distress with incompetence, the long history of dismissing survivors’ realities, and the urgent need for alternatives such as Soteria houses, Open Dialogue, and peer-led supports. This is a powerful episode for anyone interested in human rights in mental health, systemic reform, or survivor-driven advocacy — and a reminder that solidarity can be lifesaving. Music: Shari Ulrich  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

    1 hr

  3. JAN 16

    A Word About Mental Health with Isabella Mori

    A Word About Mental Health In this episode, we turn the spotlight on the power of creative expression and shared dialogue. Host Bernadine Fox speaks with three remarkable guests who have helped shape and sustain this ongoing community conversation: A Word About Mental Health Isabella Mori, MEd — writer, retired counsellor, and organizer of A Word About Mental Health — discusses how storytelling, poetry, and connection can support recovery and understanding. Léa Taranto, a disabled Chinese Jewish Canadian writer living with OCD and comorbid disorders, shares how writing becomes both anchor and release. Her debut novel, A Drop in the Ocean, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Forest of Reading’s White Pine Award. Lynn, a retired English professor, writer, and advocate for brain health, reflects on her experiences as a participant in the series and on the healing power of shared presence and curiosity. Together they explore what happens when we talk openly about mental health, how art and community intertwine, and why sometimes the most powerful act of healing begins with a single word. A Word About Mental Health: where stories, art, and conversation help rethread the world one voice at a time. Music by Shari Ulrich, Billie Ellish and Callum Scott   Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

    1 hr
  4. From Bunny Hugs to Transgression: Conversations on Healing and Identity with Todd Rennebohm

    12/30/2025

    From Bunny Hugs to Transgression: Conversations on Healing and Identity with Todd Rennebohm

    From Bunny Hugs to Transgression: Conversations on Healing and Identity with Todd Rennebohm Todd Rennebohm is a Canadian mental health advocate, author, public speaker, and host of the podcast Bunny Hugs and Mental Health, where he creates a free, open space for honest conversations about mental illness, trauma, suicide attempts, addiction, and recovery. A suicide attempt survivor who is in long-term recovery from substance abuse, Todd brings lived experience and compassion to dialogues with professionals, survivors, and families affected by mental health and addiction. His podcast has featured hundreds of episodes of candid storytelling and is recognized among top mental health podcasts for its combination of depth, vulnerability, and warmth. Bunny Hugs Podcast+1 Todd is also the author of the children’s book Sometimes Daddy Cries, a story told through the eyes of a child whose father experiences depression, designed to help families talk about mental health with sensitivity and insight. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

    1 hr
  5. Homecoming: Ovid Thomas Reclaims History on the Poundmaker Cree Nation

    12/29/2025

    Homecoming: Ovid Thomas Reclaims History on the Poundmaker Cree Nation

    Homecoming: Ovid Thomas Reclaims History on the Poundmaker Cree Nation This week on ReThreading Madness, Bernadine speaks with Ovid Thomas, a Sixties Scoop survivor and social media creator known for his educational content on Cree history and the Poundmaker Cree Nation.  Taken from his family at just two weeks old, Ovid grew up in a non-Indigenous home in northern Manitoba, facing  abuse, neglect, and systemic discrimination. Ovid shares his journey of survival—from enduring racial bias in education and being falsely accused of cheating, to challenging policies that barred First Nations students from university-track courses. He opens up about how trauma, partial deafness, and years of misdiagnosis shaped his early life, and how returning to his community became a path toward healing.   Together, Bernadine and Ovid explore his reconnection with the Poundmaker Cree Nation, where he discovered family, belonging, and cultural roots long denied to him. They discuss his efforts to correct mistranslations of speeches by Poundmaker and Big Bear, his research into colonial distortions of Cree history, and his ongoing fight against medical and institutional racism. This conversation moves from the personal to the political—linking Ovid’s lived experience with the broader legacy of colonial systems that continue to harm Indigenous peoples. It’s a story of truthtelling, reclamation, and resilience. Music by Shari Ulrich Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

    1 hr
  6. Theo Cuthand, TherapyToo, and Venge Dixon on Art, Neurodiversity, Therapy Harm vand Survival

    12/29/2025

    Theo Cuthand, TherapyToo, and Venge Dixon on Art, Neurodiversity, Therapy Harm vand Survival

    Theo Cuthand, TherapyToo, and Venge Dixon on Art, Neurodiversity, Therapy Harm and Survival This episode brings together three voices working at the intersections of madness, creativity, survivorship, and resistance, each approaching mental health from lived experience rather than abstraction. Theo Jean Cuthand is a celebrated Indigenous filmmaker, visual artist, and game creator whose work explores Queer and trans identity, Indigeneity, love, and madness. With films and installations shown internationally, from MoMA and the Whitney Biennial to Berlinale and ImagineNATIVE, Theo speaks about using experimental media and game design to make inner experience visible. His video game A Bipolar Journey draws directly from his lived experience of bipolar disorder, challenging clinical narratives by centering self-knowledge, agency, and art as survival. Amy Nordhues joins the conversation as a survivor of therapist abuse and co-creator of the documentary series #TherapyToo. Groomed and assaulted by a psychiatrist as an adult, following earlier childhood abuse, Amy has become a leading advocate exposing harm within therapeutic and faith-based systems. She is the author of the award-winning memoir Prayed Upon: Breaking Free from Therapist Abuse and speaks candidly about what happens when systems meant to help instead exploit vulnerability, and why survivor-led storytelling is essential for accountability and change. Also joining is Venge Dixon, a writer, poet, visual artist, and contributor to Off the Map, an anthology of writings about mental health. Venge reflects on living with mental illness across a lifetime and using creative practice as a way to resist the rigid, punitive categories imposed on people labeled “crazy.” Her work explores creativity as both self-definition and responsibility, particularly for those living outside social norms and within marginalized identities. Together, these guests explore how art, storytelling, and truth-telling function not as therapy-lite or inspiration narratives, but as acts of survival, resistance, and reclamation. This episode asks what becomes possible when lived experience is treated as knowledge, and when people most impacted by mental health systems are centered in shaping the conversation. You can find more information about Theo Cuthand at https://www.tjcuthand.com/ If you are interested in donating to the Docuseries TherapyToo information on how to do that can be found on their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/people/TherapyToo-Docuseries/61577028284959/ Venge Dixon can be found on Instragram at https://www.instagram.com/vengetable/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

    1 hr
  7. Beyond “Don’t Kill Yourself… Yet”: Practical Tools for Survival with Michael McTeique

    12/29/2025

    Beyond “Don’t Kill Yourself… Yet”: Practical Tools for Survival with Michael McTeique

    Beyond “Don’t Kill Yourself… Yet”: Practical Tools for Survival with Michael McTeique Content note: This episode discusses suicidal ideation in a non-graphic, supportive, and prevention-focused context. In this episode, we speak with Michael McTeigue, author of Don't Kill Yourself… Yet, about practical ways to interrupt persistent suicidal thoughts and regain a sense of agency when life feels unbearable. Drawing from his own lived experience with chronic depression and his work as a crisis-intervention and suicide-prevention hotline counselor, McTeigue shares the framework he calls the Seven Life Hacks. These are simple, memorable tools designed to help people break cycles of self-reinforcing negative thinking, reduce emotional overwhelm, and make day-to-day life feel more survivable and meaningful. Rather than offering abstract theory or platitudes, this conversation focuses on concrete strategies that can be used immediately, especially during moments when despair, anxiety, or hopelessness feel relentless. Each “hack” builds on the one before it, offering structure and perspective for people who may feel stuck, exhausted, or unable to see a way forward. Listener responses to McTeigue’s work often describe feeling clearer, steadier, and more capable of navigating difficult moments without being consumed by them. This episode explores why straightforward tools can matter so much when someone is struggling, and how small shifts in thinking and action can create breathing room, even when nothing else seems to help.  As reviewed in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/books/how-not-to-kill-yourself-clancy-martin.html Music by Shari Ulrich Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

    1 hr
  8. Fifty Years After I Fled: Rural Alberta is Still Failing to Protect Its Children

    12/14/2025

    Fifty Years After I Fled: Rural Alberta is Still Failing to Protect Its Children

    Fifty Years After I Fled: Rural Alberta is Still Failing to Protect Its Children In this extraordinary solo episode of ReThreading Madness, host Bernadine Fox steps out from behind the mic to share one of the most personal stories she has ever told on air. Fifty years ago, as a 16-yr old teenager in rural southern Alberta, Bernadine ran away to save her life. She was growing up in a small farming community shaped by isolation, silence, and deeply entrenched cultural norms that left children vulnerable and without protection. In this monologue, she reflects on what it meant to grow up in a landscape where for some danger was ever-present and help was miles away. Now, half a century later, a family estate process brought her back into the systems  she had escaped. What unfolded in that rural courtroom echoed patterns she remembered from childhood — disbelief, minimization, and narratives that made her feel unseen. She describes these events from her own lived perspective, exploring how trauma, geography, and culture intersect in ways that continue to leave rural women and children behind. Bernadine also speaks to the broader crisis: in many rural areas, sexual and domestic violence rates remain significantly higher than in cities, and lifesaving services remain out of reach. Silence, she argues, protects the status quo — not children. This is not a story about blame. It is a story about systems, intergenerational harm, and what happens when progress bypasses entire small pockets of the country. It is also a story of reclamation. Bernadine shares her decades of work as a mental-health advocate, writer, disability-rights activist, artist, and host of this very program, reminding listeners that none of us are not defined by what was done to us, but by the life we build in its aftermath. Raw, poetic, and fiercely courageous, this episode challenges us to reconsider what safety means, who receives it, and who is left behind. A necessary listen for anyone concerned with trauma-informed justice, rural equity, or the ways silence travels across generations — and what it takes to break it. The episode is rounded off with a re-air of an interview with Jamie Smallboy and Alli Geisbrecht (Gees Brecht) here to talk about a piece of art that was exhibited at Gachet’s Oppenheimer Annual show that addresses issue of MMIWG2S – which stands for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2 Spirit people.  Jame is Cree and single mother of five from Maskwachees, Alberta. She is a full-time student at Langara and te founder of the Red Ribbon Skirt Project for the families of our MMIWG2S.   Ally is a child of immigrants from Hong Kong who reside in Vancouver / Chinatown.  She is an activist, person of colour, mental health occupational therapist, and a resident of Vancouver’s DTES.  The piece of artwork these two collaborated on combines photographic images by Ally and with poetry by Jamie. Jamie shares this poem with us on this episode.  music by Shari Ulrich and Good Vibes Tribe If this episode moves you, helps you think differently, or sparks a conversation, please take a moment to like, share, or follow wherever you listen. Your support helps us keep amplifying lived experience and changing how we talk about madness, trauma, and recovery—one voice at a time. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

    1 hr
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Bernadine Fox brings a rare and powerful combination of lived experience, long-term disability rights advocacy, and creative insight to her role as host and producer of ReThreading Madness, the award-winning radio show and podcast that dares to shift how we think about mental health. A recipient of the 2022 Courage to Come Back Award, Bernadine is a white settler of Scottish, Irish, and French heritage with a familial connection to the Tsuut'ina nation.  She has spent over 30 years advocating for those with lived experience of mental health challenges including survivors of trauma and therapy harm. She is an intersectional feminist, artist, and author of Coming to Voice: Surviving an Abusive Therapist—a memoir that confronts the devastating misuse of power in therapeutic relationships. Bernadine is not a clinician, but she is a deeply informed mental health advocate with firsthand knowledge of trauma, CPTSD, and disability. Her background includes decades of work as a support worker for survivors of severe childhood trauma, a trauma consultant, and public speaker. She has led expressive arts groups in collaboration with Richmond Mental Health and Gallery Gachet, where she also served on the board and helped publish The Ear magazine. She has served on the board of such organizations as Kickstart (Disability Arts and Culture) which focused on breaking down barriers to creative access for people with disabilities. What sets Bernadine apart as a radio host is her unwavering commitment to telling the truth—even when it's uncomfortable. She doesn't shy away from difficult conversations; she invites them. With compassion and clarity, she brings forward voices that are often silenced, challenges harmful narratives, and explores the messy realities of mental health, trauma, and recovery. ReThreading Madness is more than a show. Under Bernadine's guidance, it's a platform for unfiltered, survivor-centered dialogue—one that refuses to pathologize trauma and instead builds community through shared truth.  RTM won the Breaking Barriers CRABO award through the NCRA.  Bernadine currently lives in the forest with two cats, raises her grandchild, and continues to create, speak, and advocate for a world where mental health care is ethical, accessible, and just. ​ ReThreading Madness is produced and aired on the ancestral and unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.  We extend our gratitude and appreciation to the Indigenous people who have been living and working on this land from time immemorial. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

Information

  • Creator
    Bernadine Fox
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    119
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Bernadine Fox
  • Show Website
    ReThreading Madness