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 with the support of Vancouver Coop Radio CFRO 100.FM 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. Intersectionality Mental Health, MAID, and Suicidality with Rebecca Deutsch

    12h ago

    Intersectionality Mental Health, MAID, and Suicidality with Rebecca Deutsch

    The Intersectionality of Mental Health, MAID, and Suicidality with Rebecca Deutsch Bernadine Fox sits down with Rebecca Deutsch, PhD candidate in Gender, Feminist and Women's Studies at York University, for a conversation that refuses to stay on safe ground. The topic is Medical Assistance in Dying and the still-unresolved question of whether Canadians whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental disorder should have access to it. This episode was recorded before the June 17, 2026 release of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying report, which recommended indefinitely excluding people with mental illness from MAID eligibility. A dissenting opinion from three senators noted that more than two-thirds of witnesses called were publicly opposed to expansion and that people with lived experience were not prioritized. That critique lands directly in the middle of everything discussed here. Rebecca brings lived experience of suicidality and loss alongside months of close discourse analysis of the MAID MDSUMC policy documents. What she found in that language tells you a great deal about whose suffering counts. She traces how "suicidality" gets invoked as a threat in the policy, used to separate valid requests from illegitimate ones, and what that framing does to people navigating both realities at once. The conversation moves into the structural: Canada's history of eugenic practice running through asylum institutionalization into the present, where MAID expands while housing, community support, and meaningful care remain inaccessible. Rebecca describes a case where a woman cancelled her MAID request after community funding allowed her to leave a living situation that was making her disability unmanageable. The request was not for death. It was for conditions she could survive in. The through-line across all of it is who is in the room when these decisions get made. Psychiatrists, lawyers, and doctors shaped this policy. No one with lived experience was consulted. No Indigenous elders were brought in. Rebecca and Bernadine are clear: MAID without housing, community, and the genuine participation of affected people is not a compassionate policy. This is one of those episodes that stays with you. This is one of those episodes that stays with you. Music by Shari Ulrich, Tom Odell, Fearless Soul  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support. www.rethreadingmadness.ca

    1 hr
  2. People, Place and Purpose: Jim Gottstein on Dismantling a Mental Health System That Harms the People It Claims to Help

    Jun 9

    People, Place and Purpose: Jim Gottstein on Dismantling a Mental Health System That Harms the People It Claims to Help

    People, Place and Purpose: Jim Gottstein on Dismantling a Mental Health System That Harms the People It Claims to Help Jim Gottstein is an Alaskan lawyer who, at 29, found himself jumping out of a second floor window in his underwear at 1am after days without sleep. He was hauled off to a psychiatric facility, told he would never practice law again, and that he would need to be on neuroleptics for the rest of his life. He went on to win multiple Supreme Court cases. Jim joins Bernadine today to talk about his Report on Improving Mental Health Outcomes, a heavily sourced paper co-authored with four other researchers and built for policymakers and funders that lands like a gut punch to nearly everything mainstream psychiatry asks us to accept as fact. The report's argument is not subtle: the mental health system's standard treatments are colossally counterproductive and harmful, they are routinely forced on unwilling patients, and the research backing them has been manipulated, ghost-written, and in some cases outright falsified by the pharmaceutical companies funding it. The numbers are hard to sit with. Since the introduction of Thorazine in the mid-1950s, the disability rate among people diagnosed with serious mental illness has increased more than six-fold. The current long-term recovery rate for people maintained on neuroleptics sits at 5%. Approaches that avoid neuroleptics from the start, like Open Dialogue in Finland and the original Soteria House study, achieved recovery rates near 80%. People who get off neuroleptics after being on them see that number climb back to 40%. None of this, Jim says, is being presented to the judges making commitment decisions. The conversation goes deep into the full architecture of what is wrong. They talk about the chemical imbalance myth that official psychiatry now quietly disavows while individual psychiatrists continue to use it to secure compliance. They talk about the way disagreeing with your own diagnosis gets recorded as a symptom of your illness. They talk about the legal fiction of informed consent, the use of psychiatric incarceration as social control, and the research showing that hospitalization is astronomically correlated with increased suicide rates rather than reduced ones. They talk about the legal system's near-total failure to represent people facing commitment, proceedings the report characterizes plainly as shams. And they talk about what psychiatry does to children, including infants, and what happens when a six year old in Massachusetts named Rebecca Riley is given neuroleptics and dies, and the psychiatrist who prescribed them is granted immunity to testify against her parents. But this episode is not only about what is broken. Jim and Bernadine spend real time on what actually works. Open Dialogue, which meets people in crisis within 24 hours, keeps them out of hospital, and reduced schizophrenia diagnoses in its region of Finland by 90%. Peer respites, small home-like settings staffed entirely by people with lived experience, built on trust and voluntary participation rather than authority and compliance. Soteria House. Housing First. Employment as a therapeutic intervention. The Hearing Voices Network. Warm lines that will not call the police on you. Non-police community response teams. Psychotherapy. A range of international programs, from Zimbabwe to Japan to Sweden to Belgium, built around the report's central organizing principle: that what people need to recover is not drugs and incarceration but people, place, and purpose. His book, The Zyprexa Papers, is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, Kindle and Audible. His Report on Improving Mental Health Outcomes and is the subject of his presentation at the PAIMI Symposium in October. Music by Shari Ulrich Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support. www.rethreadingmadness.ca

    1 hr
  3. David Roche on Reclaiming Humanity Beyond Appearance

    Jun 2

    David Roche on Reclaiming Humanity Beyond Appearance

    David Roche on Reclaiming Humanity Beyond Appearance What happens when the thing the world notices first about you becomes the very thing that teaches others how to see? In this deeply moving conversation, Bernadine Fox sits down with David Roche, a celebrated storyteller, disability arts pioneer, and recipient of the Order of Canada.  This is a re-air of a 2022 interview done in Memory of David who recently passed away.  Born with a facial difference, David spent decades challenging the assumptions people make about beauty, worth, disability, and belonging. Together they explored the hidden ways our culture equates beauty with goodness and difference with danger—from Hollywood villains marked by scars to the everyday biases that shape how we see ourselves and others. David reflected on a life that has taken him from childhood innocence and devastating rejection to activism, performance, recovery, and international recognition. Along the way, he offered a powerful reminder that every one of us carries a hidden sense of being "not enough" and that healing begins when we stop hiding those parts of ourselves. Warm, funny, insightful, and profoundly human, this conversation asked us to look beyond the face we present to the world and consider what it means to truly belong. It is ultimately a story about resilience, community, and discovering that our greatest differences may also be our greatest gifts. Music by Shari Ulrich, Christina Acquilara, and Joni MItchell Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support. www.rethreadingmadness.ca

    1 hr

  4. May 27

    Standing Up in a World That Tried to Break You

    Trigger Warning:  This program talks about sibling violence and suicide ideology. This week on ReThreading Madness, Bernadine Fox speaks with three individuals - Sandra Yuen, Penny Marie, and Venge - about survival, identity, creativity, and what it means to keep living in a world that often punishes difference. Sandra Yuen who lives with schzophrenia discusses her new prose poetry collection I Want to Be Buried Standing Up, the tactile magic of writing on an old typewriter, neurodivergence, and creating art that refuses neat categories. Penny Marie shares the devastating realities of sibling abuse, growing up autistic and trans in a violent environment, and the lifelong impact of being scapegoated inside a family system that refused to protect her. Venge reflects on suicide, isolation, and the unexpected way a cat named Linus became the reason she stayed alive long enough to rediscover connection, nature, and herself. Together, these conversations explore what happens when people reclaim the stories that others tried to silence and how creativity, animals, language, and truth-telling can become acts of survival. Music by Shari Ulrich and Jann Arden  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support. www.rethreadingmadness.ca

    1 hr
  5. A Conversation with Jonathan Rogers at 89 on Getting Old and Dying

    Apr 23

    A Conversation with Jonathan Rogers at 89 on Getting Old and Dying

    A Conversation with Jonathan Rogers at 89 on Getting Old and Dying Host Bernadine Fox is joined by Jonathan Rogers — animator, artist, former supervising producer at Disney and Marvel, stand-up comedian, and the man she was once engaged to — for a rare and honest conversation about aging, dying, and what remains. At 89, Jonathan reflects on a career that took him from Second City Toronto to NBC to Hollywood, on the childhood sexual abuse that shaped the first part of his life, on losing the ability to draw after more than eight decades as an artist, and on what it feels like when the tangible world begins to fade, the body begins to slow down, when one becomes invisible to the world, and what it feels like to be near the end of a life that was genuinely well-lived. Music: Shari Ulrich   Photo by: Jim Neiss Transcripts available upon request to rethreadingmadness@coopradio.org Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support. www.rethreadingmadness.ca

    1 hr
  6. The Marks We Miss: Forensics, Trafficking, and the Path to True Trauma-Informed Justice  

    Apr 15

    The Marks We Miss: Forensics, Trafficking, and the Path to True Trauma-Informed Justice  

    The Marks We Miss: Forensics, Trafficking, and the Path to True Trauma-Informed Justice   Trigger Warning: This episode contains detailed discussions regarding human trafficking, domestic violence, and sexual assault. It includes forensic descriptions of non-fatal strangulation, and the trafficking of children. We also discuss systemic failures affecting Indigenous and Black communities. Listener discretion is strongly advised. Trauma is the primary driver of mental health struggles; Rethreading Madness exists to expose how it happens and, more importantly, how we can survive it Host Bernadine Fox speaks with Canadian author and dental professional James Frizzel who is a forensic dental professional with specialized training from McGill University, the Sûreté du Québec, and the University of Tennessee’s "Body Farm." A graduate of Harvard Medical School’s "Train the Trainer" program for human trafficking, he also holds certifications in strangulation prevention and clandestine grave recovery.  Drawing on that background, Frizzel discusses the overlooked connections between domestic violence and sex trafficking, the physical and neurological effects of non-fatal strangulation, and why medical and law enforcement systems routinely misidentify or dismiss victims. They also cover the disproportionate impact on Indigenous and Black women and girls in Canada and the US, what a genuinely trauma-informed response could look like from disclosure through to court, the particular harm done to children trafficked within their own families, and the gap between legislation on the books and justice in practice. The conversation also takes in the Epstein files and what communities and professionals need to understand if survivors are going to be better protected.    Music by Shari Ulrich and Lauren Daigle Transcripts available upon request to rethreadingmadness@coopradio.org Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support. www.rethreadingmadness.ca

    1 hr
  7. BiPolar Princess: Victoria Maxwell

    Mar 11

    BiPolar Princess: Victoria Maxwell

    BiPolar Princess: Victoria Maxwell What happens when a spiritual awakening is mistaken for psychosis?  And what if the difference between harm and healing is simply being listened to? In this powerful and often funny conversation, Victoria Maxwell joins ReThreading Madness to talk about bipolar disorder, psychosis, stigma, and the fine line between spiritual experience and mental health crisis. A former actor turned internationally recognized theatrical keynote speaker, Victoria shares how a meditation retreat catapulted her into an altered state that was both profoundly meaningful and deeply destabilizing. For years, her experience was pathologized without curiosity—until one nurse asked a single question that changed everything. Together, Bernadine and Victoria unpack language reclamation (“crazy,” “mad,” “bipolar princess”), media portrayals of violence and mental illness, workplace stigma, and what happens when leaders model vulnerability from the top down. This episode is honest, nuanced, and unexpectedly humorous—a reminder that lived experience is not a stereotype, and that healing often begins with being seen. This episode includes snippets of comedic shows from Danny Docimo from ZaniesComedy and David Granrier from Stand Up For Mental Health. Victoria Maxwell is an internationally recognized keynote speaker, performing artist, and mental health advocate who blends three decades as an actor with lived experience of bipolar disorder, anxiety, and psychosis. Named a mental health leader by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, her theatrical keynote That’s Just Crazy Talk has been recognized by the Mental Health Commission of Canada as one of the country’s top anti-stigma interventions. Victoria is also a blogger for Psychology Today and serves as a Lived Experience Strategic Advisor for BC Mental Health and Substance Use Services. Learn more at www.victoriamaxwell.com.   Music:  I Found Myself/Clendening, It’s Alright/Shari Ulrich, YOY/Siibii Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support. www.rethreadingmadness.ca

    1 hr
  8. Systemic Trauma and the Indian Act with Bob Joseph

    Mar 6

    Systemic Trauma and the Indian Act with Bob Joseph

    In this powerful and grounded conversation, Bob Joseph, author of 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act, joins Bernadine Fox to unpack the law that has governed Indigenous lives in Canada since 1876. The Indian Act was not simply administrative policy. It was a system of control. It defined identity, stripped women of status, imposed elected governance systems, confined communities to reserves, criminalized ceremonies, and enforced assimilation through residential schools. It treated Indigenous peoples as wards of the state and positioned culture itself as something to erase. And while parts of the Act have been amended, it remains in force today. Together, Bernadine and Bob explore the deeper question: How does this law connect to mental health? Housing crises. Drinking water inequities. Substance use. Higher incarceration rates. Intergenerational trauma. When children were taken, languages banned, land reduced, and communities fractured, the damage was not incidental.  It was structural. The trauma did not begin in families. It began in policy. Bob challenges listeners to move beyond guilt toward responsibility. Reconciliation is not sentiment. It requires learning what we were not taught and understanding how law shaped lived experience. If we want to address mental health in Indigenous communities, we must first understand the system that created the conditions. Bob Joseph is the Co-Founder and CEO of Indigenous Corporate Training Inc. and has been providing Indigenous relations training since 1994. For over three decades, he has helped thousands of individuals and organizations understand the history, policy, and lived realities that shape Indigenous–non-Indigenous relations in Canada and beyond. His clients include all levels of government, Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions such as the World Bank, and organizations across North America and internationally. An award-winning author of 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act, Bob is widely recognized for translating complex legal and historical realities into accessible, practical learning. He has served as an associate professor at Royal Roads University, guest lectured at numerous academic institutions, and facilitated global Indigenous round tables, including a United Nations-connected gathering in Switzerland. His work bridges education, reconciliation, and informed responsibility, equipping Canadians to better understand the lasting impact of colonial policy on Indigenous communities today. music by Shari Ulrich Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support. www.rethreadingmadness.ca

    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 with the support of Vancouver Coop Radio CFRO 100.FM 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
    130
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Bernadine Fox
  • Show Website
    ReThreading Madness