Mad Tea

Ishaa Vinod Chopra Interview

In this episode of Mad Tea, we sit down with Ishaa Vinod Chopra, author of Finding Order in Disorder and founder of the collective by the same name. Ishaa speaks candidly about living with diagnosis, surviving abuse, and navigating the systems that attempt to define her. She reflects on how those experiences shaped her understanding of self rather than ending it. Our conversation moves toward the body. Toward dance. Toward art-making as a practice of reclaiming authorship. Ishaa shares how movement, visual art, and mad poetry became tools for grounding, expression, and rebuilding identity on her own terms. This episode invites you to listen closely to how order and disorder are framed in culture. Who decides what is stable? What forms of expression are dismissed before they are understood? Ishaa’s story offers a lived response rooted in creative practice, survival, and collective care. You can find Ishaa on Instagram - @findingorderindisorder.ngo and @ishaavinodchopra You can also listen to her podcast on Spotify - "Finding Order in Disorder Podcast" You can purchase Finding Order in Disorder here [https://a.co/d/03u7e8Y6] You can find Ishaa's YouTube channel here [https://www.youtube.com/@findingorderindisorder]

Matthew Jackman Interview

In this first episode of Season Two Matt Bodett sits down with Matthew Jackman for a conversation that moves across art, identity, and the lived experience of madness without reducing any of it to diagnosis. We talk about how culture shapes what gets called disordered, how language can both confine and release, and what it means to claim authorship over your own narrative. Matthew reflects on process, familial history, and the tension between visibility and erasure in ways that feel grounded and urgent. If you care about mad culture as something more than a clinical category, this episode asks you to listen closely and consider how we engage in activism and how we honor our lived experiences. Matthew Jackman is the founder of The Australian Centre for Living Experience 'TACFLE' - www.tacfle.com [https://www.tacfle.com/] Find Matthew Jackman on Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/matthew-jackman-he-him-57b28951 [https://au.linkedin.com/in/matthew-jackman-he-him-57b28951]

Nze Okoronta Interview

In this conversation you will hear Nze Okoronta speak from years of building peer-run crisis alternatives. The focus stays on peer respites, warmlines, and community responses that move away from policing and coercion. You learn how these models function day to day, not as ideals but as working systems. The discussion names structural harm inside mainstream crisis care and shows what changes when people with lived experience design the response. Nze draws on work at SOAR and Solstice House to explain how peer leadership reshapes safety, consent, and care. You are invited to listen for strategy, asking what it takes to replace emergency control with relational support? What gets lost when policy ignores peer knowledge? What becomes possible when mad and disabled people lead?

Interview with Matt Perry

I sat down with Matt Perry to talk about his book A Revolution of the Mind. The book asks you to rethink what the mental health system considers normal. It asks you to look at crisis response, policy, peer work, and community power through the lens of lived experience. Matt has moved through these systems as a patient and an advocate. He has organized statewide networks, shaped policy in Illinois, founded the Disability Law Society in law school, and now leads a community support team at Thresholds. His thinking is sharp, grounded, and deeply human. You will hear a conversation about change that comes from within the community. You will hear how lived experience shapes real reform. You will hear questions that stay with you. Take a listen. Ask what forms of liberation you are willing to imagine. And share the episode with anyone who is ready for a different kind of conversation.

When the work must wait

This week’s Mad Tea offers a pause. Matt reflects on the practice of self-permission within mad and disabled life, sharing gratitude for the community that makes this work possible. It is an episode about rest, imperfection, and the quiet courage it takes to keep creating through uncertainty.