my interview on Madness Radio

Hello, how are you doing?  I’d like to tell you about my interview on Madness Radio.  It posted yesterday: Love Is a Skill.  Please listen and share.

Love Is a Skill | Laura-Marie & Jacks McNamara | Madness Radio

The interviewers Will Hall and Jacks McNamara are rock stars of radical mental health.  They are originators of the Icarus Project and radical mental health ideas that saved my life.  I’m deeply grateful to them.  They ask great questions.  They’re compassionate, creative, brilliant survivors.

I’m excited to speak truths that might help many people.   I make myself vulnerable.  But it’s important.

some things we talk about in my interview on Madness Radio

• living in community as a disabled person
• zines
• learning and rest
• Sacred Peace Walk
• getting off psych meds
• Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective
• deep respect
• self-love
• all bodies are valid bodies
• the healing possibility of having our truths witnessed as we speak the unspeakable
• Disabled Resilient Permaculture
• building a culture with love at the center, not pursuit of money or performing success

I was nervous but prepared.  In the morning I prayed and did some writing about what we might discuss.  I wrote the list that I read in the interview: what I value most about radical mental health.  Felt good to connect with Mother God and ground myself beforehand.

And it felt right to thank Will Hall and Jacks McNamara for their longterm world-helping through radical mental health.  I hope the words I said further their projects, and that their collaboration with me helps spread the truths I hold dear also.

delay

The interview got delayed a few times, which is mentioned by the interviewers.  After a while I gave up.  I thought it would never happen.  So glad to be wrong.  So glad Will Hall checked in again, and we three were finally able to gather virtually.

It was well-edited.  I made a mistake with some names that Ming caught, and those were cut.  Thank you, dear.  Then I asked for an awkward pause and an interruption to be cut.  Those small edits were made, and it still sounds fresh.  I love the Radiohead sample at the beginning.

Thank you to the friends I borrowed usb microphones from, for previous interview dates that came and went.  I’m not happy with the sound quality of the mic I used, but I didn’t have best practices.  I get emotional about what I’m saying and move my mouth too many distances from the mic.  You know me–I have to move around a lot.  I like my stims!

prayer

It’s my whole-body prayer that my interview on Madness Radio will reach many people and nurture them.  It reminds me of how I enjoy dancing in public as a way of modeling fat liberation and fat validity.  I’m an ok person, and so are you.

Ultimately I hope the people who hear the interview learn more about how love is possible and love is a skill.  We can define success for ourselves, truth matters, and respect can help us form justice-centered communities.

Self-hate wastes so much energy.  There’s good work to do, with self-love and love of others.