Fainting Couch Feminists Episode 74: Powerful, Terrifying Brains: Brandi Bird Talks Psychosis and OCD

In this ep, poet Brandi Bird chats with Mica about what may have triggered their psychotic break, how they sought treatment in the psych ward, and the link between OCD and eating disorders.

Three years ago, Brandi Bird began experiencing some terrifying delusions. They believed their neighbour was building a bomb, their step-mom had been replaced, and people everywhere were out to harm them. Only recently did Brandi realize that what they experienced was psychosis—a highly stigmatized mental illness, and one we rarely talk about. In this ep, Brandi chats with Mica about what may have triggered their psychotic break, how they sought treatment in the psych ward, and the link between OCD and eating disorders. Brandi also discusses poetry, Indigeneity, the problem with words like “resilience.” Also: buy Brandi’s chapbook. It’s called “I Am Still Too Much” (Rahila’s Ghost Press) and it will knock your socks RIGHT OFF!

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ROOM 49.3 NO CANADA

In the new era of CanCon, as feminists and writers it is our task to reject this Canadian exceptionalism, this too-comfortable back-patting. How can we begin to imagine alternative arts economies, Indigenous economies around art, that start with treaty, that align with BDS? What art, what literature, would such a system free us to create?

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Cover image for Room Magazine Issue 49.2, Science. Art by Candace Cosentino of an old-fashioned computer monitor with a bounty of dandelions growing from it.

ROOM 49.2 Science

Welcome to the Science issue of Room Magazine, where we privilege questions: questions about how to construct better worlds; questions about how to destroy hyper-capitalistic, necropolitical systems; questions that beget questions and new questions.

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