Madness and Responsibility

What does it mean to be responsible as a mad person in a world that refuses to recognize your reality? In this episode, Matt Bodett and Megan Sterling explore the difficult, necessary, and expansive terrain of mad responsibility. Drawing from the myth of Herakles and his labors, we ask: What happens when madness causes harm? What is penance without punishment? And how do we create communities that hold accountability without exile?

Through conversation, reflection, and critique, we look at what it means to lead from within madness, to translate mad experience without betrayal, and to honor the silences that cannot be filled. We invite you to consider what kind of spaces, relationships, and futures we might build when we refuse the scripts of guilt and begin to write our own terms of care.