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The Shadows We Cast
Jenn St John
17 episodes
1 week ago
Survival: Sisterhood, Poverty, and the Moments That Shaped Us In this second episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down again with my sisters, Kate and Teresa, to pick up where we left off—navigating the turbulence of growing up with a mother struggling with undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. This chapter explores what survival really looked like for us: wearing the same pair of pants to school, learning to stretch a dollar, and facing down emotional chaos masked behind closed doors. W...
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Mental Health
Personal Journals,
Education,
Society & Culture,
Self-Improvement,
Health & Fitness
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Survival: Sisterhood, Poverty, and the Moments That Shaped Us In this second episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down again with my sisters, Kate and Teresa, to pick up where we left off—navigating the turbulence of growing up with a mother struggling with undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. This chapter explores what survival really looked like for us: wearing the same pair of pants to school, learning to stretch a dollar, and facing down emotional chaos masked behind closed doors. W...
Show more...
Mental Health
Personal Journals,
Education,
Society & Culture,
Self-Improvement,
Health & Fitness
Episodes (17/17)
The Shadows We Cast
Re-release: Survival
Survival: Sisterhood, Poverty, and the Moments That Shaped Us In this second episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down again with my sisters, Kate and Teresa, to pick up where we left off—navigating the turbulence of growing up with a mother struggling with undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. This chapter explores what survival really looked like for us: wearing the same pair of pants to school, learning to stretch a dollar, and facing down emotional chaos masked behind closed doors. W...
Show more...
1 week ago
39 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Re-Release: ORIGIN STORY
In this deeply personal first episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down with my two sisters, Kate and Teresa, for a raw, revealing conversation about our early years—growing up with a mother whose mental illness shaped every corner of our childhood. We talk about what poverty looked and felt like, how instability became our norm, and the adults who tried—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—to keep us safe. This isn’t just a story of hardship. It’s a story of sisterhood: how we held each ot...
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2 weeks ago
46 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Gone
Some endings arrive slowly. Ours did not. In this final episode of Season 1, my sisters and I share the most personal part of our story—the goodbye. After years of surviving our mom’s untreated mental illness and addiction, and then finding our way back to her during her recovery, we were finally in a good place. A healthy place. A place where laughter came easy and trust was being rebuilt. And then, in 2017, we lost her. Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer just two months before she passed, ...
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4 months ago
1 hour 6 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Rebuild
This week on The Shadows We Cast, my sisters, Kate and Teresa, and I return for Part 3 of our story — the chapter where things began to change. After years of boundaries, heartbreak, and distance, our mom started to seek real, consistent help. It wasn’t a sudden transformation. It was slow, uneven, and at times, fragile. But it was the beginning of something new. In this conversation, we talk about the earliest signs of her recovery and what it looked like to slowly let her back in — not just...
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4 months ago
54 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Matrescence
What if becoming a mother wasn’t just a life event — but a radical transformation of self? This week on The Shadows We Cast, Jenn sits down with Jessie Harrold — doula, coach, author, and founder of Imaginalia — to explore the complex and rarely named process of matrescence. Like adolescence, matrescence is a profound identity shift that touches every layer of our being: emotional, physical, spiritual, and cultural. And yet… we’re barely talking about it. Together, they unpack: · ...
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4 months ago
46 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Alive
CONTENT WARNING: This episode includes candid discussion of depression, burnout, and suicidal ideation. Please listen with care and prioritize your well-being. What does it mean to truly feel alive after you’ve nearly lost yourself? This week, I’m joined by Rachel Molenda — DJ, entrepreneur, and founder of Reunion, a women’s dance party movement rooted in joy, community, and remembering who you are. But before Rachel was creating space for others to heal and dance, she was navigating a deep, ...
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4 months ago
39 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Blueprint
What if the way you love, fight, avoid, or people-please wasn’t a personality flaw—but a survival blueprint? In this episode, I sit down with trauma-informed therapist Laura Fess, founder of VOX Mental Health, for a powerful conversation about what really happens to our nervous system when we grow up in survival mode—and how those early patterns shape our adult relationships, attachment styles, and mental health. We explore: • How survival mode wires the brain for hypervigilance • What anxiou...
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5 months ago
56 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Shift
In this final chapter of our second sister series, my sisters Kate, Teresa, and I reflect on the slow, complicated shift—the one that happened in our mother’s final years, and the one we had to make in ourselves to survive and heal. We talk about what it was like to be adults with a mother still deep in the storm of untreated mental illness and addiction, and how we eventually found our way to firmer ground. We explore the boundaries we had to set, the pain of waiting for change, and the quie...
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5 months ago
47 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Boundary
In this powerful follow-up to last week’s episode, we continue our sister series exploring early adulthood after growing up with a parent facing untreated mental illness and addiction. This chapter focuses on the emotional impact of setting boundaries with our mother—while becoming parents ourselves. I’m joined by my sisters, Kate and Teresa, as we share personal stories of trauma, family estrangement, childhood emotional neglect, and the moment each of us realized we couldn’t protect our mot...
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5 months ago
38 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Tethered
This is the first of a three-part series exploring the messy, complicated years of early adulthood—when my sisters, Kate and Teresa, and I began to navigate the emotional weight of our mom’s mental illness and addiction in a new way. We weren’t estranged yet. But the tether was fraying. In this episode, we reflect on the years after leaving home—when we were starting careers, becoming parents, and building lives of our own. We were still trying to stay close to our mom through letters, phone ...
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5 months ago
35 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Support
Unmasking Mental Health: Real Support, Real Change with CMHA’s Liz Grummett In this special Mental Health Week episode, Jenn sits down with Liz Grummett of CMHA Simcoe County to explore what it really means to unmask mental health. With over 20 years of experience in outreach, crisis response, and education, Liz shares how connection, compassion, and accessibility are transforming lives—from youth to seniors, farmers to families, and everyone in between. Together, they talk about: How stigma ...
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6 months ago
20 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Voice
In this moving and deeply honest conversation, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau joins Jenn to talk about what it means to heal—individually, in our relationships, and across generations. With wisdom, warmth, and vulnerability, Sophie reflects on her own mental health journey, from childhood trauma to eating disorders, motherhood, and having her voice through it all. They explore the ripple effect of inherited trauma, the critical role of self-compassion, and how building emotional resilience begins wi...
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6 months ago
42 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Seen
In this powerful and emotional episode, maternal mental health advocate Candice Thomas shares her raw journey through postpartum depression, suicidal ideation, and ultimately—hope. After nearly losing herself in the early days of motherhood, a simple act of kindness changed everything and set her on a path to create real, lasting change. Candice opens up about the barriers mothers face when seeking mental health support, the life-saving importance of being seen, and how her experiences led he...
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6 months ago
52 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Becoming
In the final chapter of this three-part sister series, we look back at the breaking point that changed everything. Joined once again by my sisters Kate and Teresa, we reflect on our final years living under the same roof with our mom—years marked by addiction, instability, and the slow unraveling of the only structure we knew. From her escalating substance use to a devastating car accident that nearly took her life, we talk about the moment we thought things might finally change… and what hap...
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6 months ago
42 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Survival
Survival: Sisterhood, Poverty, and the Moments That Shaped Us In this second episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down again with my sisters, Kate and Teresa, to pick up where we left off—navigating the turbulence of growing up with a mother struggling with undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. This chapter explores what survival really looked like for us: wearing the same pair of pants to school, learning to stretch a dollar, and facing down emotional chaos masked behind closed doors. W...
Show more...
7 months ago
39 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Origin Story
A Sister Conversation About Childhood, Coping, and Connection In this deeply personal second episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down with my two sisters, Kate and Teresa, for a raw, revealing conversation about our early years—growing up with a mother whose mental illness shaped every corner of our childhood. We talk about what poverty looked and felt like, how instability became our norm, and the adults who tried—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—to keep us safe. This isn’t just a sto...
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7 months ago
46 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Trailer
Podcast Trailer: The Shadows We Cast Welcome to The Shadows We Cast—a podcast about the legacies we inherit, the stories we carry, and the light we create in the process. Hosted by mental health advocate, writer, and speaker Jenn St. John, this series opens the door to raw and real conversations about living through, loving through, and learning from mental health challenges. In this short preview, Jenn shares what listeners can expect each week: deeply personal stories, journal readings, can...
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7 months ago
5 minutes

The Shadows We Cast
Survival: Sisterhood, Poverty, and the Moments That Shaped Us In this second episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down again with my sisters, Kate and Teresa, to pick up where we left off—navigating the turbulence of growing up with a mother struggling with undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. This chapter explores what survival really looked like for us: wearing the same pair of pants to school, learning to stretch a dollar, and facing down emotional chaos masked behind closed doors. W...