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 anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment really look like in adulthood
• The neuroscience behind healing, storytelling, and post-traumatic growth
• Why unlearning old patterns isn’t failure—it’s neuroplasticity
• The quiet, resilient power of hope—and how to let it drive

I also share a journal entry from when I was 15, written during a pivotal turning point in my family’s story. It’s conflicted and searching, filled with the kind of quiet hope that surfaces when you're desperate for change but not sure it will come.

It’s vulnerable, reflective, and the perfect opening to this layered conversation about pain, healing, and how we can slowly carve new paths—machete in hand—toward something different.

If your story includes trauma, survival mode, or the long journey of trying to feel safe again, this one is for you.

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Host & Producer: Jenn St John
Editor: Andrew Schiller
Website: www.jennstjohn.ca
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Transcript

TRANSCRIPT

Podcast name:             The Shadows We Cast

Host:                            Jenn St John

Guests:                        Laura Fess, VOX Mental Health

Editor:                          Andrew Schiller

Producer:                     Jenn St John

Length:                        56:00

Epiosde No.:                10, Season 1

Explicit Warning:          Content Warning: This episode includes discussions of mental illness, addiction, childhood trauma, and emotional abuse. Please listen with care.

Laura Fess  00:01

As we tell and retell our story, what we're actually doing. It's like taking a machete to a dense, dense jungle and trying to create a new path. Healing is not just an individual journey. It's systematic. It's all of us getting on board, all of us getting on board with you having a new path.

Jennifer St John  00:25

Hello and welcome to the shadows be cast a podcast about what we carry, the impact we leave, and the messy, beautiful reality of mental health. I'm Jen st John, a writer, business owner and a mental health advocate who grew up in a family shaped my mental illness. Some of it was heartbreaking, some of it darkly funny, and all of it shaped who I am today. Here we're going to share honest conversations, stories from me, from you and from those who have walked this road in different ways. Through journal entries, letters from my mom and real conversations, we're going to pull back the layer on mental health, the tough parts, the moments that shaped us and how we move forward together. So grab a coffee, settle in and let's talk.

Jennifer St John  01:16

Before we begin. Just a quick note. This episode includes adult themes like addiction, mental health, trauma or suicide, ideation, please take care in choosing when or where to listen, especially if you're in a sensitive place or if you have little ones around. I also just want to gently remind you that I am not a mental health professional. Conversations that you hear in this podcast are grounded in lived experience mine and the stories generously shared by others, my reflections, questions and opinions come from that place, not from clinical training. Our goal here is to create connection, not to diagnose. This is a space for real stories, honest conversations, and the hope that in hearing them, you might feel a little less alone. Okay, so here we go. For today's episode, we are going to hear from Laura fess she is a trauma informed and attachment focused therapist with over 15 years of experience. Laura is the founder of Vox mental health, where she works with individuals, couples and families to help them process trauma, understand their emotional patterns and to build new pathways toward healing. She's trained in a range of evidence based approaches, EMDR, CBT, a CT, narrative therapy and the Gottman method, just to name a few. But what really stands out is the way that she combines clinical expertise with deep compassion. She meets people where they are, and she tailors her approach based on their lived experience, their story and what they're ready for. Her work is rooted in the belief that our pain makes sense in context, and that healing isn't about fixing what's broken, but about understanding where the wounds came from and learning how to care for them. Some of what you'll hear, especially around brain function and trauma responses, dives into the neuroscience side of things. If that's new to you, don't worry. Just stay with it. And you don't need to know all of the terms. Just listen for the big ideas. For those of you who are outside of our area, so Ontario or Canada, just a heads up. Laura uses a fantastic metaphor about a highway, which is the 407 highway. It's a toll highway around Toronto, so just think fast moving highway with no stoplights. Not really the autobahn, but you know, basically, it's a perfect way to describe how quickly our brains can go from I'm fine to I'm in danger when we live in survival mode. So this conversation is a blend of insight and empathy, science and storytelling, and if you've ever wondered why you react a certain way you do, or how to start shifting those patterns, then you're in the right place. It's packed with insight, layered with hope, honesty, and it hit me harder than I expected, so let's get into it. 

Jennifer St John  03:55

So I wanted to start this conversation the way that I start others, and that's by sharing something really personal. For those who are listening, you know that I have access to journals of mine and letters that mom and I shared back and forth, and also my mom's recovery journals. The excerpt that I'm sharing today is from when I was 15 years old. For those of you who've listened already, you know that timeline wise, I'd already moved across Canada back we were moved to Missouri and then to Arizona, and I'm now back in Missouri. My mom is not doing very well at this point. She is still decades away from seeking treatment and help. Her mental health really escalated when she went to the States. We were pulled away from all of her supports and some of her coping mechanisms as well, she wasn't able to access there. Also, her alcoholism had really skyrocketed when we went to the States, we had barely seen any family for almost three years. It was a very unstable environment, and even though I didn't know it, I was stuck in survival mode. So this is the excerpt:

Jennifer St John  05:00

We're moving once again, this time to Canada. But I shouldn't complain, though, this time, it's our doing, not mom's mom said that she wouldn't go unless we said it was all right, and I swore I wouldn't. I told myself, no, not this time. I'm not moving again. But then when we went up there this Christmas, I couldn't help it. There wasn't one moment that I regretted it, not one moment when I wished I was sitting back in Missouri. I mean, I felt like I was at home. It was a feeling that I have lost over the last several years. Mom's having problems with her drinking again, and she won't do anything about it, down here, but up there, surrounded by family, she'll do something. I know she will. It was so weird. You wouldn't have believed it, but so many people were so worried about us, they know and they are trying to help out our home situation and the mess that it's in. The only reason that I have agreed to this move was so that we'd be closer to home to family, and that she can get some help. I'm leaving behind, once again, good friends, something that I, as you know, have gotten used to. 

Jennifer St John  05:59

I would talk to my journal like it was a person. 

Laura Fess  06:04

Yeah, yeah. I have so many feelings about what I just heard. It's incredible. You have that. It's incredible. You have that. And you're watching this young part of you try to navigate what is happening in my world. What did I experience over Christmas that was such a relief. What was people noticed that were not okay? Someone noticed it was like being seen. 

Jennifer St John  06:30

Yeah, we felt very alone, like I had my sisters and I mean, I think that's the reason why made it quote, unquote. But we felt very alone. My mom didn't want us to talk about anything. She didn't want anything to leave the house. She was raised that way, and that's how she was raising us, and that's definitely what we did. And then most of us at a certain age started to speak out and speak up, given the situation that I'm referring to, back at Christmas, it was that we had gone home, and all of my aunts, especially had sat everybody down for the first time, are really asking pointed questions, and my youngest sister had written a letter about what was happening and had sent it home, and so that's what had spurred all of this on. I had no problem by that point speaking up and speaking out, because again, I was 15, and I was very aware that she needed help, and that was the only way that things were going to change, but my younger sister couldn't say anything. She still had that fear of, oh, the wrath of mom if I ever say anything, and what's going to happen. 

Laura Fess  07:29

Yeah, no, we feel very loyal to our parents, and I think that sometimes when we start to assess our parents, it feels like disloyalty. 

Jennifer St John  07:39

Yeah.

Laura Fess  07:40

And it's not disloyal to assess what's happening here. I mean, at 15, you are still vulnerable, but there's a differentiation that's happened where you start to separate yourself from Mum. I read this thing that said that at seven months old, a baby just begins to have the awareness that they are not their mother. 

Jennifer St John  07:59

Wow. 

Laura Fess  08:00

Seven months outside the uterus. 

Jennifer St John  08:03

You just feel like you're attached to them.

Jennifer St John  08:05

That identity is fused, and that's after seven months of being out of the uterus. So it's so interesting that we go on a differentiation journey, that the older we get developmentally, we do pull away from the seven month old who does not know that they are not mom, two, if you hit those developmental tasks. No, no, I am not mom. That's mom, and this is me. What's in so interesting in your journal. And then the comparison to that little 11 year old sibling is that just even though it's only four years, and when you're 30 and 34 What's four years, but at 11 and 15, developmentally, you're all vulnerable. But she is, like, so vulnerable. No, I agree. I think those zero to 11, 12, years, they hurt the most too, because of everything that happened and everything that we were going through. And it was for sure that transition into being a teenager and pulling away and becoming, well, we were already very independe, but becoming, of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and like, I'm almost out of here kind of thing. There's a totally different set of emotions that comes with that. 

Laura Fess  09:08

Yeah, wow. 

Jennifer St John  09:09

So I wanted to ask you, because I know you have 15 years experience in dealing with this.

Jennifer St John  09:17

Just being a human too. More years of that, yes 

Laura Fess  09:20

And just being a human. 

Jennifer St John  09:22

So what are the common patterns that people carry into adulthood, if they've been in a survival mode in childhood? 

Laura Fess  09:30

There's many things that are hard about being in survival mode from a mental health perspective. One of the things that happens is that the amygdala, that base part of the brain, or the most primitive part of the brain kind of becomes overactive. So I don't know if you've ever been familiar with like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Do you remember that? You know, it's one of the classic High School Psychology, you know, things they'll teach. 

Jennifer St John  09:53

I was just referring to that in the last interview I did yesterday.

Laura Fess  09:57

 And people will poke at it because it doesn't answer everything, but it really is a great visual and the brain kind of functions in a similar way, whereas the base of the brain is similar to Maslow's survival. This is the primitive instinct. It's where our amygdala is stored, which is the store house of fight, flight, fright, and also has the power to release adrenaline and cortisol through your whole body. That is that part of the brain. When you grow up in a state of survival mode, what ends up happening is the primitive part of your brain is overactive. We're all born with an overactive primitive part of the brain.

Jennifer St John  10:36

Just a quick pause here when Laura talks about the amygdala, she's referring to the part of the brain that helps detect danger. It's kind of like our built in alarm system always scanning for threats. And when she says fright, that's often called freeze, it's the response in more recent trauma language, and that can happen when the body shuts down under overwhelming stress. So just flagging that, in case you've heard it explained differently.

Laura Fess  11:03

if you think about a baby like a newborn, when they get a hunger sensation, which is the exact same hunger sensation you or I, like we may actually get that sensation in the middle of this conversation, and neither of us will start to scream, right? 

Jennifer St John  11:16

You deal with it. 

Laura Fess  11:17

Yes, exactly, right. Well, with a newborn, they're a great example of just that primitive brain being on guard for every single threat. Well, when you grow up in survival mode, you don't actually get the opportunity and really privilege of having the other parts of your brain have a chance to get online. So when you're in that primitive thing the brain is looking in interpreting everything as a threat. Sometimes we, you know, with positive psychology, we beat ourselves up because we're like, well, I should be more positive. I should be more hopeful, like the glass should be more half full. But if you've grown up in survival mode, it actually would be a very unhealthy brain if it allowed you to experience hope, right? Because the brain's job as an organ is to keep us alive.

Jennifer St John  12:07

 Yeah. 

Laura Fess  12:08

When I talk about the brain with clients, I like to do something. I call it the observing self and the thinking brain. And so really quickly, most of us would agree that we have many organs, like I have a heart, I have a kidney, I have a lung, and we would agree that the brain is an organ, and we would even agree that all of those other organs are communicating. We know that at some point, my pancreas said X amount of insulin, please, and then all of the other systems responded to it. But for whatever reason, the brain organ is the one that has a communication system that we can hear. I cannot hear my heart say we have a blockage, and artery too. I can't hear my kidney say we're really struggling to clean the system out some help. And yet, we can hear the thoughts of this organ, the brain. And there's a lot of different theories, as per why that is. The easiest way to explain it is that those thoughts need to be negative, because they are all about survival. So back to that baby. That baby is a great example of just this thinking brain organ having thoughts that are totally dysregulated, that have no experiences to buffer. You're going to be okay. You have a hunger pain, someone's going to feed you, and it's all going to be okay. Why our life experiences become so pivotal is that every time that baby cries and someone responds to feed it, it develops this knowing I the person that is inside of this. Some religions call it a soul, a spirit. Freud would call it your ego. I like observing self, because sometimes when we do things, we can feel like we're watching it. We're like, I don't know why do that. I'm like, watching myself do it. And it's an instinct. It's a behavior. So I like to describe it. You've got the organ and you've got the observing self Okay, and I think it's going to be foundational to all the other questions that we'll get through today. If this organ is in a constant state of not having experiences that say you're going to be okay, then it becomes very loud, because attachment teaches us that I am safe, I have hope it's going to be okay. The observing self is developed through life experiences. Now, if your experiences have told you you are not safe, because you aren't and no one actually sees what you need, and by the way, what you want, you will never be loud enough. Yeah, yeah. If you picture the dynamic like a bus, we are in negotiation with the organ and ourselves about who gets to drive my day, my moments, my experiences, and this thing has to be negative, because that's a good brain.

Laura Fess  14:59

A good brain is saying you could die. You could die really. 

Jennifer St John  15:03

Just trying to keep you safe, really.

Laura Fess  15:05

It's all about surviving, and if your life experiences have never allowed you to have hope. And actually, what that letter says to me, and it's goosebumps, as I'm reflecting on it, is when you're like when we were home at Christmas, your time being seen and noticed, there's this hope that started to come through that journaling that is like, maybe we should go home. I never thought I'd want to do that. I never thought that would be okay. But something about that experience with those aunties sitting you down and asking pointed questions, saying, you safe. Are you okay? And you guys saying we are not, imagine there is someone driving your daily experiences, and yet there is a bus filled with passengers who all would like to be the driver too, and we as the self are in negotiation for it. So if you've been in survival mode, that thinking brain may actually be very, very strong and very difficult to get out of the driver's seat. And what it can look like is it can look like a lot of hyper vigilance, with an overactive amygdala, with that base part of the brain being overactive, everything is potential threat. And so people can be experiencing, you know, they walk into a flower shop and they sense something, they smell something, they hear something, and all of a sudden panic, they get the runaway feeling, and they're out of there so fast, so hyper vigilance, where everything is a threat. And again, that's a really good thinking brain. It's like, well, where's it coming from next? And so if you're vigilant, I would never shame that I would get curious, because it sounds like there's some post traumatic symptoms happening because the other parts of the brain are not able to come online.

Jennifer St John  16:48

Okay? Let's just take a moment if you need to pause here. Do it? Go refill that drink. Take a deep breath, in and out, stare dramatically out the window, whatever works for you, we'll be right here when you're ready.

Laura Fess  17:04

So that higher level, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that gets to do a lot of critical thought, the part of the brain that gets to integrate new experiences, that cognitive flexibility that I think we might, you know, get to a bit that's like Maslow's hierarchy of self virtualization. 

Jennifer St John  17:21

Yeah, it's high up there, and when you're down at the bottom, you're not getting there. 

Laura Fess  17:25

You even get to get there. When you said, they're like, how did we survive you and your sisters, what you're saying is, how did we get to the top of the pure like, 

Jennifer St John  17:34

How'd we get out of the weeds? 

Laura Fess  17:37

How did we get out of the weeds? They've started talk about, fight, flight, fright, and now they've included something called fawning. 

Jennifer St John  17:44

Oh, okay. 

Laura Fess  17:45

Now fawning is a more thinking primitive instinct. So if primitive instincts just hijack you and happen them, fawning is something that is a learned behavior that's quite intelligent and yet still very primitive. What it looks like is an intense, compulsive, almost impulsive version of people pleasing. What someone can learn as a trauma of response is compliance. So it's almost similar to playing dead that we see in nature with animals, which people are like, Oh, is that fright, where they just freeze and it's like, no. Some literally strategize playing dead. Growing up, you can be very vigilant, or you can fawn, which means you can be an intense people pleaser, where even though you know this is not what's good for me, this is not what I need, this is not what I want, I can keep you happy. I'm safe. That will protect me from threat. Survival Mode is about safety at any cost, even even cost yourself. And one more that I would put out there is that you can find yourself being either very anxious in attachment or very avoidant in attachments, because the primitive instinct for survival, if we think about it from an evolutionary perspective, is to be in a group, 

Jennifer St John  18:55

Yeah.

Laura Fess  18:56

Be in a tribe, be in a community, be known, be seen, because there's safety in numbers. And so a long term effect of living in survival mode is having an attachment blueprint that is either highly anxious and in survival that way or very avoidant. I don't need anyone. I don't need anything. Yeah, I got myself. We're good. 

Jennifer St John  19:18

Yep.

Laura Fess  19:20

I see some smiles and nods.

Jennifer St John  19:22

 Oh yeah, yeah, no, my sisters and I all have varying degrees Yeah.

Laura Fess  19:27

You're like, Oh, that one went this way 

Jennifer St John  19:30

Exactly. I'm like, Yeah, at this age, yeah. My gosh, this is fascinating. It really is fascinating to me. So obviously you want to rewrite your story. We talked about this a lot. My sisters and I in the episodes before this. You get through, you're finally out of the house. All of us went to post secondary. You're trying to start your life. You have all this on your back and in your brain and in your heart, and you realize it's not as easy as you think. 

Laura Fess  19:56

Yes.

Jennifer St John  19:56

But you want to start to rewrite your story. You want to start to make changes, and, I guess, heal. And so how can people start changing the way that they see their past without feeling like they're invalidating their pain? 

Laura Fess  20:12

I would start with the pain is always valid, okay, and I don't like positive psychology from the perspective of like, you grew so much because you went through something so horrible, and look how resilient you are. I actually a lot of times find resilience offensive. 

Jennifer St John  20:28

So I'm like, I'm so happy that you're saying this, I'm so happy that you're saying this.

Laura Fess  20:31

Because you're just like, thanks. Like, I'm incredible because I suffered? So I get very frustrated with even spiritual language around God didn't give you more than you could handle. You're just like, oh, so I'm just showing off. So I'd say the pain is always valid. And rewriting the story, for me is about something that's called integration. So it's about taking the story that you've lived through and integrating it, not denying it, not suppressing it, not putting it in a box somewhere. Because what we've learned is that that box oozes doesn't matter how much you walk it up.

Jennifer St John  21:11

It's not going anywhere...

Laura Fess  21:13

You get in your first romantic relationship, it oozes. You become a parent, it oozes. You become the age that something happened to your mom, it oozes. And so integration is about taking the box that's been trapped and locked up and actually bringing it into an awareness. So when it's like, okay, well, how do we reclaim or rewrite the story without invalidating it? And I would say that actually accepting the story, knowing the story, not denying the story, letting the story be this is actually what the story is, not making it positive, not making it, but knowing it. And I actually think that's more complicated than it sounds, because you could actually be surprised how many things are locked up? 

Jennifer St John  22:02

As I was saying to you before we started recording, I've been speaking since 2016 like writing or speaking or sharing, and I get a lot of people tell me they would never be able to do it. They don't think that they could say it out loud, or that they could share it publicly. And then the other thing I hear so much is that people don't want to hurt or offend anybody. And I personally feel, and I think this is the way you feel, too, from what you just said, is that not trying to hurt anybody else, I'm trying to tell my story. 

Laura Fess  22:33

Yes, 100%.

Jennifer St John  22:34

This is part of my processing and my healing, and it's not about attacking somebody, but it's ingrained in us that we make ourselves small and the other person, or persons still become big in our lives. 

Laura Fess  22:47

Yeah, well, and I think when you've been through trauma, and oftentimes that trauma is interpersonal, and so what we're talking about with the dynamic with Mom is that there's probably a lot of what we would say is a capital T trauma, like this awful event that has a beginning, a middle and an end, right? But more of what you're describing is what is considered complex trauma. So it is chronic, ongoing and complex. We cannot just say it started on Monday, ended on Tuesday. Done. You naming it and knowing it and being able to understand it is not about judging the other people that were involved in it, and we can even compassionately be like, Mom was not okay. 

Jennifer St John  23:28

Yeah, yeah. 

Laura Fess  23:29

Mom only had the resources mom had. We can grieve what mom's life could have looked like, should have looked like, yeah? And I think what you're doing with this podcast, with the movement, is to say, like no one else should have to suffer like that. 

Jennifer St John  23:43

Yeah, absolutely. 

Laura Fess  23:44

With the question is, how do we rewrite the story without invalidating it? Is coming to a place of accepting that this is what it is. We don't have to sugarcoat it. We don't even have to be grateful for it. I also find gratitude at a certain point offensive, and yet giving it permission to have existed. One of the greatest honors of my life is oftentimes being the first person to ever hear a story like the husband of 30 years has never heard this. The best friend of 40 years has never heard this. No one has ever heard this being said out loud as we tell the story, and as we retell the story, what we're actually doing is priming new neural pathways in our brain. That's a fancy way of saying when we have repetitive life experiences. Okay, so complex chronic trauma is a great repetitive experience. And so people would be like, well, give me an example of that. So if it's like, I was in need of something and my caregiver could never see the need or meet the need, that is a chronic, repetitive experience, what it does is it creates a pathway in the brain that is about as efficient as the 407 with no trucks on it, and it's just you. You're like, we are flying down that thing. Without even realizing it, I've gone from A to B, and what that can look like in an adult life is you have a romantic partner, but you have a history of your needs were never valid, and they told you that they would take responsibility for taking the garbage out, and yet they still have never done that, and you are constantly reminding them of it. And it's a Friday morning, you see the garbage bag there, and you have what feels like a very disproportionate, large reaction.

Jennifer St John  25:26

(Giggling)

Laura Fess  25:26

I love the giggling. I'm like, Oh, we're talking about something. 

Jennifer St John  25:28

Oh my god. 

Laura Fess  25:29

Is that that is a great example of you just hit the 407, of that neural pathway, which is like, I'm at risk. You're a threat, safety, danger, warning, boom.

Jennifer St John  25:42

You're never going to meet my needs. (Laughing)

Laura Fess  25:45

Never. And I'll never trust you. 

Jennifer St John  25:47

Yup.

Laura Fess  25:47

And you know, they wake up and they make their coffee like, what's wrong with you you don't even know. You know, as we tell and retell our story, what we're actually doing. It's like taking a machete to a dense, dense jungle and trying to create a new path. And every time we tell it and we retell it, and you can imagine how long recovery can take. If you've had a chronic life of abandonment, a chronic life of pain and suffering, you know people, when they start therapy, they can feel like, oh my gosh, I just can't stop talking stop talking. like, I've opened this now. It's just and I'm telling it, I'm retelling it. And I've even heard people say things like, I feel like my story is changing, like I feel like every time I say it, it's different, and it's shifting and it's evolving. And they'll start going like, Am I making all this up? This is where journaling can be so helpful, because, like, no see, it did happen. You know, as you tell it and retell it, you're actually saying to the brain, no wonder we go down the 407 when he doesn't take the garbage out. That was totally a valid reaction. That's just my thinking brain hijacking the bus. You know, because we would coach ourselves and be like, the next time he does that, just be like, cool, calm, collect. Say, Hey, love do you, 

Jennifer St John  27:07

And know that you are safe right now. It's not the same thing. And like you said, that visual of the machete going through the rain forest, it's so important to write or talk or however art create like, however you do it, because then your brain does start to and your amygdala realizes, Oh, I am okay. 

Laura Fess  27:28

I am okay. So retelling the story is validating that, yeah, no wonder I'm on a 407 right now and starting to understand why. Why does this highway exist in my brain, if we invalidate the story that all we're going to do is shame that pathway.

Jennifer St John  27:45

And it's not going anywhere. 

Laura Fess  27:47

Oh no, it actually will double down

Jennifer St John  27:48

Exactly.

Laura Fess  27:49

It'll be stronger, like, all of a sudden, there'll be no speed limit. And, like, it's even faster, right? So when we start to process, why does that highway exist? When we validate, of course, it exists, and we begin to tell it and retell it. We create a new pathway. But as you can imagine, developmentally, a machete and a jungle turning into a 407 freeway is going to take a lot of time. It's going to take a lot of resources. It's going to take a lot of support. It's going to take a lot of buy in from the community around you, and if there's people that are not understanding the 407 highway reaction and shaking it, yeah, healing is not just an individual journey. It's systematic. It's all of us getting on board. All of us getting on board with you having a new path. You know the lady that's swearing at the cashier at Code basics, you're just like the 14 year old doesn't know what he's doing, so she's lived a story. He's lived a story. We got some 407 highways happening right now. The potential is lots of compassion for each other. 

Jennifer St John  28:56

Yeah, I think that's the key. 

Laura Fess  28:57

Yeah. So that's my quirky I'm very

Jennifer St John  29:01

No I love that. Oh my gosh. I love that. I love the visuals. It's so great. I wanted to touch on something that you mentioned. And this is actually one of the things that I saw on Vox mental health Instagram and kind of, and I reached out about, was you were talking about the idea of post traumatic growth.

Laura Fess  29:20

Yes. 

Jennifer St John  29:21

And I know that the idea is that we don't just heal from trauma, but in some ways, we can actually grow from it. Is that kind of it in a nutshell? Or I haven't heard this term before, and I was fascinated. 

Laura Fess  29:32

Yeah, so post traumatic growth is fascinating. And I think one of the best ways to describe it is that, if you think of those highways, right, we've got all of these things that are very much repetitively set in our brains, and that set does, like zero to five is a big part of those 407, highways being created. Those young formative years are a massive part of it. But if you imagine that, okay, we've got these set highways that exist, and then something happens, a tornado going through the 407 it's like a hurricane goes through the 407 it's like something traumatic just shatters the pathways, if that happened to our literal 407 highway. You know, I'm not on a contract for the 407 and I've actually, it's probably a very political topic right now. So maybe I name it something else. It's just what I'm thinking geographically is, if that happened, if that highway got disrupted, a lot of effort would go into repairing it.

Jennifer St John  30:33

Yeah.  

Laura Fess  30:33

A lot of effort, a lot of resources, a lot of finances, a lot of manpower. Would be like, Oh, we should fix this right now. Another example would be like the fire that's happened in LA, something traumatic has happened, and now you're seeing a mobilization effort of people being like, we've got to rebuild this thing. But what's interesting is that if you're going to rebuild, let's say LA. Let's say I was devastated, and I lost a property and it had this house on it. And actually, for 20 years before this fire, I have thought I would like to redo my kitchen. I actually would like to redo it. I'm not gonna redo it, right? Well, when something happens that absolutely destroys what was once, there I go to rebuild it. But as I'm rebuilding it, there's the potential for something different. Maybe I still build a house because I still want a house, because I'm already having to go through the process of rebuilding it, there's now this flexibility that exists. It's like, I actually think I want purple. 

Jennifer St John  31:29

Yeah, I'm getting this analogy.

Laura Fess  31:33

Do you like my metaphor? I mean, I do need walls, and they were, they were blue, but I actually think I want purple. And so if I have to put the walls up and I have to paint because everything just got blown up and everything just got destroyed, and I need a home, well, while I'm doing the effort to rebuild it, I actually think I'm open to change right now, right?

Jennifer St John  31:56

Hey, just a little break here. If you're somebody who likes to scribble down things, or, let's be real, maybe sometimes just doodle in the margins. This might be a good time to do that, like what's standing out for you, or what's hitting close to home. No pressure, but just a little invitation to process things in your own way. And when you're ready, we'll be here. Let's get back at it

Laura Fess  32:21

After something is destroyed, and this is what trauma can do to the brain. It's so disruptive. It's an injury, it's a version of a brain injury, and yet it doesn't often show up on an MRI, like a concussion would, or like a coop de coop brain injury, 

Jennifer St John  32:36

Right? Of course. 

Laura Fess  32:37

And yet it's so disruptive neurologically, is that there is something that happens in the body that says, well, I need a house. Call it survival. I need to rebuild, but I'm actually creatively open to change. And it's funny, because we see this in nature too. Is that after a forest fire, for example, the ground is the most fertile it will ever be for new growth. Why? How? I mean that is something that you should get a neuroscientist to come and sit with. And a lot of it, I think, is unknown, but it just is. It's what we have found after a loss, after destruction, even nature. The soil is the most fertile. The environment is the most fertile it will ever be for growth and change. 

Jennifer St John  33:24

I can understand that from our perspective and my perspective of as you leave the house and you leave the situation, you start to dig into things. And you know, we read lots of books and started therapy at different points in our 20s, I think that even by actively doing that, you are trying to change, like you are trying to rewrite your story, you are trying to grow, and you're trying to process. So I think that that act is that.

Jennifer St John  33:50

starting

Laura Fess  33:50

Starting to make sense of things. And yeah, it's that neural pathway that was so solidified because of something, something happened, and sometimes that something is awareness. For example, with trauma survivors, sometimes they are not even aware that they were living through trauma until they sit in a health science class and someone gives a definition of something.

Jennifer St John  34:12

Yeah, yeah. 

Laura Fess  34:13

Sometimes that thing is just awareness, yeah?

Jennifer St John  34:18

I think for us, it definitely was. It was it was just awareness, because you're not sitting there looking at, you know, the checklist of things like we definitely knew that, I mean, and everybody has their own story, but we didn't know anybody who had a story similar to us. So we definitely knew it was a unique experience, but you're just doing it. You're just getting through the days at that point, 

Laura Fess  34:37

Surviving.

Laura Fess  34:38

You're just surviving. And you can't do that critical thinking piece. You're like, is this healthy? 

Jennifer St John  34:38

Yeah, yeah. 

Jennifer St John  34:43

Yeah, not until you leave, then you're like, oh, okay.

Laura Fess  34:46

Yeah, yeah. So post traumatic growth, and again, I'm not into the gratitude of like, I'm so glad I went through a trauma study could grow more significantly than ever before in my life. No, this is not, like, a good thing, and yet it is something that exists. 

Jennifer St John  35:01

Yes.

Laura Fess  35:02

After awareness, after trauma, there is the fertile soil that says I'm actually open to reassessing some of these core beliefs that I have. I'm actually open to addressing and changing some of these like primitive instincts. I want to know what, where does that come from? Why do I behave that way? There tends to be an extra amount of something that allows us to change, because, by nature, we don't really change. 

Jennifer St John  35:27

Yeah, it's fascinating. So speaking of that, you've gotten out of survival mode. You're rewriting your story. You're in adulthood, you're trying to grow, you're trying to learn, and we touched on it a little bit. But I think those relationships that you have in adulthood, especially romantic relationships, or, you know, close relationships, workplace relationships, all of this shows up in those relationships. 

Laura Fess  35:48

Yeah, yes. 

Jennifer St John  35:50

And so what are some ways, if you are aware, you're in that state of awareness, but you can see yourself, I'm gonna say trigger, just to use the word. I know it's overused, but how do you start to sit with it and not react? Is there anything else that starts to happen or that you can start to do?

Laura Fess  36:08

So when people have interpersonal trauma, attachment trauma, when it's from a caregiver or it's from a trusted adult, when it's from those early years, what that can do is it creates what I like to call an attachment blueprint. So if a blueprint, you know, is like a map that you follow, you know, if you ever bought something at IKEA and you didn't have a blueprint for it, I mean, you may build a dresser, but you're gonna have like, 15 screws, you'll be like, I don't know.

Laura Fess  36:37

our attachment kind of works similar in that we all have a blueprint of how we're supposed to interpret the world and come to understand it, and our primary attachment figures hand that to us. Now they don't literally hand that to us. 

Jennifer St John  36:51

I'm getting, yup...

Laura Fess  36:53

Yes, okay, but they do, right? So every time that that little baby is hungry and no one responded to it, or they didn't respond quick enough that caregiver is handing the baby a blueprint that says what you need or want is not valid.

Jennifer St John  37:08

Okay, so just to anchor this, if you've ever wondered why you shut down when someone gets too close, or why sometimes you feel like you're too much in a relationship, this is the kind of blueprint that Laura's talking about. It's not your fault. It's just what your nervous system has learned from early on.

Laura Fess  37:27

What that kiddo will do is one of two options. There's technically three, but the chance of the third is, like, less than 5% but I'll tell you where that one is too The first one is to be very anxious. And what the kid will do is like, Well, how do I get what I need and is what I need enough? And how do I proposition my caregiver and my attachment figure to meet that need? And there's a lot of anxiety around the attachment so that blueprint will follow them into adulthood, where, in any romantic relationship, professional relationship, friendship relationships, there's going to be a lot of anxiety under the surface, going, is what I need or want valid? I don't know. Is it? Is it too much? Am I too much? I'm definitely too much. I'm too loud, I'm too this. Be more quiet, be more this. Wow. Another thing that can happen is what we called avoid an attachment. And so that little kiddo whose parent is not responding to their hunger cues, who is not following through on seeing them and hearing them, what they will decide is fine. I don't need you. Yeah, I'm not even gonna ask. I might not even be hungry.  I don't even like food. So in a romantic relationship, that's gonna really be interesting. If that's your blueprint, knowing someone, seeing someone, you know, relying on someone thing, you're gonna find yourself like people will describe it in mainstream culture, like, I don't know, I've got a wall up. 

Jennifer St John  38:41

Yup. 

Laura Fess  38:42

Right, you'll hear that language. And they're like, it takes a long time for me to put the wall down. And really, when you sit with like, Have you ever put the wall down? Like, no, that's why it takes a long time, you know, 

Jennifer St John  38:52

Yeah. 

Laura Fess  38:53

Like, maybe removed a brick and regret it right back, you know. So there's anxious, there's avoidant, and then there is one that's called disorganized. And disorganized is about 5% of the population, and that is someone that can oscillate between both anxious and avoidant. Okay, disorganized makes sense, because on one moment, they're following an anxious blueprint. I need you. I need this. Are we good? What we call needy? 

Jennifer St John  39:18

Yep, exactly. 

Laura Fess  39:19

To gone. You're out. They cut people, and then those people are confused, like you were like, we were like this, yeah, and now you're gone, and then six months later you're back. So yeah, anxious, avoidant and disorganized, and you can go through, you know, so many different complexes. 

Jennifer St John  39:37

Definitely see myself through the years, going through all of those. 

Laura Fess  39:41

And so what's interesting is that those blueprints that our childhood, our young years experiences hand us. It's actually interesting. Some research will say that only 50% of the population has a secure attachment. 

Jennifer St John  39:57

50%? 

Laura Fess  39:57

Only 50% and to get a secure attachment a caregiver needs to meet the child's needs only 50% of the time. 

Jennifer St John  40:07

Wow. 

Laura Fess  40:08

So what that says is, a lot of us are in a lot of pain, and there is also a lot of wiggle room for parents, where it's like, you only need to understand your child correctly half of the time, and that's not permission to say, like, you know, only care half the time. But no, there's a lot of wiggle room to get it wrong, to not nail it. So if you understand or meet the child's needs, probably the consistency, right, of trying to meet the child's needs, yeah, that's it. But only 50% of the population has a secure attachment, and that secure attachment says, I am safe in this world. I am seen in this world, and I will be soothed, safe, seen, soothed. I call it the 3s because.  With avoidant attachment, what tends to happen is I was safe, technically, like I had a roof, but I was not seen and I was not soothed. So I'm not putting my eggs in anyone's basket to be seen or soothed? Yeah, right? Anxious is I was safe. Technically, I was kind of seen like they sometimes saw me sometimes, but I was inconsistently soothed, so even when they saw me, they didn't always soothe me, yeah, which is very painful and confusing. With disorganized attachment. I was not safe, I was not seen, I was not soothed. 

Jennifer St John  41:24

Yeah, 

Laura Fess  41:25

No S exists. As an adult. You go into a romantic relationship and you don't have the experience being safe, seen or soothed, and that's your blueprint. It is going to be the uncomfortable is the nicest way I can put it. It is the most uncomfortable thing you could ever do, to be vulnerable or intimate with another human being, whether that's a friend, whether that is a colleague. And by intimate, I mean being fully seen and fully known. 

Jennifer St John  41:52

Yeah, it for sure showed up for me in my early 20s. I'm actually like, I'm in a relationship that I've been in since I was 20, so almost 30 years, but the first 10 years were very difficult, rough. Yeah, very rough. And obviously he has his own story too, 

Laura Fess  42:08

Yeah. 

Jennifer St John  42:08

And everything that you're saying is resonating. And I didn't realize until I was in therapy towards the end of my 20s, like, close to 30 I wasn't actually letting him in 100%. I hadn't done that for 10 years, and I didn't realize it. 

Laura Fess  42:23

So do you wanna so interesting when they study attachment, when they saw the avoidant reaction of children? So the study is called things, called the stranger experiment, and it's basically a researcher, a caregiver and a child, the caregiver leaves, and they just studied what happened, what happened to the child, what happened to the caregiver, and vice versa. For avoidant attachment. When the caregiver left this little toddler that was left with a stranger did not even react. And our culture is obsessed with independence. Obsessed.  So at first it's like, wow, this is a very well adjusted child. Look how secure they are, like the caregiver can leave them, and then all of a sudden they're like, wait a second, there should be screaming. They just got left with a perfect stranger, and they're sitting there just playing with blocks. And then when the parent would come back in, the child didn't even acknowledge the parent.

Jennifer St John  43:10

Yeah.

Laura Fess  43:11

Just continued to play. So what they started to do is measure the heart rate and the stress hormones of that child.

Jennifer St John  43:17

Oh my gosh. It's gonna be so sad. 

Laura Fess  43:19

It was screaming, but it had learned at less than two years old in these experiments that there is no point in saying it out loud, that it's a waste of time, it's a waste of energy. Don't even show the caregiver that you care, that they left, because guess what? They're gonna walk back in and they're not even gonna acknowledge you. And that's actually what happened. The caregiver acknowledged the researcher. Okay, you know what? 

Laura Fess  43:41

Yeah.

Laura Fess  43:41

They don't go scoop up the kid. Make you Okay, yeah. With the other attachment styles, even with the anxious and with secure, when the parent left, the kid lost their mind. With secure, when the parent came back, the parents scooped the kid up and soothed them. They kept them until the kid got calm, bored, and that kid got down off the couch and went and explored the world.

Jennifer St John  44:04

 Yeah? 

Laura Fess  44:05

With anxious, the kid was screaming, and mom maybe, or caregiver, maybe, picked them up, but would get annoyed and frustrated. Okay, stop. You're fine. You're fine. I'm back. Yeah. So the kid who never got soothed all the way never left the couch. It's interesting because there's a book called attached, the science of romantic relationships, or adult romantic relationships, by Amir Levine. And in his book, he says that changing your attachment style is possible, but it takes about four years, and I would say depending on the level of trauma associated with that attachment style, because neglect is traumatic. It's complex trauma. You are not seen, not soothed. I would say that is a complex trauma. But the other things, like what you're describing you and your sister survived depending on the level of trauma that is associated with your attachment blueprint. I think four years is just the beginning. 

Jennifer St John  44:58

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like oldest sister. We were just talking about this, and she's four years older than me, and she's been with her current partner for 20 years. It's only in the last 10 years that she has felt a change. It's like plan B was always in her back pocket, and now plan B isn't in her back pocket. So she was in her 40s.

Laura Fess  45:20

 But when you think about it, if your whole life from zero to 20, right, until you're an adult who can have agency to go and make decisions for yourself, that blueprint that 20 years for her of Don't you dare put your eggs in the basket of someone? 

Jennifer St John  45:35

Yeah.

Laura Fess  45:36

Can't trust them. Yeah, it actually makes so much sense that it took 20 years to begin to be open to another way of existing that is a dense jungle, that is a very small machete, and there's a lot of things that would say, just take the highway. 

Jennifer St John  45:51

Oh yeah, yeah, it's not easy. It's not easy getting through that jungle for 20 years. 

Laura Fess  45:55

Who wants to do that every day for 20 years? You could've just gonna plug away at a new way of being, a new way of experiencing the world, especially when that primitive part of your brain, there's a concept. It's called neuroception, and it's the idea that this base part of your brain can hijack your higher level thinking, your prefrontal cortex, up to 90 seconds before you're even aware it's happening. 

Jennifer St John  46:17

Wow. 

Laura Fess  46:18

And we're like, that makes my Friday night arguments my husband makes so much sense I was and if you think about my bus example, it's like someone hijacking the bus before you know, 

Jennifer St John  46:28

They just took over. 

Laura Fess  46:29

And we want that to happen when you're on the highway and someone almost sideswipes you and you got out of the way, and your heart is pounding, and you're like, just happened. I don't need to know. And that's a great example of neuroception. You're like, my instincts reacted before I cognitively even came online. Yeah, that almost got killed. But we don't want that happening when you're eating lasagna at the family dinner table and someone says, What's up with you? And button, 

Jennifer St John  47:01

Yeah, explosion.

Laura Fess  47:04

The attachment blueprint is my answer to the question, right? Is that we all have these blueprints that we default to? Those are some serious highways that have been repeated and repeated and repeated, and we're just following it. 

Jennifer St John  47:20

That's the starting point when you're an adult and your awareness is there and you're starting to do the growth work that attachment blueprint is what you have to go back to and start to.

Laura Fess  47:30

I would start there. 

Jennifer St John  47:31

Dismantle process.

Laura Fess  47:33

Understand it, be aware of it. Just being like, Oh, and if that awareness is associated with compassion, deep compassion, not shame, like, oh my gosh, I'm avoidant. Are you kidding me? What's wrong with me? No, no, oh no, no, no, no, right? I actually find in a therapeutic setting that attachment is such a relief for people. When we start doing attachment stuff, it's like, Are you kidding me? 

Jennifer St John  48:00

It's like a puzzle you get to put together. That's what's so fascinating about it. I always call it peeling back the layers of the onion, right? But literally is. It's it gives you a roadmap. It's like, oh, this is why I react this way. This is why I do this. 

Laura Fess  48:13

And then that observing self, who has hope, who has been living this whole life story with you, and is just like, I don't know why I'm I would just like to have a good day. I don't know. I didn't know why we're doing this. That hope part of us, it's just like, I can get louder. I could drive the bus a little more because I could be like, Hey everyone, hey passengers in the back. I know that you want to lose your mind right now, and you're freaking out, and all of that is rational, actually rational. Like, guess what? This is just a blueprint. Yeah, no.

Jennifer St John  48:49

I'm actually getting emotional when you're saying this, because it is, that's what it feels like, that hope has always been there. I'm literally crying right now, but when it's suppressed and it's buried under so much. That is what it feels like when you finally as an adult, when you do the work and you do the growth, that is exactly what it feels like.

Laura Fess  49:09

Yeah, because hope is like on the back seat of the bus. 

Jennifer St John  49:13

Yeah, it's there, but it's way back. 

Laura Fess  49:16

And it's like, I could drive. And everyone's like, shut up. Go back down.

Jennifer St John  49:22

Your analogies are amazing. 

Laura Fess  49:24

I'm a visual learner, as you can imagine. I did not do well in calculus.

Jennifer St John  49:32

If you need to pause here, do it? Go refill that drink. Take a deep breath, in and out. Stare dramatically the window, whatever works for you. We'll be right here when you're ready.

Jennifer St John  49:47

Oh my gosh, Laura, I can't thank you enough for this conversation. 

Laura Fess  49:51

I'm honored to hear your story, and I think for people that are at the beginning of unpacking theirs, hearing that there's someone. And not just you a family unit that's trying to go through this. It's a clunky journey, but that it's like, this is something to be loud about. This is something to be like, yeah, there is hope. And guess what? If you go to three sessions, therapy sessions, and you have this one, aha, but then all of a sudden, you're still back on that highway. You're not failing therapy, you're not failing healing, you're not failing growth. This is really complicated. This is neuroscience. 

Jennifer St John  50:25

Yeah, you know, your neural pathways are being redesigned. 

Laura Fess  50:28

Well. Every time you do a yoga class and you take a deep breath and you say to your central nervous system, you can breathe deep right now because you are safe, you are literally doing neuroscience. Every time you write a journal, and you externalize, and you process, you begin to make sense of what. Why do I do this? And you start, I call it dot connecting, oh, because of this. And then this, you're actually performing neuroscience every time. It's powerful stuff, and it's going to be clunky, yeah? So hearing that, there's people that for your sister, where she has been 20 years on this journey, and she's still going, and she's still growing and still having insights that is encouraging for all of us. 

Jennifer St John  51:10

Oh, I agree. 

Laura Fess  51:11

You know, I once had a client that came in their late 70s. 

Jennifer St John  51:14

Wow. 

Laura Fess  51:15

And talk about a lot of pressure.  I will never forget them for the rest of my life, because it's their very first time ever doing therapy. They're in their late 70s, and I remember them sitting down and just being like, I just don't want to experience the world the way I do, and I've got a story to share. They changed my life. 

Jennifer St John  51:37

Oh, wow, that's a heavy opening. 

Laura Fess  51:40

Yeah, yeah, because you're just like, let's do it. 

Jennifer St John  51:44

Yeah? Again, hope they still had hope. 

Jennifer St John  51:47

It's on the back the bus had to chance to come to the front. 

Laura Fess  51:50

That's so beautiful. 

Jennifer St John  51:51

Yeah, we're all on a journey. We all have a story, yeah, and I think not to be cheesy, but you can reclaim that story. You can rewrite that story. 

Jennifer St John  52:01

I agree.

Laura Fess  52:03

So cool. It's the best.  The really beautiful part about being human is that we're all just trying to figure it out. 

Jennifer St John  52:12

Yep, we are. And if compassion is there for everybody coming from that place, then can be a much better place to be in. 

Laura Fess  52:19

Yeah, totally.

Jennifer St John  52:22

Okay. So much of what Laura shared today reminded me that this is actually neuroscience. It's not failure that the ways that we've learned to shut down, to over function, to please, to avoid, to react, they're not character flaws. They're actually survival instincts, and this is how our nervous system has been saying, I'm not safe yet. And that means healing isn't about fixing yourself. It's not that you're broken. It's about understanding where those patterns have come from, how they started, and then gently unlearning what no longer serves you. Sometimes the bravest way that you can do this as adults, is to sit with the parts of us that learn to survive and say thank you. Say you got me here, and that's great, but now I don't need you in that way anymore. That image that Laura shared of Hope sitting quietly in the back of the bus just waiting for its chance to drive, oh my god, that one really, affected me, and it's really stayed with me, because even when hope feels so far away or buried beneath everything that we've carried, it doesn't disappear. It waits quietly. And when we start to tell our stories, and when we start to understand our patterns, when we find the courage to shift even a little bit that's when hope starts to move forward. So if your story has been shaped by trauma or by the instinct to survive, please know that you're not too late, you're not broken, and you can still change how everything ends. 

Jennifer St John  53:55

Now before we go, I want to invite you to join our hashtag createcom mental health movement. This is a space for sharing the creative ways that you care for your nervous system and you create stillness in your day. So whether that's writing or moving, being artistic or just simply sitting down in a quiet place and taking a deep breath, share it with us and tag us, and we're building a collective library of tools to help everybody come back to themselves. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. You can connect with us through the show notes on social media or by visiting Jen st john.ca that's j, e n, n, s, t, J, O, H n.ca,

Jennifer St John  54:36

And if you'd like to support the podcast and help these conversations reach more people, please consider subscribing, sharing the episode or leaving a review. As you know, it really does make a difference. If something difficult came up here while you were listening, you don't have to sit with that alone. In Canada, you can call or text 988 anytime for free, confidential mental health support, and if you're local, here the CMHA chapter. In Simcoe County has a Crisis Line at 1888938333, or you can text 686868, and you'll be connected to a trained volunteer through the Crisis Text Line in the US, the 988, suicide and crisis Lifeline is available 24/7, by call or text for anyone who is in emotional distress, not just those in crisis. And for our listeners in Australia, you can call Lifeline at 13, 1114, anytime, day or night, for free and confidential crisis report.

Jennifer St John  55:33

Next week, I'm going to be talking with Rachel malenda. She's a speaker, a coach and the founder of the reunion dance party, a woman only, non alcoholic dance party that she created is a joyful rebellion against everything that once made her feel lost. Rachel opens up about her mental health journey, including moments that nearly broke her and how she found her way back through movement, music and meaning. It's very uplifting, and it's one that you definitely don't want to miss. So until then, take care of yourselves and keep finding your way forward you.

CLOSING NOTE: This transcript was created for accessibility and connection. Thanks for listening to The Shadows We Cast.