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. We talk about poverty—not just as a lack of money, but as a feeling that seeps into your self-worth—and how those early years shaped our work ethic, independence, and empathy in ways we couldn’t understand at the time.

We reflect on the adults who tried to help, the ones who looked away, and the small kindnesses that made a difference. Through journal entries, raw memories, and hard truths, we revisit the instability of our Arizona and Missouri years—moments marked by addiction, unsafe environments, and emotional whiplash.

This isn’t just a story of pain. It’s a story of resilience, of love between sisters, and of the moments that cracked something open in us—and, ultimately, helped us find our way home.

If you’ve ever wondered how people survive chaos—or how they begin to rebuild—this conversation invites you in.

This episode was originally released on April 12th, 2025. 

Host/Producer/Writer/Director: Jenn St John

Editor: Andrew Schiller
Website: www.jennstjohn.ca
Follow along:
Instagram: @jenn_stjohn
LinkedIn: Jenn St John

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Transcript

TRANSCRIPT

1. Episode title:  Survival
2. Episode number: 2
3. Podcast Name: The Shadows We Cast
4. Host and Guest Names: Host, Jenn St John; Guests: Kate and Teresa
5. Total Running time: 39:42

CONTENT WARNING:  

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

Jennifer St John  00:00

So hello and welcome to the shadows. We 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 by 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  00:51

Welcome back, everyone, to the shadows we cast. I'm Jen. Before we begin, a quick heads up that this episode does include adult conversations about mental health, addiction, trauma and some childhood family dynamics. So please just take care, when and where you choose to listen, and also just a reminder that I am not a mental health professional. I am a daughter and a child who is sharing her lived experiences in the hopes of creating more space for honesty and to break down the stigma around mental health. This is the second episode in a three part series where I sit down with my sisters to talk about our childhood, growing up with a mother who had undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. If you're new here, I recommend starting with Episode One for the full story, but if you want to just dive in, here, not a problem, and you can catch up another time, as always, we begin with a journal entry. This one is a letter from our mom. It was written when Kate and I were sent across the US to live with a family that we didn't know so that we could finish the school year. We weren't legally allowed to register for school in Arizona because we weren't in the US legally. And this letter, like many of hers, swings from warm to biting in just a few lines. Quote, Hi, my girls. How's everything going for the two of you? We miss you something terrible. But it eases my heart to know that you're both happy living in a comfortable, high atmosphere. I know Jen, this still has excitement for you, as it is a first experience, but Kate, I'm sure you're almost past the point of wondering when or if this mad type of life is ever, ever going to end, when one could actually settle Oh, well, maybe as an adult, you'll settle in one place, in one house, and live happily ever after. It might even include a white picket fence. Love mom. This episode picks up right where we left off. Mom was doing it all on her own. She was raising three kids while caught in cycles that we didn't understand at the time, when she was in a high energy phase, she worked non stop, three jobs, constant movement, barely slowing down, and then when the lows hit, everything stopped and she couldn't get out of bed for days. In between those extremes, we learned to stretch $1 and we learned how to make do, and we learned how to take care of each other and how to go without looking back, that survival instinct shaped us in ways that we didn't even realize them.

Jennifer St John  03:19

 Legally, mom couldn't work with Tom in our lives, things felt like they went up. He was making more money than she did as a single parent, and he owned his own home. It felt like there was a little bit of a stability thing there. He literally built a room on it so that we could all live there, which the room didn't get 100% finished, so there's no heat to the winter or something like that. But he was really trying. You could tell he was really trying. I do think, Kate, you were saying earlier, there were always adults in our lives who very much saw what was going on, loved us and wanted us to be safe. And I do feel like he was one of those adults. I can remember there was just so little money. I was very much teased because I would wear the same pair of pants almost every single day to school, to the point of we were on the bus and there was this one boy who was going beyond and the bus driver had to get involved and help me make sure that I was okay and I was safe. I remember that feeling too, because that's one of the things that we can't hide. You can't hide not having much food for lunch, and you can't hide wearing the same clothes every day at school, or not having things that you need for school. And when you don't have much You can't hide it. But looking back, I realized that experience gave me something. It gave me an insane work ethic. It made me see that I was more than what I wore, and it taught me to recognize kindness, the people who stepped in and the ones who saw us that really mattered. I can remember being involved in plays, and a teacher would take me out to get an outfit at the used store, because somehow they knew we couldn't do it, and they just were. Looking after us and what stands out for me now, there were people who saw us, teachers, neighbors, even that bus driver who stepped in when I was being I don't want to say bullied, but it's easy to focus on what we didn't have. But I also remember who showed up. Do you guys remember any kind of external things like that starting to happen at all around those ages as well.

Teresa  05:25

Definitely, the teasing like mine would have been earlier, but around the same time. So for me, starting grade three, grade four is when I probably became aware of the poverty level that we kind of hovered around. And I think that age and stage for kids so you do start to feel less than I think that for me only grew, because even when we were with Tom, a lot of that money was focused on kind of the party lifestyle, especially out in Arizona, and that didn't include us. I mean, that one pair of pants that you had eventually made its way to me. So yeah, just never feeling like you measure up. 

Kate  06:05

For me, I think the poverty thing really became apparent when we lived in Westport, because I was at that age. I was very lucky in the fact that I was very well embraced by the communities, because it was a small amount of like, there was two people in the graduating class of grade eight. They were all very kind and friendly, and they didn't tease and they didn't make fun of but I was aware that it was there. You'd go to their homes and see their clothes and their Christmas gifts. So it was an awareness for me, for sure. But fortunately, I wasn't faced with the teasing and the bullying around that 

Jennifer St John  06:37

we had to grow up, which we've talked about a lot here already, and while that was hard, it also gave us something valuable. It gave us independence. A healthy dose of independence is valuable. I figured out how to make my own way very early, and I learned how to deal with money and make $1 stretch and learn how to make things work, and learned how to set my own goals, and those lessons, I carried those with me. I think we all did that. Yeah, for sure, as soon as we could, Trey is just going back to what we were talking about, the Arizona, Missouri time and the escalation of mom's mental health. Do you have any kind of memories or a specific incident that highlighted that kind of demise, I guess, of mom's mental health during that time? 

Teresa  07:22

I saw a lot of the highs and the lows. It would be a Friday night, and she would rent seven movies and just literally stay on the couch all weekend and in the dark, and you don't answer the phone, and you don't answer the door, and it just would be this low, and she'd rally, and it would be the opposite. I can't tell you how many times they had a specific couple that they were friends with in Arizona, and they would go out on their boat all the time, and how many times when they woke up from the hangover the next day that mom was covered in, like, probably second third degree burn blisters over large parts of her body, because she would fall. And she kept saying to us, like, oh, I fell into the engine. So it was one of those boats that would have had, like an exposed something. So many times I remember that happening. She just wasn't well.

Jennifer St John  08:13

I remember those blisters. Oh, my God. Do I remember those blisters? 

Teresa  08:17

My memories of Missouri are very much of her being insular, very much, staying indoors, going out. Definitely the addictive personality stuff. I started to see that more then when she would just fixate on things. I remember we got our first video game system, and that was super exciting. But again, she didn't have a job or anything that she was going out to. So her days and nights weren't exactly days and nights, and she would wake us up to help her get through these levels on these video games. I mean, it's a school night, and we still get up the next day and go to school. I specifically remember those desks that the chairs are connected to. So like, the desk actually has a shelf inside it. You know, in grade four, I spent a lot of that year pretending I'm rooting around in my desk, looking for something, but I'm just trying to hide the fact that I'm emotional, because it just doesn't feel right. I don't know what it is, and we don't have any family around or any I'm not really making friends with anyone, but it doesn't feel right. I wouldn't say those were her greatest years. I think that was a real struggle.

Jennifer St John  09:23

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.

Jennifer St John  09:42

 With the escalation of the alcohol abuse, came more accidents, even in Westport. I think most of the vehicles that we had because of the level of money that mom was making, they were always kind of what we'd call a beater. They usually ended up total because of mom driving under the influence, never being charged. But always single vehicle accidents, usually late at night, and kind of it was always the weather or the sun or something. I can remember in Missouri and Arizona driving under the influence with us, and the vehicle started. Maybe it started before, but I can just really remember it happening and being aware enough that I was like again, Kate with the gun situation, we are not safe in this moment right now, and just trying desperately to make sure that she stayed on the road and got us home. I can remember coaches having to stay for hours, hours because nobody was there to pick me up. It was dark out and I couldn't walk home, which is how we got back and forth to school, usually, and she'd show up. And I still don't understand how these coaches let us get into the vehicles with her. She was inebriated and should not have been driving, but at that point, they've been waiting probably for three hours for her and getting into that vehicle, and you're so scared, because you're just like, how are we going to get home? Then also, what happened in Arizona is that Kate graduated from high school, and so that was another really big transition that we all have to face. Kate So you had choices that you could make as to where you were gonna go and what you were gonna do. How did you get through making those choices? 

Kate  11:25

So in the beginning, my first plan was to stay in Arizona and go to college and be there while you guys were still there. But then I had a huge falling out with mom and Tom, to the point that there was a physical altercation between Tom and I, and it was one of those nights they came home, the two of them drunk from being out with those friends with the boat. And she's, once again, burned. He seems to be the more sensible one in the moment. Still he was drunk as well, because his drinking highly increased with dad's drinking. They had some very volatile interactions throughout that time in Arizona, and at that point, I'm questioning mom, saying, Is he doing this to you? Because this is like the third time she's coming home with these burns. I know there had been altercations before. I vividly remember the house in Arizona. We were in the corner of the L shaped hallway, and he lunged at me, and I punched him in the face and kneed him, and he went down in a lot of pain. I get it now, but I didn't get it then. She protected him. It was all about him, and at that point I was like, I can't be here anymore. I have to go. I'm not quite sure how this all transpired, but I ended up out west with one of our aunts and uncles and a cousin who I had been very close to as a child, and they had lost a child a couple of years prior. We're not sure, but we think drunk driving leave the scene accident. But I ended up there in Victoria for the summer and worked there. Just had to leave. Had to get as far away as I could, again, a lot of guilt leaving, but she kicked me out. Really is, is what mom did. I was not allowed to stay, and I tried. I didn't have the means to stay. I tried to get an apartment. I remember going and looking at a couple of places. They were the neat apartments with the pool in the center and the girls could come stay with me. I thought, Oh, I could do this. But I was 18. I just graduated high school. Worked at like, Kentucky Fried Chicken, I think is where I worked at in Arizona. I just didn't have the means, so I had to leave because I had no way to stay. 

Jennifer St John  13:32

Yeah, well, I remember you leaving, but it was never presented to us that that was under those circumstances. I just thought, okay, of course, it's grade 12. You leave the house, you're off. You're gonna go back to Canada and go to school or, you know, do whatever. But I do remember we all left, all the same day. Yeah, I remember seeing you're playing in the sky. And at this point, it's almost three years, we've seen no family, and we've not seen dad. We had had one family member, our aunt Erin, had flown down to see us in Lake Havasu City. And I can remember, I'm sure, by that point, well, Mom was spiraling like had been spiraling from the moment we got down to the states. But I think even for us, it was getting quite palpable at that point that we needed to see family, and so we were also conveniently shipped off for the summer as well, to Canada and put on a plane and back to Ontario. Basically floated around, got to see dad and spend lots of time with dad, mostly, I think, stayed with Aunt Terry, that's what I remember trace. And just got to be immersed in that love. And obviously they all just opened their arms up and just took us in, and again, they wouldn't know it, but everything we'd just been through for those three years at our home life, it's like the total opposite walking into any home that we walked into, whether it was a friend's home, whether it was dad's home, or whether it was an aunt or an uncle. So emotionally, almost getting your bucket refilled. I guess is what it felt like for me. That was a big summer. That was a really big summer. Trey's for you, did that help with any of the loneliness that you were feeling? 

Teresa  15:10

.I remember it being lots of positive experiences. We didn't have a lot of peers, like we didn't stay anywhere that summer, in the sense of, I wasn't able to start to make friends, that kind of thing, but from a relative perspective, absolutely filled with lots of love and that kind of thing for sure.

Jennifer St John  15:27

Yeah, well, and I guess because I was older in those other places, but I went back to Peterborough and saw friends that I had, and I wrote letters during those three years, during the states. I like pen pal my life away, trying to hold on to connections, because that was the only way.

Teresa  15:42

There's a huge part of me that just didn't have that I was young enough that when we left lots of these places, I didn't have that pen pal connection. We weren't in the digital world. Connections are just so essential. They are such a part of the foundation that I've raised our kiddos to really seek out and sustain connections with people, because I really think it is part of that foundation, and it's something that I really lack in a lot of my life, is just having people. I might have had them in the moment, but then you're on to the next place and the next thing in the next house and the next whatever. So being present enough to seek out and sustain those connections is huge.

Kate  16:27

I was reflecting on this the other day when I knew we were having this podcast. And do you think part of that is why we've ended up where we are in the province? I mean, we've all done some moving around and done some things, but for me, Westport was my biggest connection. It was the longest place we stayed. It was grade five to grade nine. For you guys, I think Orillia is where you spent the most of your time, like, if you look at a chunk of time, and so you have both kind of settled close to, not within Orillia, but you've you've settled close to there. Do you think that has something to do with that, because that's where we spent the most of our time, and made some connections and created some roots? 

Jennifer St John  17:06

I totally understand your connection, Kate. I only came to really in grade nine. I was gone by 12. 

Jennifer St John  17:11

So Westport was five years that was the longest we lived anywhere. For me was was Westport. So I totally understand why, when you were able to go back to school and you made the decisional school in Kingston, that was a very natural place for you to feel a sense of family and stability and friends even, because I'm sure you reconnected with people because you were older at that age when you left Westport.

Kate  17:11

Oh, okay. 

Kate  17:33

And I still have some of those friendships now. 

Jennifer St John  17:35

Yeah, exactly. I think for me, honestly, it was more so when we were leaving Toronto, this is fast forwarding, many years into my adulthood. I wanted to be close to family, and it was a lot of work stuff with my husband. We love Westport. We love where you guys have settled. But for him, work wise, it was too far away from Toronto. And so then the next place I had family still was this area, because really, my friends that I still maintain relationships with from high school aren't here. It was where could I go to? A, make it work professionally and B, be close to my siblings. And so because it was just too far to go to where you were, Kate, then the next thing was, okay, well where's Teresa, and we don't live on each other's doorsteps, but we're at least closer than we would have been if I stayed in Toronto. 

Kate  18:34

True.

Jennifer St John  18:35

Teresa, you were out west and came back to this area was the driving force was kind of work slash family?

Teresa  18:43

I think it was probably based more on familiarity than connection. Like yes, I was in Orillia from grade six to grade 12, and had some peer groups, but I didn't have the greatest social skills. It wasn't something that was really honed for me as a kiddo, so I hadn't kept up with a lot of those relationships, and I wish that I had a but Orillia was still familiar, so there was more familiarity than connection. That brought me back here. 

Jennifer St John  19:12

I understand that though, because we go to visit Kate, we go to Westport. I mean, Kate doesn't live in Westport, but it's familiarity, right? It isn't like, oh, I went to school there. I had this happen at this spot down at Spring, or I hiked Foley Mountain, or I took swimming lessons at the beach. I guess that's the connection. I guess you're saying is more with people, whereas familiarity is more with place.

Teresa  19:35

Home for me has never been at place. Home is a feeling in my heart of comfort, because it was never a dwelling that, for me, is not what definition of home is.

Kate  19:47

Yeah, I agree with you, and I think home, for me, the definition was always the homestead. We didn't talk about this yet, but the homestead was a big part of our childhood, and that's the property that our grandparents bought and built on. And for many, many summers, T, you were really young, you were an infant to a couple years old. We would go there every summer and camp. And I remember looking forward to that summer, because that's where I felt the safest. There was 85 acres to go and have fun and explore with our cousins, and all of our aunts and uncles were there. And mom was on her best behavior because she didn't treat us the way that she did treat us in front of them ever it was a very hidden secret. And so that's another draw for me to this area, is that's where I felt the safest, and it was the big part of why I moved back. 

Jennifer St John  20:33

Yeah. And also those family members, Nan and Pa. Pa was no longer with us by that point, but Nan and pot, and then the aunts or uncles that we also felt connections with and that we felt safest with, that homestead was a place that everybody would go, whether it was Easter, a holiday or summer or whatever. So yeah, I totally understand that connection there that makes a lot of sense. Having those years of your childhood there, it's like a piece of your heart is there, right? 

Kate  21:01

I always had the dream to buy that place back and make it what it was, 

Jennifer St John  21:05

Oh wow!

Kate  21:06

And I still have that dream. Who knows? 

Jennifer St John  21:08

Yeah? 

Kate  21:09

Yeah. 

Jennifer St John  21:09

Well, that's awesome. That's awesome. 

Jennifer St John  21:13

Hey, just a little break here. If you're somebody who likes to scribble down things, or, let's be real, maybe sometimes just doodling 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.

Jennifer St John  21:39

 So at the end of our Arizona year, we're all put on planes from LA Kate's leaving, leaving, she's done high school, she's gone back to stay with family on the West Coast, and we're put on a plane back to Ontario, and we spend the next two months with family there. During that period of time, the decision is made, or the decision was made for them that we're now no longer living in Arizona. We're moving back to Missouri.  For Teresa and I, that transition is made over the summer, and they pack all of our belongings up and they move them back to the house that Tom owned in Missouri. I can remember I didn't want to go back now, I had the moment you had Kate when you were in Peterborough, moving to Missouri, and I did not want to leave Canada. I was very emotional and very adamant. I talked to Aunt Terry about it, I talked to Dad about it. They were both, of course, very supportive and wanted to help me out with that decision. I didn't want to leave Teresa in the situation, but it's just that whole weight of you're trying to save yourself, but you're also trying to save your sisters, and you're just trying to survive. I felt my best opportunity to survive was going to be to stay. You were home in Canada too, Kate, that was another reason why I wanted to stay and just try to be close again. I can remember mom just shut it down, and she was just like, Absolutely not, it's not happening. I was a mess. So she came and picked us up and drove us back to Missouri. And now I was angry. I was not happy with the situation at all. I think that's when things started to turn for me as well. So it's now back to Missouri, and I'm in grade nine. Theresa, you must be in grade six?

Teresa  23:30

Yeah.

Jennifer St John  23:31

And Kate, at that point, had you gone to Hamilton and you were getting some upgrading done so that you could apply to schools in Canada because you've been in the States for a few years?

Kate  23:41

Yes, I left Victoria, and the plan was to go live with dad in Toronto at his apartment at Jane and Finch. I remember Aunt Tara and her husband at that time picking me up from the airport and taking me there. And I was I was like, I can do this. I got it right. I'll figure out and go to school. I've done it. 

Jennifer St John  23:58

We'd get there before it was the same place he'd lived the whole time we knew him, right? 

Kate  24:02

Yeah, but she left there just devastated that I was going to be living in Toronto on my own, pretty much, because at that point, Dad worked, and he'd go away for work and do all of that. So then the decision was made that I would go live with her and her husband at that time in Hamilton, and I found out that I couldn't go to college right away, because of being in the states and then being back in Canada, I didn't have enough credits, so I went to what at that point in time was called OAC, and I only needed a couple credits, but I figured you might as well make a year of it. Kind of just settle in for a year and figure some things out. So I moved in with them, and then two days later, got a job at a curling and Country Club, golf and curling, Country Club in Dundas, and I spent the year there. Yep.

Jennifer St John  24:44

For us, the elevation of unhealthy coping mechanisms and the elevation of mental health issues for Mom wasn't going away. So that peaked for us in Missouri in that first six months. And. We obviously communicated with you mostly through letter, because I'm sure phone calls were tricky to have, and mom would have been very paranoid again about what was being said and what was being done at that point, that would have been the first time that one of her children was no longer outside of her house and under her control. So I'm sure that the relationship was already very tattered because of how you left. I'm sure that she was paranoid about what you could say or what you could do?

Kate  25:27

 Absolutely, Jen, she actually threatened me when I first moved in with Tara, I got a phone call from her and was along the lines of, oh, you're just making your way through my family. Like she always called it her family, and definitely threatened me that I was not to say anything, that if I was choosing to abandon you guys and her, that I'm not allowed to have anything to do with you. Don't call, don't communicate, don't anything. I remember that phone call vividly. 

Jennifer St John  25:55

Yeah, but I do remember that we still wrote you. 

Kate  25:58

Yes, you did.

Kate  25:59

Teresa, do you remember? You can tell us about only a couple of months into that period of time where we were all no longer now under the same roof, we were back in Missouri. You were now in Hamilton. There was a massive incident that started a very big ripple effect of another big change in our life. So Teresa, do you want to tell us about that?

Teresa  26:19

I remember writing a lot of letters, both in Arizona and Missouri. I mean, again, I was young, but I remember I would circle the tear marks on the loose leaf, and I'd be like, see, this is how much I'm crying.

Jennifer St John  26:33

God. 

Jennifer St John  26:34

Well, and the letter situation. And Kate, I think you and I probably remember it more clearly. I think it was to Aunt Tara that you wrote a letter. Oh, it was to you.,Kate? 

Teresa  26:34

It was hard for me when Kate left. I remember writing a lot of letters and communicating how unhappy it was, and just talking to Kate about the fights that were going on and just fear. I think a lot of those letters didn't get sent. I think a lot of them were intercepted by mom, because, again, I'm young, so I need her in order to gain access to the post office and stuff. I remember being really surprised when one actually got through. And it was obviously one that wasn't she mustn't have read it, because the best of my recollection, it indicatedsome fear of what was going on. And then it just felt efforts for them put in place to have us come back for a visit. And what I recall is a bit of an intervention, but Kate can probably better recall.

Kate  27:30

Yeah. 

Jennifer St John  27:30

You showed Aunt Tara?

Kate  27:31

Yes, yeah. So I got the letter.

Jennifer St John  27:33

You were detailing a very unsafe situation. 

Kate  27:36

I think because that letter, it spoke about guns again, and I had experienced that already, so I knew it to be real. And even at that point, I didn't share with Aunt Tara my experience of what happened, but I shared the letter, and I said, I'm going to tell you that this will happen. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And Teresa, in that letter, you described an argument you overheard between Tom and mom when you guys were somewhere for Christmas or something, staying in a room with a bunch of other little kids, and you were awake, and threats were made that included gun violence, and that's what you wrote about. That's when then Aunt Tara got the Aunts involved. 

Jennifer St John  28:16

I think for us in Missouri at that time, their relationship was falling apart. It was in tatters. I don't know if it was a financial reason why Mom wasn't willing to leave, or just mental health wise, we don't know if she just wasn't able to make the decision. All of the sudden, the family had pulled enough money together, and we took a train up, and then we rented a vehicle and got to see all the family over the Christmas holidays, this is when people tried to separate us from Mom in a quiet corner and have very real and pointed conversations about our safety and what was going on down there. I don't know Teresa, I'm sure the same thing happened with you? 

Teresa  28:56

It was but I feel like I remember a lot of fear during that time, because mom had very much caution us on the way, just really reinforced that we were not to share information at all. I remember being nervous as we left the homestead in that red rental car, and I remember driving away. I still have the visual in my head because I thought, oh, it's gonna get real now, because we had all had some of those quasi conversations, and the adults had conversations with her. I remember there being a time where it was all the kids, and I just had that sense that they were all having a big,

Jennifer St John  29:33

Oh yeah.

Teresa  29:34

I say intervention, but a big conversation with mom, and I thought, this is not going to go well. And it didn't. I think the yelling started as we left the driveway, and like hours, hours of screaming and yelling, it was bad.

Jennifer St John  29:50

For the first time, the adults in our family were really seeing it, and they were really seeing us, and not because they hadn't believed us, but because they just. They hadn't known how bad things were. Mom had spent years making sure that we didn't tell anybody and making sure that no one saw how bad it was. But in that moment, the truth was out, and while it didn't magically fix everything overnight, it was the moment that everything started to shift, and we really felt things were going to change. Like I had no problems opening up at that point, I was of the age and stage, where Kate was when she couldn't leave. I think it was going to be our escape. I very much felt this is the only way for us to get out of this situation that we're in right now, and if we don't do this now, who knows what's going to happen when we got home to Missouri, it was like the whole place shut down because it had snowed, I don't know, six inches or something, and they just didn't have the infrastructure to deal with that. So we were getting back for school to start, but then school didn't start. So I felt like there were two or three days there where I could distinctively remember being in that living room and sunshine in and it's winter, and we've just gotten back from this trip, and mom is just bawling. She's so emotional. I can remember her telling me that she felt like I made her feel stupid. And I think it was around that age that I felt like I'm making better decisions than you are. I feel as we all got more mature, we were all almost surpassing her to some extent, on some mature, emotionally stable, smart things that she wasn't capable of, even though we were under 18 years old. That was a pretty tricky one, because what do you say it gets like? Well, based on your behaviors, this is what's happening. So I was coming up to grade nine, because it was January, would have been the end of the term, and our family got us home in time for me to start another high school in Canada. That was the end of our Missouri stage, and Tom was still in our lives, because I guess they couldn't end the relationship, even though we all knew that needed to happen. I remember he stayed down there for a bit,

Teresa  32:04

But they were still together.

Jennifer St John  32:06

Yeah, and then we took the train through Chicago, and Dad met us. We ended up settling with family in Orillia, and that's kind of how we came be in Orillia. Didn't really talk about this, but Arizona, there was a point where Kate tried to go to school, and they were like, where's your paperwork? And she's like, don't have it. So Kate and I were sent Missouri to finish school for like, I don't know, four months or something. Live with a family that we didn't even know, and you guys were 'homeschooled'. 

Teresa  32:36

We'll use that term loosely, but yeah.

Kate  32:38

(Laughing)

Jennifer St John  32:39

But that was that phone call that we were talking about that took place that fall, where mom was desperate to officially get divorced from dad because she had to get married to Tom in order for us to stay there and go to school, for her to work. And we'd already been in the States for, what, a year, by that point, I think, almost a year. And so I can remember us getting those illegal alien cards. And when we were on the train in Chicago, we were dealing with customs coming back to Canada, and they're like, Oh, I guess you're not going to need these anymore. And they took them away from us. That was like, final that it was over. Teresa and I were in Orillia, and Kate, you were in Hamilton, finishing up your OAC's?

Kate  33:16

Yep.

Jennifer St John  33:17

And it was the first time in years that things felt, if not stable, then at least familiar. We weren't moving again, and we were staying in one place. But that didn't mean everything was suddenly okay. The instability wasn't just about where we lived. It was in us too. We were just starting to figure out how to carry it. Coming back to Ontario felt different. I was thrilled to be back home this time, it wasn't about just survival. I was starting to think about what would come next and how I could carve out something for my own. I don't think our relationship with you Kate was great at this point, because mom was still very much in control of that. And again, still no digital age here. This is still just phone calls and letters. I think that it was very much just put your head down, do well at school. I was very involved in school, had a job, had lots of friends at this age as well, had boyfriends, so I think it was a lot of trying to get through high school was very much like I could see the light the end of the tunnel. I wanted to do as well as I possibly could at school so that I could have the best opportunity to do something afterwards and just leave and get out. How are things initially for you Teresa, what do you remember the first couple of years?

Teresa  34:30

A lot of different guys. While the relationship with Tom was still going, I remember being of the age I knew that they were still together, even though geographically distanced, because he was still down in the States, but waking up to various individuals. Ssubstances involved.  Dad came around - was one of those individuals, and I didn't love that. I never had a super close relationship with him, because again, he was more not in my life and in my life, and it wasn't awesome. My dad was very loyal to mom, so you couldn't speak ill of her, and you couldn't find fault. And I was of the age now I'm grade six, grade seven, and so I'm starting to be like, this is not okay. I had a sense that what she was doing was adultery, because she was still with Tom. So that was tricky, and there was a number of individuals, and some of those individuals were family friends that I knew were married, so I really struggled.

Jennifer St John  35:29

Well, and especially that she was bringing it into your world.

Teresa  35:33

Yeah, I can remember, like, middle of the night, I'd wake up, it'd be loud, be at various points in their interactions and their relations, and I can remember spending long stretches of time outside in the darkness by myself, because it was better than hearing what was going on, which was either conflict as a result of substances or sexual relations that I felt were problematic for me on a moral level, because I knew she was still in a relationship with Tom and why are these individuals here? And so even though we had family in town, I felt like it was still this cloak of secrecy that we were to kind of make it like everything was fine and everything was okay. 

Jennifer St John  36:16

It also adds to the instability feeling too, like, who's gonna be here tonight, who is spending the night, who's gonna be in the house when I wake up? That's a big part of that instability as well. 

Teresa  36:28

Yeah, I'd started to make some friends, so I started to come into that mode just being able to have some outlets where I would be able to get away from that. But I definitely had that shift of thinking like, these are not okay things. But you know, what can you do?

Jennifer St John  36:51

That's where we're gonna leave things today. In this conversation, we reflected on the realities of growing up in financial instability, learning to adapt at a young age and carrying the weight of things that no child should have to. We talked about the ways we found adaptability and resilience, and not just in survival, but in the small moments of connection, the people who showed up for us, and the lessons that shaped who we became. Something we keep coming back to again and again, as you can listen in the episodes, is how we learn to hold on to each other, to the small moments of stability, and eventually to the idea that things could hopefully be different.  Because survival isn't the whole story. Figure out how to move forward, how to heal, although healing is a lifelong journey, how to create something better. That's just as important. But at that point, we weren't thinking about any of that yet. In our next episode, we're going to move to the final part of our childhood years, covering the years where everything really started to shift, where we started to see the cracks in moms world, and when some of us left home, and when we began stepping out into kind of what would come next for us. Before we go, I just want to invite you to join something that we've been building. It's our hashtag, create calm mental health movement. Let us know the ways that you find stillness in your mind and in your body. I'd love for you to share this with us. Some examples of what I've shared is going for walks with my dogs. I love to draw. I love art. So I've shared lots of me doodling or sketching or painting. Tag us in your moments, if you feel comfortable doing that, and we're just trying to build a space where we can share the ways that we all take care of our mental health. If this conversation has resonated with you, I would love to hear from you. You can find us on our socials or visit us on our website to share your thoughts or to connect or find more resources. The info is in the show notes, and if you want to support this podcast and help these conversations reach more people, the best way to do that is by sharing, subscribing or leaving a review. It truly makes a difference, and we appreciate every single one of you who takes the time to listen and engage. We really do. If this conversation has brought up something difficult for you, please know that you don't have to navigate it alone. If you need immediate support and you are in Canada, please call the crisis Helpline at 1, triple 8, 88938, triple three. So again, that's 1-888-893-8333, there are people who care and who want to support you. Thank you for being here, for showing up for these stories. I know it's not easy being a part of this space. We'll be back next week with the next chapter of our journey. And until then, take care of yourselves, and I hope you keep finding ways to move forward.

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