Jen G - Raising Kids While Rebuilding Yourself

In this impactful yet lighthearted episode of Quiet Connection, Chelsea sits down with Jen Ginty, a single mom of two, living with complex PTSD and major depressive disorder. 

Jen shares her journey from surviving childhood trauma to raising a child with complex needs, all while navigating mental health, motherhood, and massive life transitions. 

We talk about: 

• The challenges of pregnancy with CPTSD
• Parenting a child with early behavioral red flags and an evolving diagnosis
• The stigma of inpatient mental health care
• The emotional rollercoaster of co-parenting, identity loss, and rebuilding
• And how one moment in group therapy led to the creation of Moody Monster—a therapeutic plush doll that’s now helping kids (and adults) process big emotions safely.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever felt like they had to wait to heal, for parents feeling overwhelmed and under-supported, and for those searching for tools to help themselves and their families thrive.
 
🧸 Learn more about Moody Monster and Jen’s mission:
🌐 Website: www.mymoodymonster.com
📺 YouTube: My Moody Monster
📷 Instagram: @mymoodymonster
📘 Facebook: @mymoodymonster
📱 TikTok: @mymoodymonster
 
💛 Support the mission: Donate a Moody to kids in crisis through the website.

Sound Bites
"It's okay to have big feelings."
"All emotions are valid."
"Stop catastrophizing."

Transcript

Chelsea (00:00)
Hi, welcome to Quiet Connection, a podcast dedicated to ending the stigma around postpartum mental health. I'm Chelsea. This week, I'm chatting with Jen about her experiences as a single mother coping with complex PTSD and major depression disorder. We discuss her healing journey, the challenges of pregnancy, raising a child with complex needs, and how mental health affects her parenting in general.

She reflects on her career transitions and the development of My Moody Monster, which serves as a therapeutic outlet for safely expressing big emotions. Here's Jen.

Chelsea (00:40)
Hello, today I'm here with Jen. Jen, how are you?

Jennifer Ginty (00:45)
Hi, I'm good Chelsea, how are you?

Chelsea (00:48)
I'm good. I'm doing good. It's been a long time coming for me and Jen. I make the joke a lot that podcasting with guests is just a constant revolving door of scheduling and rescheduling. But I'm so glad that we finally made it. We're here. Yeah. I'm really excited to talk to you. There are so many things that drew me to you and to your story.

Jennifer Ginty (01:08)
We are.

Chelsea (01:18)
and I won't just list them all off, because that would be boring. I will ask you the question that I ask all of my guests. I'd love it if you could tell me a little bit about who you are now and who you were before you were a parent.

Jennifer Ginty (01:37)
Yes, absolutely. So I am a single mom of two boys and I live with complex PTSD and major depressive disorder from childhood trauma. And throughout the years, I pushed off my healing journey until one day my brain said, right now, right now is when you need to do this. And that was a real turning point for me. And it actually brought along a lot of healing.

Chelsea (01:59)
Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (02:07)
doing different modalities of healing and also brought me to create my plush doll. It's called my Moody Monster. And that came directly from my own frustrations with my complex PTSD and also a wish that I had had something like it when my son was really little.

Chelsea (02:29)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that was one of the things that caught my eye. As a former special educator, an intensive needs special educator, I saw what you were doing, not only for yourself, but for your son. And I was like, my gosh, this is such a cool resource. And it's such a like, impactful way to sort of process your own trauma at the same time. So we're definitely going to get into that at some point.

What kind of things bring you joy? What kind of things like fill your cup and replenish, you know, your energy, your soul, your whatever you want to call it.

Jennifer Ginty (03:09)
I love helping others, I really do. And I think it does stem from my childhood because I became that person who took care of everyone, but it became a love language. Like giving is definitely something that makes me feel so good. And I think that's why Moody is so important to me because it gives me that rush when I know that they're helping kids with their emotions.

Chelsea (03:37)
Moody is going to be tagged in your show notes and I'll remind listeners at the end as well, like, holy adorable. I also am like, I'm super quirky. So I love like things that aren't like a mainstream like teddy bear or like a mainstream like doll or things like Moody is so quirky and cute. And my glasses are fogging up.

Jennifer Ginty (03:44)
I'm

you

Chelsea (04:05)
so yeah, so listeners, this is reminder number one, check the show notes because I think you're gonna like Moody. But going backwards again a little bit, you did experience complex PTSD, you did have a history of mental health challenges. How did parenting sort of play into that? Was becoming a parent part of your life plan?

Jennifer Ginty (04:30)
You know, it actually really wasn't for a long time. I even had said to my husband before we were married that I wasn't sure if I wanted to have children. And I think it stemmed from the fear that I wouldn't be a good parent because I didn't have, you know, a childhood that gave me joy and a connection, a good connection with parents. So it was scary when I did actually one day say to myself, I think I want a baby.

Chelsea (04:53)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (05:01)
And my husband was fine with it. He was good with it. And that fear comes from the childhood trauma, going through something so difficult and trauma on a regular basis as a child. And I didn't really have an idea of what really parenting was because I was a child living in fear constantly. I didn't know if children

Chelsea (05:01)
Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (05:30)
could live without fear in their lives.

Chelsea (05:33)
That resonates with me. I can understand that. was it kind of a light bulb moment? Like just one day it was just like, I think maybe I want to try this. Or was it really a decision that was discussed and thought out a lot?

Jennifer Ginty (05:49)
I think it stemmed from seeing my friends have babies and holding their babies. You know, I think that that was one of the things that really tugged at my heart. Like, ⁓ look at this beautiful soul and how I would love to have a beautiful soul that I could share my life with.

Chelsea (05:53)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's, I think that's the case for a lot of us when we become parents. You have two children. Going back to your first, what was that journey like? How was your pregnancy? Did you have any like fears throughout your pregnancy?

What did that journey look like for you?

Jennifer Ginty (06:31)
Well, at first, finding out that I was pregnant was amazing. And then I started to bleed. And I had a lot of bleeding in my first three months. And so I was terrified that anything I did would cause me to miscarry.

Chelsea (06:37)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (06:50)
And so I was very hush-hush about the pregnancy. And I told my mother, and then of course my mother went around telling people not only that I was pregnant, but that I was also bleeding. And I think she did that to get, because my mother works in medical, so I think she was doing that to get other people's opinions of what that means. But it didn't help me because I was thinking the whole time.

Chelsea (07:01)
Of course.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (07:17)
You're telling people I'm pregnant and I may not be. Something could happen. And then we have to tell everyone I don't have a baby anymore, right? So that was really scary. But once the bleeding stopped, I had a couple of weeks. I had a couple of weeks where everything was going pretty well. And then I started having a lot of pain. And I was having, you know,

Chelsea (07:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (07:44)
Just, it was just very, it was very uncomfortable. And what I found out was that I had a lot of fibroids that were growing as my child was growing. And it was causing me to go into pre-labor. So around 18 weeks, I was bed, on bed rest. Yeah, yeah. And anytime I got up and moved around for more than like 15, 20 minutes, I would start to have pre-labor.

Chelsea (07:52)
Mmm.

Wow.

Mm.

Jennifer Ginty (08:13)
So that was terrifying in itself as well. So, know, here I am, a child of abuse and not knowing, not having someone really who could help me. My mother, my mother is a great human being. She really is, but she doesn't have like, she's not very suave, I'll tell you that much. She's very to the point.

Chelsea (08:37)
No.

Jennifer Ginty (08:41)
You know, she's very, you know, she can be very difficult to to manage at times, especially back then, because all she wanted to do was do, do, do, do, do for me. And all I really needed was to be able to relax and let my body do what it needed to do. So if I even got up for 15 minutes, it was, you know, it would start up again. And I remember was born in March. And in December, I

just I was really, really depressed. I actually wasn't even on my any depressants any longer because I couldn't be, I was pregnant. And I was sort of depressed and I just, was like, I'm going to decorate for Christmas. I, you know, something in my head was just like, I'm gonna get up and decorate for Christmas. And that was the first time that I had it really bad that I had to go to the hospital. And yeah, so it was this constant back and forth of you can't do anything.

Chelsea (09:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm. Yeah.

Ugh.

Jennifer Ginty (09:40)
You can't get up and be active and you know, you don't have your medication your depression medication and you're thinking this whole time this child could end up getting hurt or come early and be premature and then what happens so Constantly going through my mind the whole time. What if what if what if what if which is definitely not helpful to a pregnant woman who can't stand up and walk around

Chelsea (10:01)
Yeah.

No,

what got you through those moments? you just have to soldier through or did you have any coping skills that you were able to use to kind of pass the time or get you through those minute to minute, hour to hour moments?

Jennifer Ginty (10:23)
Yeah, well, this was 2004. So I mean, we didn't really have a lot of ways to get online, that kind of thing. No, no, no, no. I got into the soap operas, I'll tell you that. Laying in bed watching soap operas, yep, with my cat and dog. And, you know, just trying to keep my mind off of my pregnancy, honestly.

Chelsea (10:29)
No, we weren't streaming on Netflix. We weren't, no.

Mmm, yep. So TV.

Yeah, yeah. Had you had any sort of like therapy or like CBT or DBT or anything like that prior, because like you said, you have a history with mental health. Any of those tools in your toolbox that you could utilize at that point?

Jennifer Ginty (11:10)
I did have my therapist. so, yeah, yeah, yeah, I had my therapist and I'd had her since college. So I knew her, she knew me really, really well. And it was just important for me to keep in touch with her. I was so, if we go back a little ways towards, you my trauma, when my abuser left home, you know, we were happy that he had left home.

Chelsea (11:12)
That's good.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (11:38)
but they wanted to put him in prison for what he had done. And so we had to go into the court system and I'll tell you, that was a whole lot of the trauma. And by the end of all of that, I was just starting college and I kept saying, not yet to healing and not yet to looking at that trauma because I'm like, hey, I'm going into college. And then it became not yet I have a career and then not yet I'm married, I'm traveling, that kind of thing.

Chelsea (11:41)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (12:08)
putting off that healing and looking at that trauma. So I really didn't have a lot of skills available in my toolbox. I really didn't have a toolbox. The toolbox was pretty much gone because I didn't have my antidepressants. And I think that was the hardest part of all because I had been on antidepressants since I think I was 14, 15, and they had helped me.

Chelsea (12:24)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's a huge shift.

Jennifer Ginty (12:33)
Yeah, that had helped me. let's see, I was on meds for 15 years before I got pregnant. Then you have to take it away. And that was my main form of coping, I guess, was having my chemicals dialed into what I needed them to be.

Chelsea (12:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. like, especially for listeners who are either pregnant or newly postpartum, like fears and anxieties are common in pregnancy. And especially if you're having like a high risk pregnancy or complications or whatnot, but like add on top of that, PTSD, CPTSD, trauma in general, and then not being able to have the one thing that has helped you throughout.

Yeah, that's gonna make an impact on your pregnancy experience and just life experience in general. So were you on bed rest up until the birth? Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (13:30)
Yes, yep, was.

I was able, better able to spend my time. I knew how long I could stand up before I had to lay down again, before things happened. But I did go through a series of like every few days, it felt like I was going into labor. And the labor, when it actually came, that was also very traumatic as well. My water had broken, but I was not in labor.

Chelsea (13:46)
Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (13:57)
which is so weird because my body for so long was like, you're going to be in labor. If you get up, you're going to be in labor. And it did the exact opposite. So they had to push the labor along with meds. And that was in itself a very traumatic event as well.

Chelsea (13:58)
Mmm.

Yeah, you had mentioned that your birth experience was traumatic for you. And again, I'm reiterating for listeners, like when we talk about birth trauma, if you feel that your birth was traumatic, you had a traumatic birth experience. There is no, it's not a comparison game. It's not a, it's like if you're listening to this story, or if you've listened to other stories and you're like, well, I guess it wasn't that bad for me. Like, no, if you feel like it was traumatic.

It was a traumatic experience. Do you feel comfortable talking about that at all? About your birth experience?

Jennifer Ginty (14:51)
Sure,

sure. It was just a lot of pain, I think. There was a lot of pain involved with it because, and also psychologically, I'd been preparing myself for this to happen when it shouldn't. So this whole time I was like, I can't let the child go. I can't let the baby go. It has to stay with me. And then suddenly saying, no, now he needs to leave.

Chelsea (14:57)
Yeah.

Right.

Jennifer Ginty (15:21)
him not wanting to vacate.

Chelsea (15:23)
Which is so, like when you

said it, I was like, what the heck, dude? Like, you wanted to come out for so long and now you're like, nah, I guess I'll hang.

Jennifer Ginty (15:28)
Right? Right,

right, yeah. So it was a very long and stretched out birth. I had an episiotomy as well, and that was not exactly very helpful for the pain. And I wasn't asked if I wanted it. She just kind of did it.

Chelsea (15:45)
Mmm.

Jennifer Ginty (15:55)
And so that in itself felt like I'd been attacked almost. You know that the doctor knows that what she's doing is right. But also she knew I had trauma. She knew that I was having a very difficult whole nine months of this. And for her to just do it without

Chelsea (16:01)
Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (16:22)
asking or telling me just that in itself was just so scary to me. It really brought up my PTSD symptoms.

Chelsea (16:33)
I can't imagine that's one of the many things that we're fighting for right now in the maternal mental health and just maternal health world is informed consent. And you had that completely taken away from you. You had your power taken away from you in a very, very vulnerable moment. So yeah, I cannot imagine the trauma that that would have brought up.

when he was born, what was going through your mind?

Jennifer Ginty (17:04)
Thank God, I think was the first because he was healthy. He was crying. He was a good size. So all the things that I thought were important for a child when they first are born, it seemed as though everything was perfect. I definitely had that, like I threw myself back, I think, and just cried for a while.

Chelsea (17:06)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (17:30)
especially while they were taking care of him, I just had to let it all out at that point. And it was cathartic to be able to have that one good cry that was probably building up for those six months or so that I'd been sitting waiting for something to happen, just to get that cathartic kind of scream cry out.

Chelsea (17:36)
Yeah.

Right?

Yeah. And then, well, and so you said like everything seemed okay at first. Like, was he okay? Were you okay? Was he? And when I say okay, there's so many layers to that, obviously, right? Like in terms of the 10 fingers, 10 toes, everybody's breathing sounds like you guys were okay.

Jennifer Ginty (18:11)
Right.

Chelsea (18:19)
mentally were you okay after what had just happened to you?

Jennifer Ginty (18:24)
I think all the hormones flooding, all that kind of stuff, it brought about so many different feelings. I think the biggest one was relief though, that I had done my duty and I had kept this child in for as long as I possibly could. And that he was safe and he was whole and he was, you know, healthy physically.

Chelsea (18:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And it speaks a lot to that transition into motherhood. And with the birth of your child is the birth of a mother and a parent. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. I know I can relate to that, that your mind immediately goes to, okay, is everybody, is he okay? Is she okay? Am I okay? Okay.

Yes.

Jennifer Ginty (19:15)
Right, right, that relief, one, that just that

feeling of relief that comes over you that, okay, everything that was supposed to go right, pretty much went right.

Chelsea (19:24)
Yeah, yeah. I'm going to kind of jump around a little bit and then come back. knowing your experience through pregnancy, through this first pregnancy, and knowing how it affected your mental health and knowing how the birth also was very traumatic, how did that impact your decision to have another child?

Jennifer Ginty (19:44)
You know, it's interesting. knew about a year later or so that I knew that I wanted to have another child. I did not want him to be on his own. But that doesn't mean that that would be a wrong decision. Like, yeah, no. And I know my husband wanted another child. And he wanted one sooner than later. He didn't want them to have a long, you know, for their ages to be too far apart. And I understood that.

Chelsea (19:56)
Right. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (20:12)
And I think I went into the second one just praying that it wasn't going to be the same as the first. And it wasn't actually. It went really, really well the second time. Yeah. You you think that, you you had it happen once, it's going to happen again. No fibroids, grew nothing. And he, I had to make him get out. I went, I went to the mall like a day before they say, we're going to induce you. went to the mall and I walked for like two hours.

Chelsea (20:22)
⁓ good.

my gosh.

Jennifer Ginty (20:41)
He just did not want to leave. But I finally, you know, I finally felt that it was time and went to the hospital and it was a much quicker birth. And it went the opposite direction of my first. It was crazy.

Chelsea (20:43)
Yeah.

that yeah, we say we say this all the time,

especially in the birth realm, but like in life in general, like just because something happens one way one time does not mean that that's the way that it's always good. I mean, sometimes it can and sometimes you're predispositions to things and this that and the other thing but like don't judge your entire future based off of what's happening right now in this moment. And as I'm saying that out loud, that's me like reminding myself.

Jennifer Ginty (21:26)
Right?

Chelsea (21:26)
Yeah, like

I'm going to be fully transparent and say like I am telling myself that message as But so yeah, so your kids are close in age. So there wasn't a huge age gap. I guess I'm curious too, like what was your medication journey like at that point? Did you get back on the medication or you stayed off the medication?

Jennifer Ginty (21:51)
I stayed off the medication, which looking back at it, you well, I did a year of breastfeeding. And so I did not want to, you I don't think I could, am remembering way back to 2004, but I don't think that I could get back on it if I was breastfeeding. And so just realizing if we're going to have another child getting on is going to take more time to get back into the groove of it than taking it away again.

Chelsea (21:53)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (22:21)
I just went without and that was a choice. It was a choice. was probably not the greatest choice for me, but I did it. I made that choice. And so the second time around, had the experience and the expectation of what was gonna happen again from the first one never happened.

Chelsea (22:25)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (22:45)
So I learned to be able to let go and enjoy my pregnancy. Yeah.

Chelsea (22:50)
That's so great.

I'm so thankful that you had that experience. Yeah, and that's kind of like a hot button topic right now too with like being medicated while pregnant or medicated while breastfeeding. And honestly, like, again, I don't ever promote anything. I just say consult with your physician. But I also say there's no shame in the med game. So you've got to...

weigh out your pros and cons and it's a very personal decision. And again, I'm thankful that your second pregnancy journey was so different so that you were able to breathe and enjoy it.

Jennifer Ginty (23:32)
It's so funny,

my friends on the second time around, they came in to see my second son. And I guess I was just so high on whatever, adrenaline's or that kind of thing. And I was already saying, I want a third, I want another, I want another, right then and there. And they were like, what are you talking about? Why are you saying this? You just had a baby like two hours ago.

Chelsea (23:48)
Gosh!

Jennifer Ginty (24:00)
So like everything was different. It was so, yeah, absolutely. If you have a difficult pregnancy and birth, sure, that was what happened. But again, I'm living proof that you can have a completely opposite time of things the next time around.

Chelsea (24:00)
my gosh.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, in the vein of mental health at this point, when your guys were little, in those first couple of years, they say that postpartum lasts two years. I say postpartum, you're postpartum. If you have a kid, you are postpartum. That's my opinion. But what were those first few years like as a new mom?

⁓ especially with an infant and a toddler, like, super mom. Like I know that that feels that almost feels like the cheesiest thing in the world to say, but like, I am fully admitting I could not do that. Like, what was that like?

Jennifer Ginty (24:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

it was interesting. Let's go back to my first son. He didn't sleep. He did not have a good time of things. He had terrible explosive poops. He just was constantly in pain. And I used to blame myself because it was my milk.

Chelsea (25:03)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Mm.

Jennifer Ginty (25:23)
You know,

that kind of thing. Like I was giving more skim milk than full milk and he was getting sick a lot. And he was not sleeping. He would maybe sleep 15 minutes and then wake up again and scream. And my husband and I were so tired. We had such sleep deprivation that one day I was in the bathroom and my husband said, do not come into the bedroom. I'm like, why? He's like, there was a humongous spider on our wall.

Chelsea (25:37)
Ugh.

Jennifer Ginty (25:53)
There was no spider. We were so sleep depraved that we were hallucinating. And at one point I was eating dinner and I literally fell asleep into my plate. Yeah. So he was not a sleeper at all. And we tried staying with him to sleep. Eventually we tried the let him cry it out type method, which was awful.

Chelsea (25:55)
my gosh.

⁓ my gosh.

Wow.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (26:23)
very hard

to deal with, but he always had something going on. He was not regulating at all. And so we were exhausted and didn't know what to do with him until he probably was about a year and a half. He had very explosive behavior. He would get angry very, very quickly. And he showed a lot of signs of

Chelsea (26:44)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (26:53)
being on the spectrum. had our second child, we had, and he was, it was about two years apart. And I would find myself having to put my baby in another room when my oldest would get out of control. I'd have to protect the infant. He was also a runner and he would run away at the drop of a hat.

Chelsea (26:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Jennifer Ginty (27:19)
And I remember bringing them out to Bertucci's and my youngest was in his carrier and my oldest just bolted right to the highway. So I had to drop my son and go grab him. And this was a regular occurrence for us. So, you know, was difficult to have my oldest have these behavioral issues with a newborn, absolutely.

Chelsea (27:30)
my gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (27:46)
When he went into daycare, he was having a lot of trouble. My husband would have to go there and make him nap, which was very weird. I look back at it and they were... The daycare was just not a great place for a child with my son's issues. He would bite, so we would get calls all the time to come pick him up. He bit another child. He bit a teacher.

Chelsea (27:56)
Mmm.

Jennifer Ginty (28:15)
They finally kicked him out because he escaped. He escaped the entire preschool. So we brought him to a doctor and she sat us down and he was drawing a picture. She said, draw me a picture of a cat because we had a cat. She's like, draw me a picture of your cat. And he drew the picture and she looks at it and she's like, okay, so we need to get him a neuropsych.

Chelsea (28:20)
Ugh. Ugh.

my god. Ugh.

Hmm. How old was he at this point?

Jennifer Ginty (28:45)
And I was like,

he was three. Yeah, three. And so we're like, OK, so what was this? And she showed us the picture. And I had no idea that this was a thing. He drew the cat's body parts all in different places. So I was like, well, what does that mean? She's like, I just think you should probably just bring him for a neuropsych and see what they have to say.

Chelsea (28:49)
Okay, okay.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (29:11)
By the end of the time, I know he had turned four and it was April 1st when we got the results from that neuropsych. And also World Autism Day. And we were told that he had Asperger's. Now Asperger's was still a thing back in 2006 or 2007. The DSM had not changed it. So we were absolutely shocked. We were like, we were thinking ADHD, that kind of thing, but we were absolutely stunned.

Chelsea (29:18)
April Fool's Day.

Yes.

Right.

Jennifer Ginty (29:40)
by that, you know, what she had told us. So we had, you know, we had him and we had my younger son who was the exact opposite still, again, like they had two entirely different children. And so we had to really get into figuring out what my son needed. We were living in a state that was not good with special education.

Chelsea (29:45)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (30:09)
they wanted to put him into an exclusive classroom, an excluded classroom. So when we went to visit that classroom, there were children that were nonverbal. There were children that were in wheelchairs that couldn't move, that kind of thing. And we were like, I don't think this is the right place for our child. So we fought with the system for a while. And then we actually finally ended up moving to a totally different state, a different town in order to get him that the...

Chelsea (30:15)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (30:39)
the things that he needed. So that was going on. My youngest was going with the flow. And it's interesting because over the years, and I mean, we should probably jump back to me being this person who doesn't know how to parent because she was never taught to parent, right?

Chelsea (30:40)
Mm-hmm.

Ha

goodness. Like I'm listening to this whole thing and I'm thinking,

my gosh, you're having to face your child's own dysregulation and we're taught now, like, you have to regulate your emotions so that you can model that for your child. And I'm like, my gosh, though, you have so much going on within yourself and your own regulation needs. Like, how the heck were you able to balance that?

Jennifer Ginty (31:22)
You

I went into the mode that I used to go into when I was a child, that I was the caregiver in everything, that I did not have space for myself, that it was only the people around me who I loved that needed me. And so I completely went into that mode of, okay, what does everyone else need? My needs are absolutely insignificant. Everybody else needs me. And that included my children and my husband.

Chelsea (31:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (32:00)
So it was a lot. And I always call it when people ask me when I can talk about these kinds of things, these traumas, that I go into professor mode, that, you know, they call it a DBT, they call it reason mind. So there's emotion mind and reason mind, and then there's wise mind. I was sitting in reason mind for 90 % of the time, and then emotion mind would rear its ugly head randomly.

Chelsea (32:10)
Mm.

Yes.

Jennifer Ginty (32:27)
when I just couldn't take it anymore. Right, right, right, right, exactly. So, you I would have blow ups at times or, you know, I would, if my older son was having a Tasmanian devil moment, I used to call it, where he'd rip everything apart, I would sit with my younger son in the bathroom and just cry.

Chelsea (32:27)
Yeah, cause it doesn't go anywhere. Yeah, it's there. It's gonna show up.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (32:51)
You know,

so it would come out. And it was a long haul. My oldest, he's such a sweet guy. He's such a sweet guy now. He's 20 years old now. And looking back at it, there's so much of a difference. And I think that's because I was in reason mind most of the time in making sure that his needs were taken care of.

And over the years, as he got older, he became suicidal. And so I had to deal with that whole aspect of things as well. This is when he was very young too. It was very off putting and striking that this child who at six would say that he didn't want to be alive. It was rough.

Chelsea (33:37)
Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (33:42)
So I'm looking at that happening to my child and I had myself throughout the years gone through that when I was a child. So I'm like, what did I do to my child? Did I give my child this? Blaming putting it all on me that I was the person who obviously gave him all of these things. His autism, he also had the ADHD.

Chelsea (33:53)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (34:08)
diagnosis as well and this explosive behavior. What was it that I did as a mother? And that's because I wasn't taking care of myself. I wasn't.

Chelsea (34:16)
Yeah.

Well, you didn't do this to him. You didn't do this to him. And again, I think what's so powerful is even these circumstances that sound to somebody listening in, sound and are really big and really, really life altering. The common thread here is

Jennifer Ginty (34:21)
Right. Right.

Chelsea (34:43)
We look to ourselves, what did I do? We play that blame game or I had another guest explain it as like the should storm. Like, well, I should have done this or I should have done that or I shouldn't have done this. But in your case, holy crap, like you were dealing with, you said Tasmanian devil, like.

It sounds like life was this cyclone of just survival. No one was thriving. We were surviving.

Jennifer Ginty (35:12)
Yeah, yeah. And you know, it's interesting as my youngest is now 18 and it really affected him over the years. More than I thought, I thought that I was protecting him in every way, shape or form. But you know, as time goes on, children are, I'm sorry, siblings of kids with disorders and that kind of thing. do have this, you know, they have their own problems.

Chelsea (35:40)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (35:40)
and

they feel as though they're not the ones that are being taken care of because their mom is always constantly doing something for their sibling.

Chelsea (35:53)
And very early on you mentioned you are a single parent. When did that transition happen?

Jennifer Ginty (35:58)
Mm.

That happened, so I ended up having two back surgeries that left me with so much pain. And during that time, I wasn't able to really take care of the kids physically. And I think my husband, after we had kids, he realized he wasn't the most important person in the room. And I think that happens to a lot of families.

Chelsea (36:06)
Okay.

Mmm... Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (36:28)
And that wasn't working out for him. It wasn't feeling so good. So he was kind of doing things that I was asking him not to do, a lot of financial issues that we had until I finally said, I think my youngest was three. I finally said, this has to end. You're not going to stop unless I leave you. yeah. So we broke up. And we.

Chelsea (36:32)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (36:54)
from the very beginning had said the kids are always the most important thing. So we co-parented well. Yeah, yeah, we did. And, you know, there was a relief to it though that I was more in control of the circumstances once I was able to move us away from, you know, the, I don't want to say problem, but it was, it was the problem. Yeah, yeah. So.

Chelsea (37:01)
good, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and

it allowed you, think, that it kind of like took one thing off of your plate. Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (37:27)
Yeah, yeah,

I, you we went to a, we went to a therapist together and this was when I knew I couldn't stay with him. The therapist said to me, well, why don't you ask him where he is and then drive over to make sure he's there. And I was like, I have two little kids. I don't need a third one. Right? So that was the breaking point for me was like, you therapist, Mr. Therapist, you just proved it to me.

Chelsea (37:44)
Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (37:52)
I think it's time for us to split.

Chelsea (37:56)
Yeah,

so in one way, in one way it is, it's taking that, a little piece of that mental load off of you. You're a caregiver for one less person. But then on the other hand too, now you're navigating this really tricky situation with both of your kids and your own mental health on your own.

Jennifer Ginty (38:18)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (38:19)
Did you have any kind of a support network that you could lean into?

Jennifer Ginty (38:23)
So I started going back to therapy around the time that I was thinking I was going to leave my husband. So I had started therapy again, trying to give myself a little bit of time for myself, right? You know, a little bit of time, a little energy towards myself, which...

Chelsea (38:29)
Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's like, ⁓ self

care, take a bath, go to therapy. It's like, no, those are necessary things. Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (38:46)
Right, exactly. You you need that.

You need that care. And, you know, I had to go into full-time work and, you know, luckily I was able to get a job with a doctor that I'd known for years and years and years. So he was very good about letting me go to pick them up from school. And, you know, so I was lucky in that sense. But yeah, it was tricky. It was definitely tricky being a single mom. But, you know, again, we co-parented well.

He understood what he needed to do. And we always tried to make sure that the kids didn't feel that the brunt of a breakup. And he ended up moving into the same apartment complex. So yeah, so the boys were able to go back and forth however they wanted, whenever they wanted. They could go sleep at dad's if they wanted, they could sleep at mom's. We made it so that they were, especially with my oldest because of his issues.

Chelsea (39:28)
Yeah.

wow.

Yeah, well, and consistency and routine are huge for anyone on the spectrum. So being able to see mom or dad whenever, whenever he wanted to or needed to was probably huge.

so yeah, so you're carving out a little bit of time for yourself. You're going to therapy. You're, you're trying to work on yourself. You're getting your oldest, the supports that he needs, which

Any special needs or neurodiverse family out there knows it's not easy. It is like battle from day one to advocate for your kids. So, wow, that's a lot. Where did Moody Monster show up in all of this?

Jennifer Ginty (40:28)
Okay, yeah, I'll go down like the fast road. so I'm gonna go down the fast road here. So I ended up getting laid off by my job. And I had some time to be able to figure out what I want to do. And I'd always wanted to be a stylist, a personal stylist. So I started getting into that. And it was fun. It was good. I really enjoyed it. It's again, another giving experience. I'm giving people.

Chelsea (40:31)
I know like

Okay.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (40:55)
this ability to find the style that makes them feel the best, that kind of thing. A boutique came available in my town and I ended up buying the boutique. But then that was also around the time where people started buying all their stuff online. And so it really just didn't work out. And four years later, I had to close the shop and go into bankruptcy. And that is when my brain broke.

Chelsea (41:11)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (41:24)
I had lost a piece of my identity. I was in bankruptcy. was, you know, I was having the brain frog. I was having the tiredness. I was having really a hard time with any of my interpersonal relationships, you know, and my brain said at that point right now, this is when you need to do this. And so that is when I started to put together my team. I said, okay, I need a therapist.

And luckily, my son had a lot of great, so he ended up being under the Department of Mental Health. Long story short, he ended up, his diagnosis of autism ended up getting taken away. yeah, he had gone into a bunch of different hospitals for the suicidality.

Chelsea (42:09)
⁓

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (42:16)
And finally, we ended up getting an advocate after all these years of me working really hard. We got an advocate. And she was like, OK, we're going to get him a new neuropsych. And if he's autistic, we can't get him into the Department of Mental Health. We're going to have to think of something else. And so, OK, I wanted him to be in the Department of Mental Health so he could get all of these therapies, the group therapy, everything that we needed, the in-home therapies.

when he had the neuropsych, he was like, he's not autistic. He has major depressive disorder, which is what I have, and severe ADHD. Yeah, yeah. this was when he was like, I think he was 14 at that point. And I had had two other neuropsychs before that. And I think it's, I don't know. I don't know why we had had such different experiences with that because the first one when he was four.

Chelsea (42:48)
Wow.

Yep. Wow. How old was he at that point?

Jennifer Ginty (43:13)
That was the one that blew us away, right? We're like, he's not autistic. What is this all about? But in my state, autism diagnosis comes with a lot of medical help. So throughout the years, I'd accepted that help that he has an autism diagnosis. And these are all the things that we can get. And I got him every single thing we could possibly get, OT, PT, all those kind of things. And so

Chelsea (43:16)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (43:42)
All along, I was just assuming, OK, these are the things that he needs. And when he went and got this neuropsych again, they were like, he's not autistic. Yeah, it was very odd. But you know what? I'm glad of that diagnosis because we were able to get him all these other things, like the OT, the therapies. We were able to get those. So I was like, OK, so what do we do now? And the advocate was like, he can get the

Chelsea (43:53)
Mmm. Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (44:12)
into the department of mental health. So he got into that and that came with an amazing social worker, an amazing therapist, a family therapist in home care. It was amazing. And when I had my big not yet moment, the social worker was fantastic. She's like, look, I know this therapist who is absolutely amazing with complex PTSD and trauma and all these kinds of things. And she got me in to see her.

And I'm an older woman. I'm an older woman. And my therapist, the therapist she introduced me to was much younger than me. And I was like, I don't know if this tyke is going to be able to help me. I'm much older. She couldn't possibly help me.

Chelsea (44:52)
Mmm.

Jennifer Ginty (45:04)
You know, I will say this to anyone who has that feeling that, you know, somebody may not have the ability to help you because of age. She had all of the new modalities that she had learned that older therapists don't know. And so she's the most amazing therapist for me. Like we clicked immediately and it was wonderful. So I highly recommend people, you know, if somebody is

Chelsea (45:15)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (45:31)
you know, somebody tells you that this is the right person for you, definitely take a chance on it. Because if I didn't, I don't think I'd be where I am now. So I said, ⁓ yeah, ⁓ yeah, she is she is my like rock. I adore her. And yeah. And you know what? And I decided I need to figure out what's going on with my medications. I wasn't sleeping, that kind of thing. So I went inpatient.

Chelsea (45:38)
Yeah.

Are you still seeing her? Yeah.

Yeah. I love that.

Okay.

Jennifer Ginty (45:58)
Yeah,

yeah, I went inpatient and I am lucky to be living by the one of the biggest mental health hospitals in the country. And so I went inpatient and got my medications figured out and then started group therapy and group therapy when I was a kid, I hated, absolutely hated. Like, why do I have to sit with these other kids who don't want to be here? This is ridiculous. But as an adult, it was amazing.

Chelsea (46:13)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ha

Jennifer Ginty (46:27)
It's like, these people are my people. These people know what I'm going through. And that was another amazing opportunity that I took. And so I think it's really important for someone who is going through these kind of issues in their life that they haven't gone on the healing journey. It's really important to get a team together because this team can help you through different parts of your life.

Chelsea (46:27)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

And several things that you talked about like stuck out to me. One of the things that you keep saying is literally like one of your social media handles, the not yet to right now. Yeah. So like you keep saying it and I'm like, ⁓ now I get it. But it reiterates that like,

Jennifer Ginty (47:11)
Exactly.

Chelsea (47:24)
we drill it into parents, especially like you need to take care of yourself or you're not going to be able to take care of your kids. And we're always like, well, when am I supposed to take care of myself? When is that supposed to happen? It's like, not right now, not right now. No, I got to do this right now. And I think for you and your journey, sounds like your kids were a little bit older at this point when, that transition happened, but like there needs to come a day where you say,

Jennifer Ginty (47:35)
Right?

Yes.

Chelsea (47:53)
right now. And it has to be right now. Otherwise, I can't take care of my family or I can't take care of myself. The other thing that I, I'm so glad that you brought up is that talking about going inpatient, there is so much stigma.

around that and there's so much misinformation and I think a lot of that stems from like you said like the state that you live in impacts what kind of care you're going to get and things like that. Every facility is so different and everyone's experiences inpatient are so different but if that's a step that you need to take

to build that team around you, there is zero shame in that. There is none whatsoever. And if it's not working, then you go somewhere else and you see someone else. This is not my time. This is not my story, but I was inpatient three times in three separate places. All three were horrible. Intensive, sorry, partial hospitalization.

Jennifer Ginty (48:46)
Please.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (49:06)
is what saved my life. like moral of the story there is keep going. Keep trying and making those decisions that are not easy. They're hard decisions to make because just like you, you're like, I got a family. I got a family I got to take care of. I got a kid who has really complex needs that I got to take care of. It's like, well, you can't take care of any of that if you can't function.

Jennifer Ginty (49:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Exactly.

Chelsea (49:32)
Yeah, so I'm

so glad that you shared that with me and with our listeners because there is no shame. No shame.

Jennifer Ginty (49:42)
No, no, none at all. Please,

please. I have had multiple inpatient experiences as well. When you need it, you need it.

Chelsea (49:51)
Yeah.

It's just like going to, it's just like if you need an operation or it's just like, you, if you are super, super sick and you have to go, like it's your mental health is health. So, ⁓ yeah, you do it if you, if you need it, do it. ⁓ yeah. You built your team.

Jennifer Ginty (50:03)
Mm-hmm.

Do it, please do it. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so I built my team. So I built my

team and group therapy was one of the big ways for me to cope. I still do group therapy. We don't do it in person anymore. We do it all on Zoom, that kind of thing. But it's still a big part for me. It's a necessary thing to have others around you that understand exactly what your brain is going through.

Chelsea (50:27)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (50:37)
because they also are going through it. And during one of those therapy sessions, I was really, really frustrated with my symptoms. And I said, I wish I had a monster that I could just rip apart, throw across the room, bang against the walls, you know? And some of the people in it were like, yeah, you should have that. They're like, that sounds actually pretty good. And I was like, OK. So I went home and I thought about it. I'm not a seamstress. I'm not a tailor in any way, form.

Chelsea (50:40)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah!

You

Jennifer Ginty (51:06)
I went out, I bought a sewing machine and a lot of different fabrics, know, just like the ones that you go to Julianne Fabrics and they have them all over the place and you just grab them, right? I just grabbed a bunch, it filled a bag with them and brought them home. And, you know, I created this like ragtag plush monster doll, but I made the head, the arms and the legs out of Velcro so that I could rip them apart. And that was the genesis of

Chelsea (51:16)
Yeah! Yeah!

Mm-hmm.

I love it.

Jennifer Ginty (51:34)
of Moody. His name was was PTSD Pete. That was his first name.

Chelsea (51:36)
Yeah

PTSD peeps!

So much.

my god,

Moody version 1, PTSD piece.

Jennifer Ginty (51:56)
Yep. You

could probably tell I love alliteration because it's like PTSD, my moody monster. My company name is Phoenix Freed You know, I just do everything.

Chelsea (51:59)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yes! No, I really I mean quiet connection. Like I'm pretty

much into this. I really like that kind of thing. So I get it. ⁓ my gosh, I love that. I love and that must have been so cathartic to just create something tangible.

Jennifer Ginty (52:13)
Yeah

It was.

Yeah, yeah, you know what? I should send you the first picture.

Chelsea (52:27)
You should! I'll

put it in the promo! ⁓ my god! I it!

Jennifer Ginty (52:31)
It's so bad, I actually ended up gluing teeth on him.

He's crazy looking.

Chelsea (52:40)
My gosh, I love it. So how did how did PTSD Pete? become moody

Jennifer Ginty (52:49)
Yeah. So what I ended up doing was I went to the SBA, the Small Business Association, and met with someone there. And they were like, you need to get into this program. in Massachusetts, there's this nonprofit group called E for All, Entrepreneurship for All. And this was during COVID. COVID just started after I developed Pete. And so they had this, what is Accelerator program during the summer.

Chelsea (52:56)
Yeah.

OOF

Jennifer Ginty (53:18)
And I was lucky enough to get into the Accelerator program and spent that whole summer of COVID developing Moody. It was amazing. You you get these mentors, you have a cohort of all different people and it's an incredible group. I highly recommend people who are looking to start businesses or need help with their business to look for an entrepreneurial nonprofit in your state because it's extremely helpful.

Chelsea (53:28)
Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (53:46)
And that's where I was able to develop Moody and all the things that come with Moody and who I wanted Moody to be for. I had all these ideas of different monsters for different diagnoses, like ADHD Annie and bipolar Betty.

Chelsea (53:46)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

No!

God

Jennifer Ginty (54:11)
I love it too. Exactly. So, you know, I started out that way, but soon realized that in manufacturing, you have to buy a bulk of a certain product. You can't have, buy 50 of one and 50 of another of these. I ended up, you know, having to buy, well, my first batch, I ended up doing 50 because I was testing them.

Chelsea (54:11)
so much. Anxiety Annie. Yeah. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (54:35)
with families and therapists and teachers and sold out of them really quickly. I just finished ordering 500 dolls now. So I've got 500 of these Moody's coming and I'm so excited. Yeah, I got the funding and I'm able to, they're gonna be shipping out from the manufacturer very soon. I'm so excited.

Chelsea (54:35)
Mm-hmm.

Gosh.

Ugh, so explain to my listeners a little bit because we know what moody means to you and we know how moody was born. What is moody intended for families? Like how is moody intended to be utilized by families?

Jennifer Ginty (55:02)
Yes.

So I started out this journey thinking, OK, the kids are going to love to be able to rip Moody apart. And I think that's the greatest way because they can rip him apart in a safe way. They can get all those emotions out. But I quickly realized that the best part about Moody is putting them back together again. And that gives parents a chance to communicate with their children about their emotions.

Chelsea (55:23)
Yes.

you

Jennifer Ginty (55:36)
You know, can sit down, start to put Moody back together again and say, what happened? What can we do next time to help you with those big frustrations? And it can help children to build their own emotion toolbox, which we all need. You know, and I tell a lot of parents, you also need to build your toolbox, right? We all need to build our toolboxes. And so Moody has been a great communication tool. They're also really great for, so children with autism adore Moody.

Chelsea (55:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah!

Jennifer Ginty (56:05)
because of the feels, the different feelings and the sounds of the ripping of the Velcro. It took me three years to find the stickiest Velcro I could possibly, like, yep, yep, like the one that you can hear it's, you know? And so Moody has been, you know, has been great for families of children too, not just like one child, but he's also been really helpful for children to communicate with each other as well.

Chelsea (56:05)
Mm-hmm.

The perfect Velcro. Yep.

Yep.

Jennifer Ginty (56:33)
you know, siblings, and that's really a needed thing as well because children are developing empathy that way, you know? They, you know, their parents are telling them, you seem really upset here, why don't you use Moody? And then those kids are turning to their siblings when their siblings are upset and saying, here, why don't you use Moody? So communication's been key with him. And it's, you know, how I said that I'm...

Chelsea (56:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (57:02)
my love language is giving. It just blows my heart up every time I hear a parent tell me how their children are not only getting out their emotions with Moody, but are also learning empathy.

Chelsea (57:15)
Yeah, I think that again, so like I said, like Moody drew me in initially, obviously, and then I don't really research my guests because I really want to get to know you authentically. But what I will say is, I love the idea of Moody for so many reasons. I love, especially learning through talking to you right now that it was

part of your healing journey and a healing journey is ongoing. I don't think we ever like reach a finish line. I don't think that exists.

Jennifer Ginty (57:50)
You know, people have said

to me, you're not done with your healing journey. like, I won't ever be. I mean, a healing journey is that roller coaster that you're on. And, you know, if people ask me and say, well, I'm halfway through my journey. And then 10 years from now, I'll probably say I'm halfway through the journey. Nope.

Chelsea (57:56)
No.

Yeah, yeah, it's not a game board.

You're not gonna reach the finish line, but you are. It's gonna like ebb and flow like the game of life. Like you're gonna hit some bit. You're gonna win the lottery one week and then the next week you're gonna your car is gonna break down and you owe whatever. But like, I love that it played such a unique role in your healing journey and gave you something tangible.

I love the idea of, so guess to give this context, something we say in our family, because I have neurodivergent kids and me and my husband are both neurodivergent. We always say like, it's okay to have big feelings, but those big feelings cannot hurt other people. That's what's not okay. And to have something tangible where you can put those big feelings,

and let it out. And then like you said afterwards, putting it back together and doing the repair work and doing the communication and being like, okay, wow, that was big. Where did that come from? What can we do about it? I absolutely love that. And my special educator brain just loves it too. Like I already have a list of my...

of my former coworkers that I'm like, you need to order a Moody Monster. You need to order a Moody Monster. Like, I know exactly who could use this or like.

Jennifer Ginty (59:26)
You

Yeah, teachers

are having a great time with them because they put them in their safe space for kids and they can go in and they can do what they need to with Moody and then go back and join the group again.

Chelsea (59:33)
Yes!

Yes, yes, it's, yeah, I'm, I think it's safe to say I'm slightly obsessed. But kind of to like tie it back to your story and where I think that it's going to resonate for a lot of my listeners is like, yeah, your story is unique. Your story is unique. You, you experienced trauma.

Jennifer Ginty (59:44)
Aw.

Chelsea (1:00:02)
early in your life, you experience trauma in the transition into motherhood and you experience trauma in parenting a child with complex needs and also trying to navigate your own needs. But those things don't define you. They don't mean that you had it like, like, anyone who's like, well, my baby just doesn't sleep or like, well, I'm just having intrusive thoughts. It's like, we are all experiencing something.

and it's all valid and we are all worthy of support so that you can continue on that journey. Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (1:00:40)
Yes.

And all emotions are valid. While I was waiting for Moody, getting a prototype, kind of thing, I knew I had to do something else. So I started to do these Moody Talks where every month I would pick an emotion and I'd give coping skills each week to help with those emotions. as a parent, think that a lot of parents don't realize that they weren't

Chelsea (1:00:45)
All emotions are valid. Yep. Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

Jennifer Ginty (1:01:10)
allowed to use their own feelings, right? I know I wasn't, my generation definitely wasn't. We're told to squish them down, that kind of thing. And I think it's important that parents understand that they have to put the oxygen mask on before their kids. And that means, yeah.

Chelsea (1:01:12)
Yes.

Yep. Yep. That's the

analogy that's used a lot and everyone kind of laughs it off, but it is so accurate. It's so accurate.

Jennifer Ginty (1:01:37)
And your

emotions are just as important as your child's.

Chelsea (1:01:41)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We are jiving We are on the same wavelength here. Because yeah, like your kids are going, it doesn't matter if you have a kid with complex needs or if you have a neurotypical kid, your kids are going to have big emotions and they're going to bring out big emotions in you. And especially if you have things within you that you haven't confronted, they may not come out the way you want them to.

Jennifer Ginty (1:01:46)
No, Yep.

Hmm?

Chelsea (1:02:10)
⁓ so, but that doesn't make you a bad parent. It doesn't make you a bad person. It's that it's the, it's the communication and the acceptance of like, it's okay for us to feel what we're feeling and where do we go from here? like therapy hour. I'm not a therapist. I know I was going to say I've been through enough.

Jennifer Ginty (1:02:31)
I'm not either, but I've done enough of it.

Chelsea (1:02:37)
Like I've done

enough cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy and I've worked with so many therapists that again, so like what I'm saying is not medical advice, but experience as a parent and experience. Like I have a two year old right now. I have a nine year old and a two year old. So one's going through puberty and one is terrible twos. I have two kids who can't control their emotions and I'm

Jennifer Ginty (1:02:40)
Yep.

Wow.

Yup.

Chelsea (1:03:04)
neurodiverse and chronically ill. So like our home is chaotic. I am not sitting here speaking as like, I'm the expert. I am calm and this is how you should do it. But acknowledging that like, it's okay. It's okay. there and like, and like Jen is saying, there is a path forward. There is a path forward and there are brighter days ahead.

Jennifer Ginty (1:03:15)
Hmm?

Mm-hmm.

There is.

Yes, hey, I got through all of the years. I am testament that I have a 20 and an 18 year old and they're still alive. You know, we went through a lot.

Chelsea (1:03:31)
⁓

Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, even when one of them

even when one of them truly did not want to be.

Jennifer Ginty (1:03:43)
Yup.

Yep. you know, we were, we were bouncing back and forth, you know, throughout the years, you know, with different issues, with different problems, but we made it and you'll make it.

Chelsea (1:03:55)
Yeah,

yes. You will make, no matter what it is, if you're not sleeping, it's not forever. If you're having trouble breastfeeding, it's not forever. If you're navigating a new diagnosis, it's not forever. That is one of my mantras is it's not forever. So I've got a lot of them and I use them all. So,

Jennifer Ginty (1:04:04)
Nope.

Mm-hmm.

It's a good mantra.

No!

Chelsea (1:04:22)
I feel like this is a beautiful, like a beautiful full circle moment. Like, ⁓ and I, I really, I truly feel so honored to, to have been able to help you share your story and to have heard your story, even just a part of it. ⁓ I always end on one of two questions and I use our time together to help me decide which question that's going to be. And I think I'm going to use one I haven't used in a while.

Jennifer Ginty (1:04:36)
⁓

Ooh.

Chelsea (1:04:52)
it's not that exciting, but, if you could go back in time before you had kids, before you were even considering getting pregnant, you can't tell yourself anything about what your life is going to look like. It's not like a, if you could go back in time and change one thing, it's not that. If there's something you could instill within yourself,

Jennifer Ginty (1:05:12)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (1:05:18)
to help you navigate that path that you were about to walk, what would you instill within yourself?

Jennifer Ginty (1:05:26)
Stop catastrophizing.

Chelsea (1:05:28)
There's DBT right there for you.

Jennifer Ginty (1:05:33)
Stop thinking that everything is going to go wrong, that everything you're doing is wrong, right? That this is life and life is imperfect and not everything is going to end in a catastrophe.

Chelsea (1:05:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, one of my favorite quotes is life and love are messy most of the time. It's from a song from Carbon Leaf. you look up Carbon Leaf, they're great. that, yeah, I love that. I catastrophize everything. my God. I still do, right? See, this is real. This is real. It's a con.

Jennifer Ginty (1:06:03)
I still do. I'm working on it. I'm working on it. Yep.

Chelsea (1:06:09)
The healing journey is a journey and you're going to use the tools in your toolbox and here's a new tool for your toolbox. Stop catastrophizing.

Jennifer Ginty (1:06:11)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, yes,

it's like a really major point because a lot of people do, a lot of people with trauma do. And I think that if we can teach ourselves to step back from that, everything is awful and everything's going wrong. If we can step back and find maybe one or two things that are going right, I think it helps. It's not going to change your catastrophizing because that's kind of inset into your neurons.

Chelsea (1:06:24)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Ginty (1:06:46)
but maybe

it'll help you to pause and breathe a little throughout the catastrophizing.

Chelsea (1:06:52)
Yeah, one of the DBT skills and again, not a mental health professional, but is called the what's not wrong exercise. And so when you're in that moment where you're like, my God, this is falling apart. So this is going to fall apart. And then this is going to fall apart. You're like, okay, wait, here I am right now. What's not wrong. Right now I'm with Jen and I'm having a great conversation and I'm laughing and my house is warm and I've got water, like that kind of thing. Like it does not mean like

Jennifer Ginty (1:07:00)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (1:07:20)
my life is great. And I should just be thankful. Like it just be like, no, not at all. What is going right, right now? So anyway, we could do a whole episode on DBT, but it's it has become my jam, among other things. ⁓ but yeah, I just thank you so much. This was such an easy conversation. I loved getting to know you better.

Jennifer Ginty (1:07:23)
Mm-hmm, it's not that.

100%. That's my jam.

Chelsea (1:07:49)
I loved getting to learn about your kids and Moody, and I can't wait to share Moody with my listeners. Where can my listeners find you if they'd like to learn more about you?

Jennifer Ginty (1:08:01)
Yes, absolutely. So they can find me at mymoodymonster.com and that has all the information for Moody. And there's also, so one of my social missions is to give Moody's to kids in trauma, in traumatic events. So to first responders, social workers and treatment centers to, so you can also donate a Moody to that cause.

Chelsea (1:08:15)
Mmm.

Jennifer Ginty (1:08:27)
And you can find me on YouTube. have a channel, My Moody Monster, and it has the Moody Talks that I had talked about earlier, which are all the DBT skills that I've learned and I love. And then I also have Moody Storytime about books with big feelings that me and Moody read. And there's a ton of them on there. And what else? Monla handles as my Moody Monster on social media. So that's where you can find me.

Chelsea (1:08:35)
Yeah.

Yep. Yep. And it'll all be

it'll all be tagged in the show notes. So listeners, I know it's we don't always check the show notes, but check the show notes. And you can learn more about Jen and yes, just thank you so much for I'm so glad that we were finally able to do this. All

Jennifer Ginty (1:08:58)
Mm-hmm.

Me too! ⁓ it was such a great conversation!

Chelsea (1:09:11)
Jen, thank you so much for an incredible conversation. I feel so honored to share your story with my listeners and I'm so excited to see where your journey with Moody takes you. Listeners, please check the show notes to learn more about Jen and what you can do to help Moody find a home wherever he is needed. You can keep up with us on Quiet Connection by following us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and threads at Quiet Connection podcast.

You can help our community grow by leaving us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify and consider sharing our episodes on social media. To share your personal journey, you can contact us through our website at quietconnectionpodcast.com or by email at quietconnectionppmh at gmail.com. Join us next time when another story is told and you realize you are not alone. I see you.