The Just A Mom Podcast

Meredith is the mom of five kids, four of whom are adopted, and three of these are biological sisters. Additionally, Meredith is the founder of James Trail, an organization that seeks to come alongside families and organizations impacted by trauma. 

Meredith talks about the different types of trauma and the services James Trail provides, including social media posts, blogs, a podcast, and newsletters. James Trail wants the content to spur conversations between people so that people are willing to step in to receive help. Meredith also emphasizes the importance of a safe community, and what it really means to be “trauma-informed.”

In addition to the content James Trail produces, they provide in-person trauma-informed workshops across the globe so that people can bring this knowledge back to their places of work and service. Meredith wants people to walk away from their training with a deeper understanding of trauma and mental health, and also with questions and conversations they want to have with people in their circles. 

Meredith shares about her faith as well as her own journey as a mom with adopted kids and how she was forced to deal with some of her own childhood trauma as a result. Learn more about James Trail at https://www.jamestrail.org, and check out their podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/james-trail-from-functional-to-flourishing/id1725734454.

This episode is a continuation of my conversation with Stephanie. Stephanie’s daughter struggles with ARFID (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder), anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder. 

In this episode, Stephanie shares about her daughter’s six-month residential stay at the Eating Recovery Center in Dallas (https://www.eatingrecoverycenter.com/recovery-centers/dallas) followed by two months of partial hospitalization treatment there. Stephanie discusses how their family managed this time, and how her daughter missed her entire junior year of high school. Upon returning home, Stephanie talks about how her daughter was able to complete two years of high school in one year and graduate on time. While the journey hasn’t been perfect and her daughter still struggles, her daughter is currently in her sophomore year of college and living on campus. Stephanie encourages parents to find community when they have a child with mental illness, and how important letting go was for her to find peace.

This is the first of two episodes with Stephanie James.  Stephanie’s daughter battles an eating disorder, anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Stephanie shares candidly how her daughter’s illness started her freshman year when she started skipping lunch and was losing weight. Stephanie took her to their family physician, who said she needed to be hospitalized immediately because of her weight and low blood pressure. Stephanie talks about how overwhelming it was to have her daughter diagnosed with ARFID (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder), and that the hospital was not sure how to treat her daughter as they had not had a patient with this diagnosis. She went to the eating disorders clinic and was prescribed medications for her anxiety and OCD. 

In this episode, Stephanie chronicles the long journey of her daughter’s refusal to eat, which resulted in a feeding tube. Stephanie talks about their journey with outpatient, inpatient, and residential treatments, the difficulties of navigating the mental health system and insurance, and the importance of couples counseling for Stephanie and her husband during this trying time. Stephanie talks about how crucial it was for them to share what was going on with their safe community, and the support they felt as a result. This episode concludes with Stephanie’s daughter going to the Eating Recovery Center ( https://www.eatingrecoverycenter.com/recovery-centers/dallas) in Dallas.

I was drawn to share Tamicka’s story after we met at the Mental Health KC Conference last spring. After studying computer engineering in college, Tamicka realized she wanted to work with families and individuals to heal, grow, and become the best version of themselves. Because of her own story and experiences, Tamicka wrote the book Where Daddy Lives  (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWPPQ3B9?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_XVTTF66NZM3GNW3XW3VA). Tamicka’s father went to jail and then prison when she was a senior in high school. She wrote the book for children of incarcerated parents to have a resource on feelings and coping mechanisms when they have a parent in jail or prison. Additionally, Tamicka shares her expertise on trauma and the importance of immediate help for children. Don’t miss this educational and inspiring episode.

Don’t miss this episode with Casie Fariello, a mom with three kids with different mental health issues—anxiety, substance abuse, depression, and self-harm. Her knowledge range is vast, including intensive outpatient treatment, partial hospitalization, wilderness therapy, and a therapeutic boarding school.  Casie knows all about managing the complexities of navigating the system as well as regulating yourself when you have a child or children struggling. Casie also knows what it’s like to be on a different page than your spouse when it comes to dealing with your children. And she knows the pain of almost losing a child to overdose.

Because of all of her personal pain and learning, Casie co-founded Other Parents Like Me (oplm.com (http://oplm.com)). She started OPLM because she needed a lifeline for herself. OPLM is parent and caregiver-focused, providing free webinars and a myriad of resources for a nominal cost, including 18 support groups a week.

Casie is passionate about creating a place where no one is shocked to hear what someone has to say and has done the research that shows how important peer support is. Additionally, financial aid is available for those who need it.

Make sure you check out Other Parents Like Me (oplm.com/)

Sometimes things don’t work out the way we want or the way they should. Kristie Morton knows that personally. She lost her 14-year-old son, Hunter, to suicide on February 12, 2022. Kristie shares very candidly about her journey as a mother who has lost a child to suicide. Kristie emphasizes that parents who have lost children still want to talk about their child, and how important it is to check on the siblings and the dads as well as the moms. 

Kristie shares how she knew that she had to do something immediately after losing Hunter and that she and her husband were committed to not hiding the fact that Hunter’s death was by suicide.  In the wake of her grief, Kristie started the You Matter organization in her local community of Archie, Missouri (https://www.facebook.com/YouMatterArchie/).  Kristie and “her girls” work tirelessly to make all members of their community feel loved and heard. Kristie has taken the indescribable pain of losing a child to suicide and channeled her experience into helping others not have to go through the same kind of pain she has experienced. 

Don’t miss this encouraging and inspiring episode featuring Jessica Patay, founder of We Are Brave Together. As the mother of a child with Prader-Willi disease (https://www.fpwr.org/), Jessica founded We Are Brave Together in 2017 to be a safe place for women with children with any issue or diagnosis. We Are Brave Together is a place for women to feel seen, heard, validated, and understood through their podcast, retreats, and support groups, known as connection circles.  There are presently over 20 connection groups worldwide that support their mission to preserve and protect the mental health of caregiving moms. Jessica openly shares the challenges of being a caregiving mom and the perseverance, tenacity, dedication, sacrifice, and love caregiving moms exhibit. 

Jessica has also compiled caregiving mom stories into a book, Becoming Brave Together (https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Brave-Together-Extraordinary-Caregiving-ebook/dp/B0D123VCRS). Jessica wants moms to pick up this book and feel seen, heard, and validated. She also hopes the book will help others open their eyes to the challenges caregivers face.

This episode is a continuation of Sierra’s story. After the birth of her second child, Sierra was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Again, Sierra talks about the
empathy she developed by being on the receiving end of mental health services. She also frankly shares how traumatizing the admission process into the psychiatric hospital was, how her faith was shaken, and how she didn’t even recognize who she was physically or mentally.  Sierra also candidly discusses what the delusions and psychosis were like, and how the delusions lasted several more weeks after her discharge from the hospital. Sierra expresses how amazing her husband’s unconditional love is.  Sierra talks about how Electroconvulsive therapy saved her life, and that postpartum psychosis is extremely life-threatening. Sierra wants people to know they don’t have to go through these trials alone, and that there needs to be more conversation and screening for pre and postpartum depression. For more information about these conditions,  please visit https://www.postpartum.net (https://www.postpartum.net)

Sierra works as the Community Prevention Manager for Johnson County Mental Health. But that’s not why she is on the podcast. Sierra shares an incredible story of her lived experience very candidly. Sierra struggled with postpartum depression, major insomnia, hallucinations, and psychosis after the birth of her first child. In this episode, Sierra shares how she felt so alone and afraid of being separated from her family and being able to work in the mental health field again. She discusses how frightening psychosis and visual hallucinations are, and that she didn’t even tell her psychiatrist about the hallucinations. 

Sierra was able to recover and manage her symptoms for several months, and eventually, she and her husband decided to have another baby. Sierra thought she would be able to stay on top of her mental health during her second pregnancy. However, early in that pregnancy, she had a major insomnia episode, which led to medication.  Major anxiety set in a couple of months later, which led to paranoia, delusions, and delirium. When she was seven months pregnant, she had a suicide attempt because of the delusions. Sierra felt chronically suicidal for weeks and concealed symptoms from her care team because she was afraid and wanted to protect her family from her dark thoughts. Sierra recovered and delivered a healthy baby boy.

Sierra talks about the incredible support from her husband and parents, and how she felt so much shame but also incredible empathy for others who struggle with mental illness. 

This episode of The Just A Mom podcast features Tracey Yokas, author of the book Bloodlines: A Memoir of Harm and Healing (https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlines-Memoir-Self-Harm-Healing-Generational-ebook/dp/B09CD4F614). In the book, Tracey explores her relationship with her own mother as well as the family dynamics of a child with mental illness.  Tracey’s daughter’s battle started with the death of Tracey’s mom in 2013 when her daughter was 13 years old and going into 8th grade.  It started one day with “I’m really not that hungry” and soon after that her daughter was diagnosed with disordered eating and depression. 

In this episode, Tracey chronicles the myriad of treatments they tried—counseling, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient treatment, and eventually in-patient treatment. Tracey shares vulnerably how a big part of her journey was learning all of the things inside her that needed healing, and that she couldn’t control her daughter’s healing. Tracey also talks about how she felt so many of the things that many of us have felt—she didn’t want to share with people what was going on with her daughter, and she isolated herself a lot because of this. 

While so many of us talk about self-care as a vital part of maintaining our mental health, Tracey takes it a step further and challenges listeners to learn about themselves to become our best true selves.  She also emphasizes the importance of educating yourself about mental illness.