In this episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down with Christina Orfanakos, MSW, RSW—Registered Social Worker and founder of Grace North Therapy—for a conversation about attachment, survival patterns, and what it really means to begin feeling safe again.

Some patterns don’t start with us.
They start in the environments we learned to survive in.

We talk about the ways early experiences—especially those shaped by silence, unpredictability, or emotional disconnection—can shape how we move through the world as adults.
How hyper-independence, people-pleasing, over-functioning, and even success can all be rooted in adaptations we learned long before we had language for them.

And how those same patterns that once protected us…
can quietly keep us stuck.

Christina brings both professional insight and deep compassion to this conversation, grounded in her work with women and mothers navigating overwhelm, burnout, and disconnection. Her approach is rooted in attachment theory and the belief that meaningful change happens when we feel seen, understood, and supported.

We also explore:

• how attachment patterns are formed—and how they show up in adulthood
• the difference between empathy and caretaking
• why awareness is the first step, but not the only one
• how to begin reconnecting with your body and nervous system
• and what it looks like to gently shift patterns that no longer serve you

This is a conversation about understanding—not fixing.
About compassion—for the parts of you that learned to survive.
And about the possibility of something different.

About Christina:
Christina Orfanakos is a Registered Social Worker and the founder of Grace North Therapy. She works with women and mothers navigating overwhelm, burnout, and disconnection, with a focus on attachment, emotional regulation, and reconnecting to self.

Connect with Christina:
Instagram: @gracenorththerapy
Website: gracenorththerapy.com
LinkedIn: Christina Orfanakos, MSW, RSW

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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Season 2 opens with a powerful conversation about connection, regulation, and breaking cycles.

In this episode of The Shadows We Cast, Jennifer St. John sits down with clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and renowned speaker Dr. Jody Carrington. Known for her bold, honest, and deeply human approach to mental health, Dr. Jody’s work focuses on one essential truth: we are wired for connection — and healing happens in relationships.

Together, Jennifer and Jody explore emotional regulation, empathy, and the long ripple effects of growing up in environments shaped by mental illness and addiction. Through Jennifer’s lived experience and Dr. Jody’s clinical insight, this conversation unpacks how trauma shapes our nervous systems, why empathy requires context, and how safe relationships can help us break intergenerational cycles.

In this episode we explore:

• emotional regulation and the “flipped lid” state
• intergenerational trauma and cycle breaking
• the power of empathy and the phrase “tell me more”
• addiction, connection, and healing
• simple ways to regulate your nervous system in everyday life

About Dr. Jody Carrington
Dr. Jody Carrington is a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and founder of Carrington & Company. She speaks on hundreds of stages globally each year and hosts the popular podcast UNLONELY, where she continues her mission of helping people find their way back to authentic human connection.

Learn more about Dr. Jody:

Website: https://www.drjodycarrington.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/drjodycarrington

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-jody-carrington/

This episode includes discussion of addiction, mental illness, trauma, and suicidal ideation.

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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Some endings arrive slowly. Ours did not.

In this final episode of Season 1, my sisters and I share the most personal part of our story—the goodbye. After years of surviving our mom’s untreated mental illness and addiction, and then finding our way back to her during her recovery, we were finally in a good place. A healthy place. A place where laughter came easy and trust was being rebuilt. And then, in 2017, we lost her.

Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer just two months before she passed, our mom’s final chapter was fast, devastating, and unexpectedly filled with grace. Two weeks after her diagnosis, our beloved Aunt Terry was diagnosed with the same illness. And within ten months, our dad passed away too, leaving us grappling with wave after wave of loss.

This episode is about those final months with our mom. The hospital visits and hospice care. The late-night humor that kept us going when there were no more answers left to find. The tension between wanting to save her and learning, finally, how to just be with her. It’s about what it means to love someone fiercely—even when that love was hard-won and complicated.

And it’s also about the legacy she left behind. About the strength we found in each other, and how grief shaped us into something softer, stronger, and more honest.

All season long, we’ve been pulling back the curtain on what it means to grow up in the shadow of mental illness and addiction—and how, even in the aftermath, healing is possible. This final chapter closes that story for now, but it also opens the door to what comes next.

Thank you for walking with us through the messy middle of our lives. Thank you for holding space for these conversations. And thank you for reminding us that even in the hardest endings, love remains.

Original aired on July 8th, 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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This week on The Shadows We Cast, my sisters, Kate and Teresa, and I return for Part 3 of our story — the chapter where things began to change. After years of boundaries, heartbreak, and distance, our mom started to seek real, consistent help. It wasn’t a sudden transformation. It was slow, uneven, and at times, fragile. But it was the beginning of something new.

In this conversation, we talk about the earliest signs of her recovery and what it looked like to slowly let her back in — not just into our lives, but into our trust. We share moments that felt healing, moments that tested us, and how her role as a grandmother became the unlikely bridge back to connection.

There’s grief here — for what never was — but also so much beauty in what we found when we stopped trying to hold everything together and started meeting her where she was. We weren’t trying to fix her — we were simply hoping she’d choose help. And when she finally did, something in all of us shifted, too.

Originally aired on July 1st, 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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In this final chapter of our second sister series, my sisters Kate, Teresa, and I reflect on the slow, complicated shift—the one that happened in our mother’s final years, and the one we had to make in ourselves to survive and heal.

We talk about what it was like to be adults with a mother still deep in the storm of untreated mental illness and addiction, and how we eventually found our way to firmer ground. We explore the boundaries we had to set, the pain of waiting for change, and the quiet hope that crept in when she finally began to seek help. She didn’t become someone new—but she did begin to come home to herself.

This episode is about recognizing the moments when something begins to shift—internally and externally. It’s about separating a person from their illness. About forgiving without an apology. And about choosing to heal, even when the past still echoes.

If you’ve ever loved someone who struggled, or if you’ve felt stuck in a story that wasn’t changing, this conversation is for you.

Originally aired on June 3rd, 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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In this powerful follow-up to last week’s episode, we continue our sister series exploring early adulthood after growing up with a parent facing untreated mental illness and addiction. This chapter focuses on the emotional impact of setting boundaries with our mother—while becoming parents ourselves.

I’m joined by my sisters, Kate and Teresa, as we share personal stories of trauma, family estrangement, childhood emotional neglect, and the moment each of us realized we couldn’t protect our mother and protect our children at the same time. We talk about the ripple effects of living with someone who struggled with mental illness, substance use, and unresolved trauma—and how we each made the painful but necessary choice to break the cycle.

We also explore how those early experiences shaped our mental health journeys and led us into careers in social work, child protection, and community-based care. This conversation touches on trauma-informed parenting, mother-daughter boundaries, family systems, and healing from generational dysfunction.

It’s an honest, emotional, and ultimately empowering episode about reclaiming agency, redefining family, and choosing something healthier—one decision at a time.

Originally aired on May 27th, 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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This is the first of a three-part series exploring the messy, complicated years of early adulthood—when my sisters, Kate and Teresa, and I began to navigate the emotional weight of our mom’s mental illness and addiction in a new way.

We weren’t estranged yet. But the tether was fraying.

In this episode, we reflect on the years after leaving home—when we were starting careers, becoming parents, and building lives of our own. We were still trying to stay close to our mom through letters, phone calls, and hope. But we were also beginning to feel the cost of that closeness: the resentment, the confusion, and the exhaustion of trying to stay connected to someone whose pain kept spilling over.

We talk about what it meant to set boundaries before we really knew how, how our relationships were impacted, and how we slowly came to realize that love alone wasn’t enough to hold it all together.

This conversation is raw and real—and a reminder that sometimes the hardest part of growing up is learning how to stop breaking yourself to keep someone else whole.

Originally released: May 20 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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Ever wonder what it’s like to grow up desperate to escape, but terrified to leave the ones you love behind?

In this episode, we talk about those late-teen years—when our mom’s drinking and untreated mental illness had taken over, and we were all just trying to find a way out. Joined once again by my sisters Kate and Teresa, we revisit the breaking point that changed everything.

This episode dives into the emotional cost of a childhood shaped by instability, addiction, and undiagnosed mental illness. We reflect on the toll it took on our sense of identity, our relationships, and our ability to feel safe in the world. While the journey into early adulthood is explored more fully in the next series, this conversation begins to unpack the long shadow of survival mode—and what it took to make it out.

ORIGINALLY RELEASED: April 22, 2025

Host/Producer/Writer/Director: Jenn St John

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

If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it too.

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