Episode 50 - Jennifer Ginty: Complex PTSD and Destroying Monsters

Complex PSDT re-wires your brain after endured trauma. It’s different than PTSD.

Jennifer Ginty shares her journey of childhood abuse, moving through trauma as a mother, and now channeling her experience into helping children process and communicate their emotions.

This conversation is a reminder that healing is never linear and that good can come from the darkest of experiences.

More about Jennifer Ginty👇

Jennifer is a single mom and entrepreneur who lives with Complex PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder from childhood trauma.

She has spent the last 4 years developing My Moody Monster - a pull apart plush toy that has helped children to get out their frustrations in a safe way and giving families a tool to talk about emotions and communication.

Her YouTube channel features her Moody Talks focusing on an emotion each month and teaching coping skills that have helped her with her own mental health.

Connect with Jennifer👇

Website: http://www.mymoodymonster.com

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@mymoodymonster I

nstagram: http://www.instagram.com/mymoodymonster

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/my-moody-monster

TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/@mymoodymonster

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/93141440

If you want to break free from the 9 to 5 or spend more time with your family, then check out this FREE webinar that goes over exactly what I'm doing to create time and financial freedom.
https://www.breakingfreewithlindsay.com/learn

If you ever have any questions or want to reach out - I'd love to connect with you. Send me a DM on Facebook (it's the best way to reach me!)

Transcript

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Lindsay Ford: All right. We have Jennifer Ginty with us here today, and she's a mental health advocate and founder of my moody monster. Welcome to the podcast Jennifer.

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Jennifer Ginty: Thank you so much for having me, Lindsay. I can't wait for our conversation.

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Lindsay Ford: It's going to be. It's on a heavy topic. But I'm really excited to have this conversation. So we're going to talk about Ptsd and complex. Ptsd, so why don't you start us off by really helping us understand what the difference is between those 2.

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Jennifer Ginty: So I had

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Jennifer Ginty: explained to me, really well, by a social worker.

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Jennifer Ginty: So

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Jennifer Ginty: imagine that you're in a car accident, and it was a really bad accident, you know. Maybe you got hurt or someone got hurt in that was involved in the accident.

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Jennifer Ginty: And suddenly you are afraid to drive again.

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Jennifer Ginty: and it's

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Jennifer Ginty: in your, you know. When you get into a car you get upset, or just the thought of getting into a car upsets you. But as you move forward you can start really slowly by getting yourself into the car, maybe not even behind the driver's seat, maybe in the passenger side. And then next time you might be able to get yourself behind the the wheel

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Jennifer Ginty: and then turn the car on at some point, and then actually start to drive, maybe just down the street, that kind of thing.

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Jennifer Ginty: And so that is kind of what Ptsd is. You have a fear.

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Jennifer Ginty: There's something that's holding you back after an episode has happened, an event has happened.

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Jennifer Ginty: Complex Ptsd is when you've lived for a while in a trauma

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Jennifer Ginty: where yeah, this could be childhood abuse. This could be domestic violence or homelessness, and oftentimes people know it as with veterans who have been at war.

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Jennifer Ginty: So complex Ptsd is when your body chemistry and your neurons change

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Jennifer Ginty: because you're in trauma

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Jennifer Ginty: at all times, in in your situation. So

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Jennifer Ginty: a lot of people with complex Ptsd become hyper in ways like

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Jennifer Ginty: hypervigilant

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Jennifer Ginty: hyper focused that kind of thing because it's in our bodies. It's sitting there. We're at a different like stress level than the average person.

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Lindsay Ford: It's so fascinating how the body is so smart and

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Lindsay Ford: adapt so well to our circumstances. And you know, in the case of this, it seems like it's maybe doing, you know, quote unquote the wrong thing because you're maybe out of that trauma now. But it was really there as a survival mechanism. And what a beautiful thing our bodies are, just to be able to adapt to so many very varying circumstances and really keep us safe.

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Lindsay Ford: Why don't you take us through your story and and how you came to have the complex Ptsd.

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Lindsay Ford: yeah, and how you've worked through it.

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Jennifer Ginty: Yeah. So I lived with my abuser for 14 years.

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Jennifer Ginty: My abuser was my father, and I lived with my mother and my 2 older brothers.

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Jennifer Ginty: and

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Jennifer Ginty: when my, when my older brother

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Jennifer Ginty: finally was not able to handle the abuse any longer, he told a trusted adult.

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Jennifer Ginty: and my abuser was taken from our home.

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Jennifer Ginty: and a lot of people think that once an abuser is gone, that the trauma ends. But that's not necessarily the truth for every child, and probably for most children.

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Jennifer Ginty: That's not the case, because there's going to be microtraumas or other traumas that happen after the fact.

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Jennifer Ginty: For me it was the court system.

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Jennifer Ginty: So the courts wanted to put my abuser away in prison.

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Jennifer Ginty: but they treated us

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Jennifer Ginty: like we were, you know, just

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Jennifer Ginty: pain in their ass, you know, like we. They wanted to put this man away, but they didn't want to deal with the children

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Jennifer Ginty: that had actually survived the abuse.

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Jennifer Ginty: and my brothers were older, and they were able to better speak on the abuse that they had had.

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Jennifer Ginty: I was still at 14,

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Jennifer Ginty: like going on 15, and I didn't have the words. I was really scared.

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Jennifer Ginty: and so I didn't talk about the abuse that happened to me, and when I was able to.

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Jennifer Ginty: the you know, Da thought that I was just

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Jennifer Ginty: putting myself into the situation to be part of the situation which no child wants to be. No one wants to. No child wants to be

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Jennifer Ginty: talking about what happened to them with an abuser.

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Jennifer Ginty: So she put me in front of a grand jury.

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Jennifer Ginty: and I had to talk about

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Jennifer Ginty: a lot of like sexual abuse

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Jennifer Ginty: and physical abuse that had happened to me, and that was a major trauma.

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Jennifer Ginty: I was still in high school and trying to just live my life

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Jennifer Ginty: and be a quote normal teenage girl.

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Jennifer Ginty: So after 4 years of all of that going through the court systems, guardian items that kind of thing. My abuser was sent to prison for only 4 years.

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Jennifer Ginty: and that was a shock to us.

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Jennifer Ginty: He got out, and he abused other children after that.

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Jennifer Ginty: And you know, at that point I was in college.

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Jennifer Ginty: and I kept saying to myself, Not yet. I really can't focus on this trauma.

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Jennifer Ginty: I'm in college now and then it moved on to not yet. I started a career.

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Jennifer Ginty: and then finally it got to. Not yet. I'm a mother, how could I take time out of these beautiful, precious souls lives

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Jennifer Ginty: to focus on me?

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Jennifer Ginty: And so I pushed my healing journey off for years and years and years.

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Jennifer Ginty: and

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Jennifer Ginty: I owned a boutique in my town, and I had to close it and go into bankruptcy.

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Jennifer Ginty: and that was the point where my brain stopped me

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Jennifer Ginty: dead cold.

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Jennifer Ginty: and said, This is it right? Now is the time that you need to focus on this trauma on this healing journey?

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Jennifer Ginty: And so I

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Jennifer Ginty: you know I've I've had experience with therapy and hospitals and group therapy that kind of thing from my childhood. So I knew that I needed to get a team together for me.

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Jennifer Ginty: and it started with finding the right

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Jennifer Ginty: individual therapist personal therapist.

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Jennifer Ginty: And that's really important, I think, for a lot of trauma survivors

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Jennifer Ginty: is to have someone that's a 3rd party in your life. That's not a part of your life that you can go to. You can tell them everything.

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Jennifer Ginty: and know that that's not going to come back to you in your personal life.

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Jennifer Ginty: you know. I don't think we all really tell our families or friends, our loved ones about the things that have hurt us in the past, the traumas that we've had.

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Jennifer Ginty: but having a 3rd person in your life to be able to talk about that, and they know the proper treatments for that.

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Jennifer Ginty: So I asked a social worker friend of mine, and she introduced me to my now therapist

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Jennifer Ginty: and my therapist is is much younger than me.

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Jennifer Ginty: I'm now. I'm 50,

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Jennifer Ginty: and she's definitely she's much younger than me, and I was thinking, how could this young woman

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Jennifer Ginty: know how to help me, this old woman

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Jennifer Ginty: with my trauma? How could she personally know my experiences? That kind of thing? But I gave it a try, and I realized that having a younger therapist really helps because they've gone through learning the different modalities

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Jennifer Ginty: that our current

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Jennifer Ginty: for things like Ptsd. And depression and anxiety.

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Jennifer Ginty: So it really helped for me to have this younger therapist there, knowing the

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Jennifer Ginty: things that could help me.

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Jennifer Ginty: that they'd learned just recently.

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Jennifer Ginty: and with that I started my journey with my personal therapist, and at a point I knew that I had to go inpatient in hospital.

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Jennifer Ginty: because, you know, I was very overwhelmed, but also my medications needed to be, you know, moved around, mixed up.

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Jennifer Ginty: And I also started into group therapy

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Jennifer Ginty: and group therapy. When I was younger I hated. I just didn't really want to be into it. But as an adult

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Jennifer Ginty: it was a whole different.

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Jennifer Ginty: you know, point of view.

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Jennifer Ginty: had people who

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Jennifer Ginty: were on in the same boat as me, who had the same kind of experiences that.

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Jennifer Ginty: and that really helped as well.

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Jennifer Ginty: And one day I was in group therapy, and I was really frustrated with my Ptsd. Symptoms and my depression, and I said, I wish I had a monster that I could just rip apart and throw across the room and bang against the walls. And

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Jennifer Ginty: people in the group were like, Yeah, you should have that I was like, Okay, well, how do I get that? And I'm not a seamstress or a tailor. But I went home and I put together this, you know ragtag monster plush doll

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Jennifer Ginty: and I made their arms, legs, and head

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Jennifer Ginty: with Velcro

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Jennifer Ginty: so that I could rip them apart.

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Jennifer Ginty: and I named them Ptsd. Pete.

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Jennifer Ginty: It would be my little monster for me.

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Jennifer Ginty: And Ptsd. Pete was really there for me really helped me to get out that

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Jennifer Ginty: physical frustration that a lot of people have

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Jennifer Ginty: that they just need to let out that

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Jennifer Ginty: emotion

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Jennifer Ginty: and feel safe in doing so. And that's what Ptsd Pete did for me.

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Jennifer Ginty: So.

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Lindsay Ford: PA.

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Jennifer Ginty: Yeah.

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Jennifer Ginty: yes. So I.

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Lindsay Ford: Go ahead. Please finish.

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Jennifer Ginty: Oh, yeah, yeah. So I, you know, realized if he could help me, that I'm sure that Pete could help others, especially children.

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Jennifer Ginty: because children don't have the words. They don't understand their emotions yet.

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Jennifer Ginty: My, I have 2 boys.

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Jennifer Ginty: and I used to call them my little cavemen

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Jennifer Ginty: because they were just raw, right? They were raw. They didn't have the understanding of emotions. Or, you know, skills that they need for to be a social creature

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Jennifer Ginty: and a lot of us.

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Jennifer Ginty: especially my age. We were told not to show our emotions right. Don't be an angry girl. Don't make grandma uncomfortable with your sadness. That kind of thing, right?

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Jennifer Ginty: So we didn't necessarily learn how to deal with our own emotions and how to communicate them.

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Jennifer Ginty: So I got into an accelerator program for an entrepreneur group and really

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Jennifer Ginty: built.

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Jennifer Ginty: he became my moody monster.

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Jennifer Ginty: So he became moody.

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Jennifer Ginty: and I started to test

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Jennifer Ginty: the prototypes with kids and parents and therapists and teachers. And they were really enjoying

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Jennifer Ginty: the communication that they could have with kids. Because kids can use moody when they're frustrated. And it alerts the adult

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Jennifer Ginty: that the child needs help.

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Jennifer Ginty: So it's it became something that was a very useful tool for adults to communicate with children.

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Lindsay Ford: I love that, and I want to. I want to talk about.

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Lindsay Ford: I want to talk about that a little bit more. But I want to also, just like rewind to what you were saying earlier.

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Lindsay Ford: just reflecting on. You know you had the abuse, and then you had to relive it for another 4 years through the court system. And

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Lindsay Ford: I just you know there has to be a better way

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Lindsay Ford: of of doing that, and I'm wondering if you have any insights. Now, reflecting back as an adult

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Lindsay Ford: into how our

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Lindsay Ford: court system can do better with kids. Obviously there was the Da that really

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Lindsay Ford: was trying to dismiss what you were sharing like you had worked up the courage to share it. And then.

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Lindsay Ford: you know, almost to be told that you're just doing it for attention, or to like be like your brothers and

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Lindsay Ford: and then to have to share all of that in front of a jury like.

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Lindsay Ford: Do you have any reflections on what could be done better.

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Jennifer Ginty: I just don't think that the adults in the court system truly understand where a child is at

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Jennifer Ginty: in that moment

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Jennifer Ginty: there is still that trauma. They're reliving the trauma of their their abuser. But now you're also adding insult to injury to a child by

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Jennifer Ginty: dismissing their pain and dismissing their truth.

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Jennifer Ginty: I honestly, I very much want to get into that kind of advocacy for children in the court system.

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Jennifer Ginty: because it's still happening

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Jennifer Ginty: that it hasn't changed. My court case was in the early nineties.

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Jennifer Ginty: and I don't think I've still heard horror stories today

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Jennifer Ginty: about how

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Jennifer Ginty: the system treats children.

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Jennifer Ginty: I don't necessarily know how to, you know. Help that.

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Jennifer Ginty: And I wish I did. But I think that getting

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Jennifer Ginty: getting I know there's a lot of social workers involved. There's a lot of guardian items that kind of thing.

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Jennifer Ginty: But

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Jennifer Ginty: I'm not sure exactly if they know

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Jennifer Ginty: the insights into a child's mind, because every child's mind is different.

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Jennifer Ginty: But I mean they're all pretty much the same in the sense of where they have grown.

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Jennifer Ginty: So I would. Yeah.

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Lindsay Ford: No, I was just gonna say. And even like

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Lindsay Ford: dealing with teenagers, you know, teenagers look like adults. They talk like adults, but their brains are not

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Lindsay Ford: adults like they are still very much children and still in development. And

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Lindsay Ford: I think that is one thing

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Lindsay Ford: the court systems don't understand. But just like, generally as a as a society. We don't understand that. You know, these these people that look like adults.

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Lindsay Ford: adults talk like adults want to be adults. They are still really just children, and I imagine it would go a long way to have even just a support.

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Lindsay Ford: someone who is a trust trusting support

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Lindsay Ford: through that system. And I yeah, I don't. I don't know.

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Lindsay Ford: You know. I don't know what it's like to go through that court system. I don't know what it's like to have to relive that for years like you think like you'd be able to handle that in a couple of months.

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Lindsay Ford: I don't understand why something like that needs to take years

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Lindsay Ford: but even just like what you shared with, you know you had to relive that experience through your teenage years, and then

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Lindsay Ford: you knew there was stuff under the surface that you hadn't dealt with.

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Lindsay Ford: and you just kept putting it off and putting it off. And

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Lindsay Ford: you know, I think that's

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Lindsay Ford: another thing. I just want to highlight, because you know so much of us do that, even if we don't have abuse in our childhood or in our lives, like the things that we need to deal with, will just keep cropping up. Keep cropping up, and you know, if they're quiet at 1st we can easily dismiss them, and then they just get louder and louder and louder. And, like you said, with your your boutique and bankruptcy like that was when

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Lindsay Ford: things hit the fan where I got so loud you couldn't

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Lindsay Ford: ignore it. And

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Lindsay Ford: that is just the way life works like you were clearly like the you know, the life, life, universe, God, whatever your body, your soul is just like. Now's the time, Jennifer. Now's the time to deal with this. You're like you're capable of handling this. Now, at this age

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Lindsay Ford: I'm curious you mentioned the group therapy piece of it, and how it was

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Lindsay Ford: really difficult for you in your younger years. But then, as an adult, do you know what changed either in the group therapy or in you that made that therapy like appealing to you as an adult, but not as a teenager.

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Jennifer Ginty: Oh, yeah, yeah, it was definitely maturity.

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Jennifer Ginty: Okay, yeah. I think

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Jennifer Ginty: teens that are in group therapy who are like forced to be in group therapy. They don't want to be there.

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Jennifer Ginty: Teenagers don't want to be in any therapy, really, but you know

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Jennifer Ginty: you know a parent who requires a child to be in therapy, which is what my mother did.

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Jennifer Ginty: You know that that is important.

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Jennifer Ginty: and

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Jennifer Ginty: we just don't understand it. When we're young I want to be out with my friends. I want to be, you know, at my job making money. Why am I sitting here with a bunch of other kids talking about my feelings.

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Jennifer Ginty: The maturity part of it is that

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Jennifer Ginty: you have that camaraderie later in life.

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Jennifer Ginty: and the people there want to be there.

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Lindsay Ford: Right?

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Lindsay Ford: Yeah, they're all intentionally on that healing journey rather than sort of being forced into it.

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Lindsay Ford: I'm curious to know how your relationship with your mother has been through all of this

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Lindsay Ford: and and how that's impacted you as a mother.

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Jennifer Ginty: Yeah, it was difficult in the beginning. My mother is a workhorse.

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Jennifer Ginty: and she that is, her world was was working her job.

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Jennifer Ginty: and I think she often used it as a way to escape

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Jennifer Ginty: our family

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Jennifer Ginty: situation.

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Jennifer Ginty: and when it all came out she was so scared

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Jennifer Ginty: to be on her own

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Jennifer Ginty: that you know, she fed into

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Jennifer Ginty: people telling her, well, maybe you can just work it out with him, and everybody can stay where they are, and he'll stop abusing your children, but that will never happen, and she quickly realized that.

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Jennifer Ginty: But there was so much going on, and she knew she had to make enough money to pay for lawyers

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Jennifer Ginty: to pay for things that are, you know, happening. I was in. I was in Catholic school, so she had to pay for that. My brother was also in school.

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Jennifer Ginty: so I think she took on the role of I have to just keep making the money to keep these kids

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Jennifer Ginty: alive.

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Jennifer Ginty: And so we really didn't have a lot of.

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Jennifer Ginty: you know closeness.

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Jennifer Ginty: We didn't really talk.

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Jennifer Ginty: and when I went to college I went to college.

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Jennifer Ginty: and so I'm originally. I'm from Massachusetts, and I grew up on the outskirts of Boston, but I went to school in Boston, and she started coming in to see her lawyer every week for all of the stuff that was going on, and I started to meet her every time she would go in and we'd start. We'd have dinner together. And that's when our

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Jennifer Ginty: our relationship started to bloom.

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Jennifer Ginty: when we weren't in the same space all the time together and had a little space to.

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Jennifer Ginty: you know, be independent, and then come back to each other and talk about things that had happened.

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Jennifer Ginty: My mother feels really really badly about

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Jennifer Ginty: the situation that happened. She does, and

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Jennifer Ginty: she

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Jennifer Ginty: really always just wants to make it up to us.

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Jennifer Ginty: And she's been trying to do that for years and years and years. And I'm like, Mom, it's okay.

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Jennifer Ginty: We've worked through this together. It's okay.

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Jennifer Ginty: And I think she's finally at that point where she understands that we're we're doing just fine together.

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Jennifer Ginty: and I forgive you for

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Jennifer Ginty: the fear that you had

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Jennifer Ginty: that made you run away from the situation.

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Jennifer Ginty: I can't blame my mother for what happened. I mean. I have feelings that

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Jennifer Ginty: she she could have, or should have done more for us.

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Jennifer Ginty: but you know she's

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Jennifer Ginty: she's a good person. She never meant for us to be harmed.

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Lindsay Ford: Yeah, I imagine, like

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Lindsay Ford: the guilt

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Lindsay Ford: as a mother, that you would feel

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Lindsay Ford: even if you knew it was happening.

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Lindsay Ford: or and you couldn't leave because of your own

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Lindsay Ford: trappings of your own mind like if she was that afraid of being alone.

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Lindsay Ford: or even if she didn't know like, I have a friend whose whose children were abused, and even decades later she

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Lindsay Ford: still like the guilt she harbors, and she sees them as victims, and she's trying to help them and support them, and

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Lindsay Ford: it is such

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Lindsay Ford: I just I can't imagine.

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Lindsay Ford: I just can't imagine like that guilt. And

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Lindsay Ford: you know, if you could rewind time and go back. You could or like that would be amazing. But you can't. And you made the decisions at that time, or your mother made those decisions at that time.

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Lindsay Ford: and she's human as well. And this was clearly meant to be your experience through life.

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Lindsay Ford: For whatever reason.

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Lindsay Ford: how has this impacted

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Lindsay Ford: you now as a mother of 2 boys. And

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Lindsay Ford: yeah, do you have any insights on?

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Lindsay Ford: You know how you show up as a mother because of your history?

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Jennifer Ginty: Yes.

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Jennifer Ginty: So 1st I would say to any

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Jennifer Ginty: parent that is going through the same thing that I've gone through with trauma to start the journey.

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Jennifer Ginty: for during

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Jennifer Ginty: having children.

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Jennifer Ginty: because it makes a real difference, I,

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Jennifer Ginty: my trauma, affected me in the sense that my my older son had a lot of behavioral issues.

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Jennifer Ginty: and we used to call him our little Tasmanian devil because he would get so upset he'd tear apart the room

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Jennifer Ginty: he, you know, we'd have to lock his younger brother away so he wouldn't hurt him. That kind of thing, and I took that as my son is abusing me

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Jennifer Ginty: because of the trauma that I had. I was immediately my body was reacting, my neurons that were changed from the trauma, reacting, making me hypervigilant, making me fearful

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Jennifer Ginty: of the living situation I was in with my child.

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Jennifer Ginty: So I highly recommend, especially if you have a child who may be, you know, neurodivergent. Or

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Jennifer Ginty: have, you know behavioral issues. If you are feeling triggered by your child

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Jennifer Ginty: most definitely

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Jennifer Ginty: seek help

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Jennifer Ginty: with it. To start an individual therapist.

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Jennifer Ginty: I wish I had.

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Jennifer Ginty: And also

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Jennifer Ginty: I. The way the trauma had changed me is that I kept saying to myself, I will never be what my parents were.

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Jennifer Ginty: I will always tell my children every single day that I love them, I will always hug and kiss them the things that I never got as a child. So I became more hyper, aware of giving my children

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Jennifer Ginty: love attention and letting them know how much I cared for them. So I mean, there are obviously there are positive negatives of it.

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Jennifer Ginty: but I wanted to change that generational trauma

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Jennifer Ginty: and give them something that I never had.

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Lindsay Ford: Yeah, that's beautiful, and just your share there of you know, with your your child being the the Tasmanian devil, and

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Lindsay Ford: you know.

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Lindsay Ford: triggering you as like, you know he's an abuser or like what? However, you frame that of just you know our kids are such

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Lindsay Ford: mirrors for us, and they show up in our lives, and they like make us just face all of our insecurities. And are those deep, dark corners inside of us that we have been trying to push down that we don't want to deal with, and they're there just like putting it in our faces for our healing journey. And

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Lindsay Ford: I, just.

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Lindsay Ford: You know, kids are.

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Lindsay Ford: you know. I don't think he was doing that from any conscious place, obviously, but like that soul in front of you was put there to help you heal and to work through this together.

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Lindsay Ford: I think that's really beautiful, that you were able to see it. And

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Lindsay Ford: even if it wasn't right away like

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Lindsay Ford: you saw it as a sign that you needed to work through whatever it was you needed to work through, so you could show up differently for him, and I think that's just such a beautiful lesson that the 2 of you got to experience together, and your whole family got to experience together.

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Lindsay Ford: I'm curious about the rage side of things because you mentioned you saw that in your your son, and it was a source of fear for you, and yet, with like the plush toy, and the monster, you recognize that there is a need to rage, and I'm curious to know, like

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Lindsay Ford: how you view rage. Now, both, you know in yourself as someone dealing with complex Ptsd, and also in raising kids like, what is your view on rage.

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Jennifer Ginty: Okay. So I'm going to get into a therapy called Dbt, it's called dialectical behavioral therapy. And it was created for people who have Ptsd, and also for people who have borderline personality disorder, because the 2 actually have very similar symptoms

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Jennifer Ginty: and

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Jennifer Ginty: Dbt focuses on emotions.

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Jennifer Ginty: How we feel them, how we react to the intensity of them and coping skills that you can use for them.

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Jennifer Ginty: So I very much am invested in Dbt. While I was creating Moody's prototype. I created a channel on Youtube called Moody Talks, where I pick an emotion every month.

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Jennifer Ginty: and I talk about the intensity of the words we use the way we feel them that kind of thing, and then talk about coping skills that I've learned through Dvt.

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Jennifer Ginty: So anger

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Jennifer Ginty: all emotions

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Jennifer Ginty: are there. They're valid, and they're there to protect us.

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Jennifer Ginty: So anger in Dbt terms is there because there may be a threat to ourselves or to someone we love.

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Jennifer Ginty: or a threat to something that we hold dear.

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Jennifer Ginty: and our anger is there to.

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Jennifer Ginty: you know.

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Jennifer Ginty: confront

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Jennifer Ginty: that.

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Jennifer Ginty: Anger and its intensity is, you know, it's

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Jennifer Ginty: there can be so much control through it, and so much lack of control

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Jennifer Ginty: to anger. And I think it's really important for people to understand the words that they use for anger

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Jennifer Ginty: and the intensity that they hold.

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Jennifer Ginty: Because when you understand how intense you're feeling an emotion, you're better able to understand the coping mechanisms that you learn

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Jennifer Ginty: to help you with them.

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Jennifer Ginty: So

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Jennifer Ginty: part of anger is yes, we feel it throughout our whole bodies.

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Jennifer Ginty: and it becomes a physical energy in us.

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Jennifer Ginty: So being able to let out that physical energy, that frustration is really important.

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Jennifer Ginty: And when we don't learn

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Jennifer Ginty: safe and effective ways to do that, that's how

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Jennifer Ginty: you know things blow up for us. That's how things become out of control for us.

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Jennifer Ginty: So you know, I don't know if you you might have heard a lot of therapists say, you know, punch a a pillow.

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Jennifer Ginty: or, you know, go out for a long, hard run. Something like that do intense exercise, but that's not always really available for everyone.

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Jennifer Ginty: And so I think it's really important that we learn specific coping skills

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Jennifer Ginty: to help us get through that. And if you have a toolbox

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Jennifer Ginty: of those coping skills available to you, you are much

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Jennifer Ginty: better able to

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Jennifer Ginty: understand where you're at in those feelings and not

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Jennifer Ginty: feel out of control

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Jennifer Ginty: because one of the problems with anger is. And this I'll go back to my son is that you can let it out in an unsafe manner, and then you can go into a shame spiral.

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Jennifer Ginty: and that shame spiral is

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Jennifer Ginty: not good, especially for a child

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Jennifer Ginty: to start to feel after

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Jennifer Ginty: having an intense reaction

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Jennifer Ginty: to a situation.

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Jennifer Ginty: and my son would go into shame spirals, and I'd be just so sad for him because he'd start to believe he was a bad boy. Not that what happened was not an acceptable thing to do

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Jennifer Ginty: and toxic shame. That's what it ends up. Being toxic. Shame is feeling

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Jennifer Ginty: like you're a bad person

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Jennifer Ginty: and not about what happened. The situation wasn't acceptable.

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Jennifer Ginty: and as someone who is a trauma survivor.

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Jennifer Ginty: toxic shame lives within me

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Jennifer Ginty: all the time.

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Jennifer Ginty: and I think that that's

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Jennifer Ginty: the

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Jennifer Ginty: I think that's the worst

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Jennifer Ginty: of anything that an individual can do is to feel so much shame about themselves instead of you know. Yes, I was angry. And now it's okay. And I can talk to the person that I'm angry with that kind of thing getting into that toxic shame can really change someone's life.

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Lindsay Ford: Yeah. The shame piece is

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Lindsay Ford: massive because it is like a deep, dark, ugly hole, and it is self-inflicting. It's

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Lindsay Ford: It's turned inward at you. It is not, you know. It's like that. I'm a bad person. What's wrong with me?

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Lindsay Ford: it!

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Lindsay Ford: It's really.

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Lindsay Ford: you know. I I do feel like that is one of the worst emotions to feel when we want to hide parts of ourselves, and we feel really not good enough

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Lindsay Ford: because we are souls here just meant to have an experience. And

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Lindsay Ford: and we're beautiful souls like, we're regardless of what we are doing like, we are really beautiful humans, and we're worthy of existing

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Lindsay Ford: simply because we have shown up on this planet, not because we have done anything right or wrong.

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Lindsay Ford: the anger piece with respect to your monster.

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Lindsay Ford: I am.

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Lindsay Ford: you know, the the monster and the plush toy. It seems like such a simple

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Lindsay Ford: bang.

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Lindsay Ford: and

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Lindsay Ford: you know I I feel like so often. We want to dismiss the simple

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Lindsay Ford: things that could really help us. You know, it's something, you know, something like.

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Lindsay Ford: you know. I always get annoyed when I'm upset or working through someone and or something, and someone just says, just Breathe, just breathe through it, and I'm like, I don't wanna fucking. Breathe through it.

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Jennifer Ginty: I just want it like, exactly.

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Lindsay Ford: But but breath is one of the like most helpful, impactful tools to help us calm down. And it's super simple. It's so annoying how simple it is!

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Lindsay Ford: So the the monster like. What have you

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Lindsay Ford: experienced with it yourself? Because you said you started with with Ptsd, Pete?

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Lindsay Ford: And the moody monster is now a little bit more geared towards children like, what have you seen? You've said it helps adults recognize what's wrong with your kids. It helps or their kids. It helps the child communicate like, is there? I'm just curious about what what you've seen, as you know, I'll say, quote unquote results. But, like.

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Lindsay Ford: you know, a seemingly simple tool like, how useful is it.

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Jennifer Ginty: So

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Jennifer Ginty: the original idea for Moody was that you rip apart this monster and you get out all of this. You know. Frustration, this, all this anger energy that you need to get out.

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Jennifer Ginty: But the best part about Moody is putting them back together again.

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Jennifer Ginty: Because, yeah, you're putting yeah. You're putting back, you know.

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Jennifer Ginty: an idea of.

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Jennifer Ginty: you know, feeling better about a situation, and also you can put Moody back together again with a parent or an adult that's with you, and that's the place where

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Jennifer Ginty: the whole thing comes up. Of

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Jennifer Ginty: what happened, you know. Why are you so upset? What can we do next time to help you better cope with that feeling.

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Jennifer Ginty: It gives that opportunity

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Jennifer Ginty: for closeness.

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Jennifer Ginty: close communication, like, you know, the child's upset. They got out their frustration, and now they can sit with you

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Jennifer Ginty: close by you and talk about it.

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Jennifer Ginty: and you better understand where the child's at.

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Jennifer Ginty: And I think that's the most important part of it.

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Jennifer Ginty: And I tell a lot of people that you know as parents, we need to put the oxygen mask on ourselves as well.

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Jennifer Ginty: and a lot of parents have used Moody themselves, not only for themselves, but to also show their children, you know, like this. I also use Moody because I have big feelings.

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Jennifer Ginty: And so it's really become that

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Jennifer Ginty: that communication tool that allows everyone to take a deep breath.

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Jennifer Ginty: put Moody back together again and talk about

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Jennifer Ginty: the feelings that that child has.

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Lindsay Ford: I feel like so surprised by your response there, and I love it because, you know, I never would have guessed the impact of putting Moody back together.

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Lindsay Ford: You know I can totally see the the benefits of ripping it apart and just getting that, you know physical

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Lindsay Ford: emotion out of your body.

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Lindsay Ford: but then

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Lindsay Ford: the act of putting them back together and having that connected time, and just.

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Lindsay Ford: you know, slowing, slowing down

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Lindsay Ford: enough to a reconnect, but also.

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Lindsay Ford: What am I trying to say here like that act?

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Lindsay Ford: You know it, force? I I'll say it almost forces the act of reconnecting, because so like

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Lindsay Ford: if there wasn't that reparation piece.

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Lindsay Ford: it's so

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Lindsay Ford: easy, I think, to. Okay. The rage is over.

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Lindsay Ford: and

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Lindsay Ford: it just sort of.

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Lindsay Ford: you know, goes either

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Lindsay Ford: not not unheard or unrecognized, but just like, okay, that we're past that now. We don't need to reconnect on this, or we don't. We can just move on it. I think maybe that's what I'm trying to say. It's easier just to sort of skip over the okay, what could we do? Different next time?

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Lindsay Ford: And because sometimes that conversation is really hard of like, what can we do next time? Because you, both, like child and parent, have to be in a really good mental state, and willing to have that conversation.

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Lindsay Ford: And I think, you know, using Moody.

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Lindsay Ford: as you know, the signal of I'm ready to have this conversation. I'm ready to put this back together. I'm ready to sit and sort of

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Lindsay Ford: process what happened?

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Lindsay Ford: I think that's just so beautiful, and something I never would have thought of. So that's like I'm just like my mind is just like spinning right now, like I'm just blown away. That's really really cool.

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Lindsay Ford: I am curious. With

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Lindsay Ford: complex Ptsd, like you is described in the beginning that Ptsd, you know, with that car example you gave that car accident example, it seemed like something you would slowly get over and work your way out of with complex. Ptsd, I'm wondering if there is, you know. Are you ever out of it, or I'm assuming it gets easier. But, like what is

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Lindsay Ford: is there? Are you ever past it?

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Jennifer Ginty: So I tell a lot of people when they ask me, how is your healing journey going? I say, I'm in the middle of it, and 10 to 20 years from now I'll probably stay. I'm in the middle of it.

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Jennifer Ginty: because, yeah, because it's

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Jennifer Ginty: because it's changed your body and it's changed your brain and the way it works, it's

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Jennifer Ginty: requires more

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Jennifer Ginty: different types of therapy.

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Jennifer Ginty: like I do Emdr, with my

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Jennifer Ginty: therapist. And it's actually like this light bar and your eyes follow it. And you talk through situations that you know memories of trauma, that kind of thing. And it actually does help your neurons to change towards. You know. A better

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Jennifer Ginty: situation, I guess, in up in there.

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Jennifer Ginty: and you know it gets it can get easier. But

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Jennifer Ginty: healing journeys are never linear.

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Jennifer Ginty: They're always going to be the ups and downs of it. It's like a roller coaster. So some days we're going to feel like, Oh, yeah, I feel really great. I don't. You know my body feels loose and comfortable, and you know I'm not stressed. And then the next day you could wake up and be like, I can't get out of bed.

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Jennifer Ginty: And that's okay.

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Jennifer Ginty: It really is. I think a lot of us feel that there's a shame to not being able to get up

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Jennifer Ginty: and do the things that you, you know, want or need to do. We need to give ourselves grace

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Jennifer Ginty: and understand

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Jennifer Ginty: that our brains aren't necessarily in the same space. We need them to be.

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Lindsay Ford: Yeah. And healing is never.

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Lindsay Ford: never linear. So often like we think we've dealt with something, and we're past that. And then it just it seems to come in waves or layers, whether we've dealt with some like major trauma or not, it just it never seems to end, and I don't mean that in like this hopeless devastation, like, there's no way out but it just. There's so many different layers that we just peel back and things surface when we're ready to deal with

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Lindsay Ford: another thing and another thing, and you know I love that you shared that. You know you're in the middle of it now, probably 20 years later. You'll be in the middle of that now. And that's this. That's the journey of life. Like you're just.

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Lindsay Ford: You're working through things right like you're.

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Lindsay Ford: you know, constantly on this journey of healing, growing, expanding.

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Lindsay Ford: and

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Lindsay Ford: you're never there

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Lindsay Ford: like you're never. You're you've never arrived. You just get to continue to heal and grow and expand.

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Lindsay Ford: Oh, this conversation's been so good! Where can people find you and connect with you.

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Jennifer Ginty: Of course. So I have. My website is mymodymonster.com. And I sold out of my 1st batch of Moody's. I, yeah, I just got funding for a big big batch of them. And so yeah, and I, you can pre-order a moody on my website. You can also pre-order a donation.

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Jennifer Ginty: So part of my social mission is to get Moody's out to 1st responders, social workers, treatment centers for kids that are in trauma.

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Jennifer Ginty: And so I do have that available to be able to order, if you know if you don't yourself need a moody, but you think that you'd like to give that to a child in need.

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Jennifer Ginty: You have that available, and I'm also on all the socials. I am all on them with my moody monster. All one word

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Jennifer Ginty: and my Youtube channel has those moody talks that I was talking about. But I also do moody story time. So Moody and I read a story about big feelings each week.

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Jennifer Ginty: And kiddos can get online and watch Moody. And I read them.

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Jennifer Ginty: And yeah, that's that's it.

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Lindsay Ford: Oh, that's amazing, Jennifer, thank you for all of the work that you're doing and the impact that you're having on so many kids and so many families. I feel really honored to have had this conversation with you today. So thank you so much for being here.

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Jennifer Ginty: Thank you so much for having me.