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.

Host & Producer: Jenn St John
Editor: Andrew Schiller
Website: www.jennstjohn.ca
Follow along:
Instagram: @jenn_stjohn
TikTok: @jenn.st.john
LinkedIn: Jenn St John
BlueSky: @jennstjohn.bsky.social

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