Sabrina Chevannes: Hi everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of No Bullshit Talks.

Today, I have the amazing Jenn Junod on the show. Who is the podcast host of an incredible podcast called “Shit You Don’t Want to Talk About”. So welcome, Jenn.

Jenn Junod: Thank you. Thank you. I am excited to be here and talk to all the beautiful humans that listen.

Sabrina Chevannes: Absolutely. And the reason why we connected is because I feel that there are definitely some similarities between our podcasts. Like, you know, you’re on No Bullshit Talks. We’re here to be open, honest, and so transparent about everything and just, you know, educate people on what life is really like, not just the marketing fluff that you hear in a lot of PR interviews, but actually talk about the stuff that people find difficult to talk about or, how you put it, shit you don’t want to talk about.

And so I just thought it was amazing what you’re doing, and I’m going to read your bio for your podcast, if that’s okay, because I feel like it’s really powerful and I would like other people to hear it. So I’m just going to read it.

So Jenn has a story of her own. As a child, she suffered solitary confinement, physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse, rape, divorce, abortion, cutting, and suicide attempts. Her turbulent background has paved the path to help those who are suffering, ignored, and silenced. “Shit You Don’t Want to Talk About” is a place people can come to find hope and healing, so they know they’re not alone and to finally be heard.

That is so, so powerful and really brave. I don’t think I’ve ever read a bio that’s so open and so raw and so honest, and obviously that’s what made me connect with you, right?

So do I just explain, like, you know, what has got you to this point? And obviously, I was going to say anything that you’re comfortable talking about, but that’s kind of the point where you’re at, all of this stuff. So just spill away. Tell us your story and your little journey and what you’re here to do.

Jenn Junod: And thank you for that. And it’s kind of crazy every time I hear somebody read my bio aloud. I’m like, oh yeah, that’s what my bio says. Like, I know what it says, but I always forget.

And it is something that is so important to me, laying it all out. That is something that I really appreciate about my podcast and what I do my best to do in life. I don’t think this is a real word or term. I call it bus-checking.

At least in the U.S., there’s a term of throwing someone under the bus, meaning that you kind of put the blame on them or you tell their secret kind of thing. I like to say that I like to bus-check myself, meaning that I want to be the one that asks why X question is inappropriate. Why shouldn’t we ask these questions? What are these curiosities that so many of us have, but we don’t know how to approach the conversation?

And that is my favorite part about having all these, I guess you could say, shitty conversations because it’s there to really turn it into shit to talk about, to break these stigmas of mental health, to talk about all of these hot topics that are both.

Jenn Junod: We have clinical information from doctors, but then we also have the life experience. And what originally had me start the podcast was in 2020. I found out that the arachnoid cyst in my brain that I was born with actually was causing me such pain that I needed to have a craniotomy.

So I had my craniotomy, which was like, you know, whatever. It’s on my right temple, and that’s where all your long-term memories are stored. So I was not expecting that. I was like, cool, brain surgery, I can hang out, whatever. I’ve had many surgeries, not worried about it.

And yet what no one really knew about, and there’s not a lot of research on, is it caused all of my past memories to resurface.

So in 2021, I started working for a company that actually my second cousin worked at. And with her being my boss, it was like this really weird dynamic of I don’t really know her yet, she’s technically family, and she’s my boss.

And a lot of this trauma comes from authority figures. And she technically being my boss was an authority figure, and she gave me a safe space to really grow, not only in my career but also as a human because she helped me learn that even if she gets really mad at me as my boss, she’s not going to fire me, she’s not going to punish me. And it was what I really needed to start to develop, is that trust.

And trust is something that I’ve struggled with for a very long time, of not just trusting others but trusting myself and my own capabilities.

And then last summer, I was going to start a podcast about sales because I needed a hobby outside of work. I was becoming too much of a workaholic. And she’s like, my boss was like, “Yo, let’s not do sales because it’s going to be associated with work. But you love mental health. You talk about your own mental health. That is something you’re so passionate about. Why don’t you do it about that?”

And I was like, “Oh, okay. Yeah.”

And so I had a podcast in 2016 with my co-host Dunya, and it was a podcast called “Greater Than”, and it talked about racism, the caste system in India, disabilities, sex trafficking, homelessness. And I always talked about that podcast as shit you don’t want to talk about. And I was like, “Oh, that’s what I’d name the new podcast.”

And it’s interesting, especially since, you know, the marketing world and all of that. I was like, that’s the name of the podcast but social media has to be so many marketing people tell me, “No, no, you can’t do that.” And I’m like, “Why don’t you just name the podcast “Shit to Talk About?” And I’m like, because we have to change these stigmas. We have to start talking about why we need to talk about these things. But they’re shit we don’t talk about.

And that is a very brief synopsis of how we got here and getting the podcast started.

Sabrina Chevannes: I think it’s amazing and definitely absolutely needed for the industry. And you’re right. You know, I think the marketing industry is changing a little bit, though, for the better in the fact that more people are starting to be more open and honest about things.

And they’re talking about real topics, and they’re not covering up the difficult conversations. So I do think it’s improving, which is good.

But I’ve never heard anyone be so blasé about brain surgery before. You were just like, “So yeah, whatever, I had this done and it was fine.” And it’s not fine. It’s a really serious thing.

Like, how on earth do you talk about it like it’s just a run-of-the-mill dental exam that you just went for or something? In fact, most people are so freaked out about dental exams, a lot more than you just freaked out about brain surgery.

So explain that. I don’t understand how you’re so calm about it. And surely a procedure like that would have scared the hell out of you. And if not, how are you so brave? And how are you dealing with all—

Jenn Junod: Great question. It is something that surgery has never been something that I’ve been nervous about. At the same time, something I don’t talk a lot about on the podcast and is kind of behind the scenes is I’ve grown up with a ton of medical issues.

So when I was a kid, up until like the age of five, I think my asthma was so bad that I had been hospitalized many, many times for weeks on end. And so I kind of just grew up in hospitals. They didn’t really scare me. They were there. They were somewhere I had to go.

And these arachnoid cysts around my brain actually showed up when I was a little kid, and my mom was concerned because on the right side of my skull, you could see a big lump. And it’s weird because, you know, most of the time arachnoid cysts, or cysts in general that I’ve been able to find a bit of research on, come later on. So your skull is not formed around it, where mine did.

So I always kind of knew these arachnoid cysts were around, but at the same time, I never really thought about it.

Same with when I was 14, I had to have my tonsils taken out, which is pretty common. But that same year, I got shingles, which is like an old person thing, you know, decided to get it when I was a teenager.

I had my gallbladder removed. Also, my left breast never developed, and I was nicknamed “loppy.” And it was probably one of the hardest things that I went through. Like, I went through a lot of shit, yet getting made fun of on body image was something that I think affected me so much that it was only till this last year that I really got over it, you could say.

So when I was 17, I had an implant. And then fast forward a few years, I don’t even know how old I was, I had an umbilical hernia from my gallbladder surgery when I was like 15. So I had to have that done. Then I had to have it redone because there were issues.

And then I had to have my sinuses done because my sinuses were having so many issues. I couldn’t really breathe through my nose. And then I had the craniotomy.

And then this last year, just a few months ago

Jenn Junod: I finally had my breast augmentation done, where the surgeon, who is absolutely phenomenal— I know a lot of your audience is in the UK, yet anyone in the U.S., anywhere in the world, Dr. Christine Rogers in Denver is absolutely phenomenal.

She was able to take my natural side and my flat side, you could say, and make them match in texture and look a bit more alike. It was such a relief.

So when I talk so blasé about my brain surgery, surgery has never really scared me because it’s something that’s going to get rid of the pain. What scares me is when something is undiagnosed.

Like, I had so many appointments going up to my brain surgery that they didn’t know what was going on. This is not something very common. The surgeons actually had to take it to the board to see if they were going to do surgery because this is not a very common case. And that is where I was so incredibly scared.

That they weren’t able to fix it. What were we going to be able to do about it?

As soon as they told me, they’re like, “Jenn, you did everything you absolutely could. We need to do the surgery.” It’s not guaranteed to work because what they did is, arachnoid cysts are just like bubbles on your brain that have a lot of liquid in them, and they don’t go away.

So they built a tunnel, basically like a scar tunnel, to go into parts of my brain that already have fluid, so brain fluid. And they’re like, “It may not work. It may completely close. It may have issues.”

But I was like, as soon as they told me that I was able to have surgery, I felt so relaxed. I felt so relaxed going into surgery because they’re finally taking away the pain. And that’s why I can say brain surgery so blasé or any of these other surgeries because it was a solution to something that I was really struggling with.

So it was never the surgery that scared me. It was not getting help that scared me.

Sabrina Chevannes: I know what you mean it’s that fear of unknown. And you know, the anxiety that you feel when you just don’t know. Like you said, if you know what the problem is, you can tackle it, you can deal with it, you can prepare yourself for it. But if you don’t know, then there’s all sorts of negative thoughts going through your head about what it could be.

So I actually surprisingly get what you’re talking about. But hearing what you’ve been through is insane. And I just feel like there are so many people out there complaining about how bad their life is because they’ve got one or two little things to deal with. And hearing you just unpack some of that, I’m like, wow, everyone’s got it really easy in comparison, right?

It’s like consistently and it’s a feeling of you’ve got one thing, and then you have to go through something else all over again. When are you going to catch a break?

And you know, one thing that really spoke to me was when you said you’ve been through all of that, and I read your bio at the beginning, it’s intense. There’s a lot of things that you’ve talked about that you’ve suffered that some people have never suffered in their entire lifetime. Like, not even one of them, perhaps, haven’t. They’ve been fortunate enough not to.

But yet you were saying that the ridicule for your body appearance was almost more difficult to handle. And I want to talk about that a little bit because I don’t think people understand how much their negative comments impact someone.

And you know, I think most people, I went to an all-girls school and it was bitchy, right? It was really bitchy. And I have so many deep-rooted self-esteem issues from the stuff they said. Like you said, you’ve only just kind of got over them, and I’ve never really realized what sort of negative impact it has. And it’s just kind of brushed away.

But I’ve never even had anything as serious as you’ve had to deal with, and I cannot imagine what an impact it has. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the Netflix show “13 Reasons Why”.

Jenn Junod: Yes, yes. It’s a bit older, right? Like a few years. Yeah.

Sabrina Chevannes: It’s about, yeah, yeah, five years. It’s a great show. The girl, basically a teenage girl in high school, committed suicide, and she left behind 13 tapes explaining the reasons why she decided to take her own life.

And the reason why I like the show, even though it’s been so emotional and difficult to watch in some parts, but the reason why I like it is because some of those reasons seem so trivial. Like someone sent a picture around about her in the school, someone spread a rumor. But it was the fact that all these little things added up, and they had such a snowball effect on how people treated her, what they said, and the impact on her self-esteem.

And compounded with everything else going on in their lives, it caused that much depression that she decided to take her own life. And I love that show because it highlights just how much effect, how much negative impact, one little thing that you could say to someone, which you think is just a small little dig, just jesting or whatever, could actually do to someone.

And so I was, you know, quite shocked to hear that you thought that those comments and how you were treated actually impacted you. And you know, talk me through it a little bit because I’ve never actually heard anyone with that condition.

Sabrina Chevannes: I’ve obviously, I can relate to some of the stories I’ve heard from breast cancer survivors who have had a mastectomy and know the path to go through that sort of thing. But that’s almost the equivalent of that, right?

In terms of when you were a kid, in terms of, like, you know, if you only had one breast, what sort of things were they saying, and how did you deal with it, especially at such a young age?

Jenn Junod: I’ll definitely get to that point. There are two things that I want to just mention really quick.

You said something along the lines of, like, so many people may not have gone through this, and like, “When am I going to catch a break?” And it’s interesting to me because that term or trying to get through something never has crossed my mind. Like, “When am I going to catch a break?”

Because for me it was always, yes, I kept going through all this shit, but it was, I got out of solitary confinement. When we moved to Idaho, the sexual abuse from my cousins happened, but I’m no longer locked in my room. So yes, there’s something shitty happening, but it’s better than where I was.

And that’s really how a lot of my life unfolded, where it was better than where I was. And something that my mom still to this day tells me is that this too shall pass. And that is what’s really gotten me through a lot of hard times.

Instead of that mindset of, “When am I going to get a break?” Like, when is shit not going to happen? Shit’s always going to happen. That’s life. It is what it is, you know?

And so it was always that this too shall pass instead of when am I going to catch a break. And knowing that this will pass, whatever the situation is, is temporary. That really, as I’ve grown older, is what has really continued to get me through a lot of these things.

Subconsciously, it was, “Oh, this is better than what I was going through.” That doesn’t mean I wish adult me could be with little Jenn and be like, “Yo, really listen to this phrase, this too shall pass,” but that’s not how it was. It was just instinctively, it was better than what I went through beforehand.

So I just wanted to mention that really quick because even as I’m working on public speaking and getting the podcast out and writing my book, yes, I want to have this instant success because I really want to get the message out there and really help people. Yet it’s not like I feel that I deserve more than other people, that instant success. It is something that I know I need to work just as hard. It’s not something that’s going to be handed to me on a silver platter.

That aside, the other part that I really wanted to mention was trauma is trauma. It doesn’t matter if somebody’s going through, we’ll say, a car crash that could be not that severe to, you know, rape or something like that.

I say that because trauma affects us all differently. And it could be something that can be very difficult to unpack because for so many of us, we don’t always remember our childhood and what goes into our adulthood.

So when a car crash happens, it could trigger just some misbehavior from our parents or re-learning the way our parents taught us, or the trauma from society telling us we have to be this specific way or we have to fit in these bubbles.

And I mention that because

Jenn Junod: There’s three main types of trauma, the first one being like a singular event, like we’ll say, a car crash.

The second one is, I’m not using the correct terminology, but it’s more like a long-term trauma, like domestic violence, where it’s technically one trauma, but it’s very, very long-term.

And then there’s complex trauma, where that’s the bucket I would say I fall into because it’s all different types of shit. You know, it’s not just one incident.

And I just really want to call out that I think it’s very brave for you to also talk about your own self-esteem and going to an all-girls school because I could see how that could be really cool because you could probably make really good friendships. Yet it could also be really, really shitty.

I would say that’s where a lot of being called “loppy” came from, was one of the schools I went to. They required the entire seventh grade team and eighth grade to be on the volleyball team. So that’s like, I think, 11 and 12 years old. They required these two age brackets and classes to be on the volleyball team.

And so this is the first time I really had to be in the locker room. I developed early. I got my first period when I was 10. So by the time I’m 12, my right breast fully developed.

So I would try to hide in the locker room, you know, changing from your sports bra to a regular bra, and people started to notice. And it was a few weeks into being at this new school that there was this human sitting on the lunch table, and she was just like, “I can’t believe how loppy you are.” She’s like, “Why do you not cover it up? Why are you so broken? Like, you’re just so ugly,” and that kind of stuff.

And I would say this is something that I really, really regret about how I responded, yet I didn’t know better then. I can do better now. She had short hair, and I do think she could have been interested in women as well, that I just yelled at her, “Well, you’re just a dyke,” and I walked away.

And that is not something that I’m proud of at all. Yet that caused her bullying to be so much more, where this is a very, very small school. The younger grades are mixed in with all the way up to seniors, which graduate at the age of 18. Mind you, I’m 11 or 12.

And these older boys would shut my locker on me and call me “loppy.”

So luckily, I was only at that school for a few months before we moved again. And so when I started at my next school, I started stuffing that side, which I did use socks for at first because I just wanted it to be even. But people run into you naturally. It’s not something they mean to do. And socks also don’t form the same way a regular breast does.

So the closest thing I could get was, if you can imagine one of those stress balls, there are stress balls that are fully foam, and then there used to be stress balls that had liquid in them where if you squeezed it, it made a little bubble-type thing.

And somehow, I don’t even know where I got this, I had one that had a bunch of little fish in it, like pretend fish in it. And so I noticed that it was the same type of texture. So I started using that, and that got me through my senior year.

So I’m talking six years of hiding. Six years of every single day hoping no one notices. I did grow up very religious, and I was told at home constantly how ugly I was, how much of a slut I was, how I caused my parents’ divorce, those type of things.

So I really had a horrible self-image. Yet at the same time, I’m terrified for someone to find out about this, that I would dress so conservatively, not because I necessarily wanted to, but because I was like, “I have to hide this. I have to make sure there is no sexuality in my life.”

So we’re talking teenage hormones, and I have to hide everything that I am.

Jenn Junod: And I did have a very serious boyfriend then, and he was a Godsent and worked through a lot of it. And he didn’t think of me any differently. He knew everything. But to myself, I still thought I was the ugliest human in the world.

And so when I was 17, my mom paid for my surgery, and I had to travel three hours to have it done. My then-boyfriend had a family member down there. She actually let me stay at her house to recover because especially with it being this year that I ended up going through the surgery again, the surgery when I was 17 was so much worse because the muscle had to be reformed because the implant went under the muscle.

It was a gazillion times more painful, where this time the muscle had already formed. So it was like, “Cool, bro, it’s not that bad.” Like, there were still times that hurt, don’t get me wrong, but it was not as bad.

So I would say that with this sexual abuse that I went through, and with being called “loppy,” it is very hard for me to find my sexuality and be okay with sex. With the rape I went through as well, I feel so disgusting at times, or I just really want to hide.

And I grew up knowing how to hide. I know how to put on a hat, hide my hair, put on a jacket that will hide my colorfulness. And there are days that still comes up and that I struggle with it.

And it’s not the topics that talking about the podcast trigger so much. It’s my relationship because I trust my partner so much. Yet it was all those that I trusted that did this trauma to me. So he has been so patient working through all of this and me learning to be sexual.

Like, I can wear low-cut shirts now. It’ll show boobs. He’s like, “Are you trying to show them off for other people?” I’m like, “No, I just got boobs now. Yeah. And I’m very proud of them. I just really want to show them off.”

So it’s been a really eye-opening thing because people stare even if you’re just showing a little bit of cleavage. But I’m just like, this is not how I want to cover back up.

So that was a very long answer to what you asked, but that’s a big reason why it was so impactful on my life.

Sabrina Chevannes: I mean, I’m so glad to whoever your high school boyfriend is, by the way. Because it’s not the same partner that you’re with right now, right?

No, no, no, okay. But whoever he is, I’m so grateful there were people like that in the world because I was thinking about it when you were telling me. And I was just trying to imagine how I was as a teenager and to go through that.

And like you said, teenage hormones, and I was talking about boys and it’s like, “Oh, does the cute boy from the next school fancy me?” And then, you know that they are going to try and touch your boobs at some point, right? And it must be so scary.

So when that first happened, how long did it take you before you were comfortable with telling a guy or letting them touch you, for example? Because I feel like that has got to be something terrifying for a teenage girl to go through.

Jenn Junod: Yeah, and this was definitely an interesting time of my life. I actually met him the day after I got out of the hospital for my suicide attempt.

And I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD, and I definitely think this was something I had back then as well. I’m also bipolar type 2, which means that the big difference between bipolar 1 and bipolar 2 is bipolar 1 will have very grandiose ideas, like they think they could fly kind of thing. I’m going to an extreme, but that can be a thought.

And then there’s the other side where they still go into the depressions.

Jenn Junod: Where bipolar type 2 is what’s called hypomania, where you still have your manias. For myself and for a lot of bipolar type 2, it’s where you may have a few days that you’re going to be extremely productive, more than you are the week before and the week after.

And when you go into the depressive state, it is 10 times harder on a type 2. At least, this is the way I’ve understood it when people explain it to me.

I mention those because being undiagnosed with both, the day after I got out of the hospital, what a lot of people knew me as back then was being this really hyper, random chick. Like, I would bounce off the walls. I would talk a million miles per hour. I would say hello to random strangers. And that’s a sign of both hypomania and also of ADHD.

So I was very much that way the day I got out of the hospital, and I probably got into that relationship way too quickly just because I was so terrified of being alone. I was 15 at that point, and within the year prior, I had already slept with probably four guys, which some don’t even hit in their entire life. And it was because I wanted to feel loved. That’s all I wanted.

And I thought having sex was the way to feel loved.

And so you ask how long I waited, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t wait very long because I just really wanted to feel loved. And I will say he was so kind about it and didn’t judge me for it.

And knowing me, it could have been the type of thing where it didn’t happen the first time, but one of the times I probably cried about it. Not because of how beautiful the moment was, but working through my own self-image and somebody seeing that, that he definitely helped me through not only my body image, but a lot of the trauma of what I went through previously and what I was going through.

Because about a year later, he was listening to an Adam Sandler song, and in the song it talks about putting a shampoo bottle up the ass. And I did not remember the sexual abuse I went through when I was the ages of 8 to 10, that hearing that song, it all came flushing back to me.

And so I needed to work through a lot of that. And my younger cousin that was involved in it was about to start school with me. So it was definitely something very hard to work through.

And this guy, he was such a Godsent. We were definitely not the best match for each other long term, yet he helped me through so much of what I was going through during those four years we were together and becoming the human I am today.

Sabrina Chevannes: So that’s quite incredible. And I just want to say something for anyone who’s listening right now and is judging you for what you just told me because, again, the bravery of everything you’re telling me is incredible. And I know for a fact that there are some people listening thinking, “She was 15, or she said the year before, and she slept with four guys.” And they will use the word slut. They will use all that kind of thing.

And I just want to say that I totally get where you’re coming from. It’s that you said that you want to feel loved, but also what you said about being told you are ugly and “loppy.” It’s not just about being loved, but feeling beautiful and sexy. That guys want you.

And this is the thing. I know so many girls who go through this. They will be called sluts and slags because they sleep around, and people just think, “Oh, they’re just slutty.” But what they don’t realize is that they’re suffering from such self-esteem issues that they’re doing it because every time they do it, no matter how much of a jerk that guy is, and whether he slept with the whole entire school, it doesn’t matter because they’re like, “Oh, they wanted me.” Like, “You know, I feel beautiful. I’m one of the pretty girls. I suddenly am now popular and sexy and beautiful.” Even if it’s just for three minutes, however that’s right.

And then they probably treat you like shit afterwards, and then you feel like shit after it, and then it’s too late. But in that moment leading up to it, you feel good. I completely get it.

And so anyone who’s listening and just judged you for that, I want them to take back that judgment and rethink through any female that you know who’s done that because I guarantee there are going to be a lot more than you think who have gone through that.

And I just want to say thank you for sharing that here.

And I want to now go on to some of the more difficult topics to talk about because you’ve been through a lot, but the sexual abuse and the rape, it’s so insanely hard for most women to talk about. Most women go through it in life and never ever mention it to one person, let alone broadcast it on a podcast. They don’t even mention it to their friends or their parents when it happens because victims of sexual abuse often blame themselves, or their abuser blames them and tells them, “Don’t tell anyone about this because everyone will say you’re a slut. No one’s going to believe you.”

And you often get that sort of manipulation. And there are also situations where sexual abuse happens and the abuser has a lot of power or is someone of stature of some kind, and so victims are too scared to come forward.

And obviously we’re aware of the cases that are in the public, and it’s great with movements like the Me Too movement and all that sort of stuff, which are bringing light to this stuff. But there is still nowhere near enough stuff being done, especially for the victims of abuse.

And again, those cases are so high-profile that other people can’t relate. So, for example, you were saying about victims of abuse who were getting it at home from their family members, and it’s happening every day. It’s happening by siblings or parents, all that kind of stuff, and people aren’t going to believe them. Or they still have to come home to their abusers every single day. It’s a different situation to those who have a one-off.

I’m not saying it’s obviously less. As you said, there’s a different level of trauma, right? But I want you to talk me through that and talk me through what you went through and if there’s anything you could say to help others who are going through it.

Because I guarantee there are people who are listening who have either currently gone through something similar, and we can talk about emotional abuse as well because that is also serious that people don’t recognize. But there are definitely people who have been through it and maybe still have not gotten over it because they still haven’t told anyone, and they don’t realize that bottling it up is impacting their life.

And so I’d love for you to just go a little bit deeper about what happened and how you’ve dealt with it and how you’ve managed to come out the other side from it.

Jenn Junod: Yeah, and I do want to mention something about the judgment. This is something that will always happen. We are natural human beings. Judgment is something that does protect us. It is a form of protection.

And I’ve experienced that some of the most judgment I’ve gotten is from people that have experienced something similar. Because when we distance ourselves, when we say, for example, someone that’s raped, and by no means am I saying this is right, it was their fault, it makes it so that we internally go, “Oh, well, that can never happen to me,” or “It’s their fault because I feel it’s my fault when I went through it.”

And it’s something that psychologically behind it is so much deeper than many of us really realize. It’s something that I love, the psychology about it. It is something that I definitely have analyzed myself a lot. I’ve looked a lot into it now, talking about the psychology behind it and going to counseling and getting help.

When my parents got divorced, it was court-required that my mom and I go to therapy together because I was cutting as well as my mom being physically abusive and emotionally abusive. She is my best friend now. So if anybody comes after my mom, I will put you on blast and make Twitter come after you because she is such an incredible human. So no one come after my mom.

My dad, on the other hand, is a psychopath. You can go after him, I don’t care. But because a big dynamic of my parents is my dad is a psychopath, a narcissist. He gaslights. He is what caused my mom to become abusive.

Because a part of what he did, first off, gaslighting, if your listeners don’t know, is where if I say, “Hey, the sky is blue,” and you’re like, “No, bro, the sky is green.” And then Steve asks us, “Yo, what color is the sky?” and you say, “The sky is blue.” Then you start saying, “Jenn, why did you say that the sky is green? Like, you’re so wrong. You can clearly see that it’s blue.”

It’s playing those psychological games with someone to make them feel crazy, to make them doubt themselves. And what a lot of narcissists do is they isolate their victim, I guess you could say. And they will come on really strong with love-bombing where they put so much love and hope and dreams in their head, and then they slowly take that away and make it seem like when they take that away, it’s the victim’s fault.

I mention that because my mom did turn physically abusive and emotionally abusive to me at the same time as a child and as a teenager. I couldn’t comprehend that it was my dad and what he was doing to her. She was still my best friend. It was a very confusing matter.

And this is what happens a lot to domestic violence victims. They see the good in the human, yet it’s so hard to deal with the abuse that they’re going through.

And I mention this because I did go to police, and they gave me back to my parents. I did tell counselors what was going on, and they didn’t believe me. They told me I was making it up.

And honestly, I’m grateful there’s a lot more access to the internet and so many more resources out there in the world because back then I was going through this in the ’90s and the early 2000s that cell phones barely played Snake when I got my first cell phone. So it wasn’t like I had a full computer in my hands. I didn’t have those resources.

And so I played it off that life was good to everyone else so that way they didn’t know what I was going through internally because I didn’t want anybody to feel what I was feeling.

And digging a bit deeper about

Jenn Junod: The sexual abuse, it is something that I still struggle with. It is something that I don’t have all the answers for, because my cousin is five years older than me, and her little brother is two years younger than me and the abuse happened from the age of eight to ten and she did use those terms of, “No one will believe you.”

No one will think that I did anything. They’ll just— and she knew I went through solitary confinement. That she was just like, “They’ll lock you in your room again.” And this is like my new found freedom and they lived on a ranch where I loved the cows. I loved the horses. I had a goat named Scott and I didn’t want that freedom to go away. That was so new.

I was locked in my room so much before moving to Idaho. I, I was like I didn’t know what to do so in my eight-year-old mind it was put up with it because I don’t want my freedom to go away because I sincerely thought that I could be locked away again and it was a lot that I don’t think anybody should go through and nor do I want to trigger the audience because they’re I mentioned the song that did trigger and bring it all back when I was 16.

It was a lot. If you think about the psychology behind sexual abuse, there are very many people that go through like one of two ways. Many people just shut down because they’re they don’t want to have sex again or anything like that.

And then there’s people like myself that turn to promiscuity and that’s the way I turned. There was a time in my life that I was sleeping with, I’ll say boys because I was under the age of 18, to have a roof over my head, you know, like it wasn’t, it was how I learned to have space somewhere yet when I was raped.

Jenn Junod: I woke, I told this guy no multiple times, and I fell asleep and I woke up to him taking advantage of me.

And I left that house that morning and didn’t know what to do or what to say, or I kept going in my mind saying that I deserved it, because at that point I was very conditioned to this, that I deserved it and that I blamed myself. I said that I did something to cause it. And as a reminder, no means no. It doesn’t matter if you were like halfway through it, if you say no, you need to respect somebody else’s bubble.

And this was when the guy I mentioned earlier, the boyfriend that I mentioned earlier, we were very on again off again. I said we weren’t a great match and it was true, yet he is such an incredible human.

And I told him what happened and come to find out years later, they were out at a bar and he punched the guy, which I’m very grateful for. That’s like what helped me feel a little bit better about it.

Yet there was nothing that I could do legally about the sexual abuse my cousins did, and by the time I was ready to talk about the rape, there was nothing legally that I could do about it.

And what I’m stuck with—not stuck with, I will say working through now—is the fact that I have a partner. We’ve been together for four years. I absolutely love him more than anything. And if he touches me, there’s times, and I mean just like trying to cuddle with me, there’s times I go into fight or flight mode and I just freeze, and I’m in my head going, “I’m so disgusting,” or “Oh my God, I can’t believe he’s touching me.” These are all thoughts that go through my head.

And it’s very hard for us to have a sexual relationship, which is a very important part of any relationship. So he’s been so patient with me while I work through it. And there’s times where I still get triggered through all of this that I need to. I reached out to RAINN.org, that’s R-A-I-N-N dot org, even this week to say, “I have a podcast that I talked about this shit. I’m supposed to be there to help other people through this shit. And I don’t even know how to deal with it. I can’t fix it. I can’t figure out why I can’t be sexual. I can’t figure out why I can’t have this relationship that I deserve and my partner deserves.” And they were very kind, they were very validating.

And I am 34 now and this started when I was eight and I’m still working through it. And there are so many resources out there and it takes time because it’s not something that is a very linear thing. It’s two steps forward, fifty steps backwards, ten steps sideways. It’s not something that can be instant, as much as I wish it could be. That would make me really happy if it was, but it’s something that I still struggle with.

Sabrina Chevannes: I don’t know what to say. It is really, really hard to listen to. I’m trying not to cry because it’s really hard bloody hell. Sorry.

Jenn Junod: Don’t be sorry. That’s the type of shit we all go through and so many of us can relate, yet we don’t talk about it.

Sabrina Chevannes: Wow. I just can’t believe that. How does it make you feel when, like you said, by the time you are mentally prepared to deal with this, you can’t legally do anything and they get away with it? How does that make you feel?

Jenn Junod: I would say for my cousins, it’s… I’ve always had this viewpoint of cause and effect. It’s a very shit that happens to us, and a lot of times we do what we’re taught. We do what we’re conditioned to do. And it is incredibly scary and hard to break that cycle.

There’s very… I love the fact that generation trauma is coming up because not only do we really need to talk about this for our Black community and any type of minorities that have been colonized and taken advantage of, there are physical triggers and emotional triggers that are generational trauma.

Yet it is the same for all of us. When we keep these items bottled in. Because if you think about it, my grandmother was actually had an egg that ended up being me because when your grandmother had your mother or had you, those eggs get passed down, which is really bizarre to think about. And it goes into are the emotions that we harbor that we have no idea where some of them might come from or why somebody is reacting that way.

And I say that because I feel my cousin was sexually abused before I came in the picture because I didn’t really know her before I was eight. And the fact that she showed us sex tapes of my aunt and uncle, the fact that she knew where those were, that she tried reenacting a lot of that, looking back makes me go, she went through something that taught her this is not something an irregular 13-year-old is going to know or have a desire to do.

And so for myself, that one was a lot easier to forgive. It is something that I didn’t hold resentment towards it. Like, yes, I hate the fact that I can’t have a healthy sexual life, yet I’m not blaming her for doing what she did because she had to be taught that. And that means that I can break the cycle and not do it, and work through what I’ve been through. And I can only hope that she does the same.

Now for my rapist, that one is honestly harder to deal with because yes, I am so grateful for the Me Too movement, yet I don’t remember his name. I cannot tell you who he was in a lineup. It’s something that I feel so many humans go through—we block it off. We don’t want to think about it. We may forget items that could help prosecute them.

And it’s also a societal thing. And I honestly believe this: as a society, we have a responsibility to teach men and to teach boys not that “boys will be boys,” because when we say that, when we allow that, it allows them to take advantage. It allows them to get away with these type of things, and we’re not teaching as a society I’m grateful that we are slowly changing this but we are not teaching our boys to understand no means no.

Because if you think about it on a business side men are many times more successful in sales because they don’t take no for an answer and that is celebrated.

That is you know get them promotions yet how do you psychologically distance that from if their partner says no because they are taught no meant doesn’t mean no.

By no means do I think what he did was right or do I think anybody should ever go through that.

Jenn Junod: I honestly believe in karma in the fact that, you know, shits going to happen to him. It’s going to happen at some point, you know?

But I have the choice and the responsibility to take what’s happened to me and learn. I have the choice to do with what I want to do with it. Like he doesn’t hold power over me anymore. My cousin’s don’t hold power over me anymore.

Sharing my story means it’s my story, not theirs. It’s it’s my responsibility to go from victim to survivor and by no means I do want to say to those listening, I’m not saying you have to broadcast this on a podcast or national TV, like it’s acknowledging it to yourself that this happens, acknowledging that you can change from being a victim to a survivor and it’s hard.

Just telling someone you trust, telling counselor, just even acknowledging it to yourself and there are support groups. There is the I mention earlier RAINN at least here in the US. It’s something that we can get through.

Sabrina Chevannes: Well, I hope. I hope that people listening will be, you know, will realize that that it is possible to get through and having you here today, so strong. Like, you know, it shows you that it is possible.

Sabrina Chevannes: But what do you do to keep your mental health in check? Because one of these traumas is enough to screw up your head and make you feel think awful things, let alone all of these traumas. So what on Earth do you do to keep your mental health in check?

Jenn Junod: It’s, you know, I wish I had like, you know, the go to answer of like, you know, meditation. And that hasn’t gone.

I myself am not someone that keeps structure very well. I am a spaz ball as I like to say and that can cause disruption.

So what I do for that matter is I find structured people around me and I put pillars around me so almost like even unintentionally, my best friend’s, my partner, they are all very like stuck in their way, stubborn people that have routines and I love it because that keeps me a bit more structured because I can be a lot more over one. I mentioned that because getting on this journey of dealing with my mental health, I don’t even want to say dealing, but living with my mental health has been having grace with myself.

And when I say grace instead of beating myself up when I’m having anxiety talked earlier this week, I had a six-hour anxiety attack and I cannot shake it. And instead of beating myself up for it, it was okay. It’s odd to the point where I’m crying, like let’s keep our plans, let’s try to work through this. Let’s see if I can make it to my partner. And I worry, we’re going horse riding for my birthday and it was an hour and a half away, and for some reason that morning I was just freaking out about everything.

And so we just talked about it and I was like, let’s see if we can get to the ranch and if I’m still struggling we’ll turn around, and I’m very fortunate that my partner helps me through those things because it is very difficult to do by myself at times.

I think box breathing is something that really helps me through when I’m starting to feel anxious. And by box breathing you inhale for four, hold your breath for four, exhale for four, and you hold your breath out for four, and that helps going through. My five senses helps a lot of the time by going: name some things I can see, name some things I can feel, name some things I can taste, name some things I can smell, but I’m forgetting one of the senses, but y’all know what I’m talking about. What is something I can hear? And then in those majority of the time will help me through it, especially going, “Okay, why am I feeling anxious right now?” I’m not judging it but if there’s a why behind it.

And another part of it is, I will always have my mental illnesses. I can go months without having a really bad episode and I can have downward spirals for three weeks in a row. It is really, really hit or miss for myself.

I feel very fortunate that my partner, he taught me when we first started dating, no matter what, call him if I start feeling this way. And I mean this is even when we’ve gotten in giant fights and I leave the house, turn my phone off because I’m so pissed off. He knows I go into self-harm mode, that I start to blame myself for everything. So he starts to panic because he’s concerned I’ll do something to myself. And knowing that he’s there has really helped me going, okay cool, like I can, I’m not going to hurt myself because I haven’t called him yet.

Which is something that I’ve only had for the last four years working through this, but it’s all learning what’s in our own toolbox. It’s finding these resources, trying them all and seeing if they work, and if they don’t work, cool, push them aside or keep if there’s one nugget of it that works, keep it there. And it’s again, it’s day by day. It’s not something that I can say, you know, I have all the solutions because this week I had to reach out to RAINN. You know, like I really want to mention that because I don’t have all the answers. Yes I’ve been through all this shit and I want to talk about it and I want to share my story to give others hope and know that they’re not alone, yet I’ll be working on a lot of this trauma for the rest of my life.

Sabrina Chevannes: Yeah. And it’s not really much you can do about that. The fact that this is like you said, it’s stuff that’s happened. It’s stuff that you can’t erase, but it’s learning how to deal with it and learning how to live with it in the best way you can. And thank goodness you’ve got someone to support you. And I think that’s got to be the bottom line for it, that if you have someone to support you, if you have a good support network, which is what you were saying, then you can get through this and knowing you’re not alone is important. But I just want to say a massive massive thank you for today and sharing so openly and honestly about everything you’ve been through.

I just hope that there are people listening to this who have gone through trauma and abuse and started to think about it a little bit differently about how they can handle it and how they can realize it is impacting them still, because a lot of people don’t realize, like I said, some people forget about what they went through as children or dismiss something they felt was normal and actually has negatively impacted the adulthood. So I’m hoping that there are people listening to this thinking and analyzing what is causing the pain today and go seek help to get that sorted.

So thank you so much and I just wanted to ask you where people can get in touch with you. So I’m sure some people are going to have some questions and you’ll want to tune in to the podcast. So what’s the best way people can get in touch with you?

Jenn Junod: We are on all of the social medias Shit to Talk About and that is the number two. So Shit, the number two, Talk About and reach out to me there and I’d be happy to share any resources I have, have you on our show if you have a story to share that you want to share. And we talked about all sorts of topics like we talked about gut health and I was like that’s cool and we had a clairvoyant on, she’s going to be coming out, her episode comes out this summer and I’m like I don’t know how the audience is going to feel about this but I hope that they get at least some nuggets that they can take away in their life and really use.

So please reach out to me, follow our podcast too and I do really want to mention that anyone listening to your podcast, they’re taking a step in the right direction to improve their lives and it takes time. I didn’t always have the support system I have now, I didn’t always know where or how to get through it yet hearing your podcast is a huge way to get started because you’re learning ways to start improving yourself and your mindset.

And I love the content that you put out and thank you for being you and doing that.

Sabrina Chevannes: Thank you. That means so much to me as well because that’s exactly why I’m doing it. It’s you know I want just like how you want to help people I want to help other people you know improve themselves and consistently learning. That’s my motto big on self-development and there were so many amazing people out there with amazing stories and lessons that you can learn from each of them. And that’s the hope that every week there’ll be another lesson to learn for everyone. So thank you for those kind words, thank you for being an amazing guest today, and thank you everyone for listening today and I’ll be back next week for another episode of No Bullshit Talks.