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The only Mental Health podcast that shares honest and authentic accounts of living with mental health issues, that's also hosted by individuals fighting the same fight you are!Providing information and resources for help with a heavy dose of humor and entertainment. Helping you find hope and the strength to fight on.
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#226: From Modeling to Mental Health Advocacy: Dr. Jennifer “Gin” Cooley’s Inspiring Journey
Join us for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Jennifer "Gin" Cooley. Dr. Cooley is an American model, psychotherapist, composer and vocalist. On this episode we dive into her extraordinary journey from a small town in Tennessee to the global modeling stage, and ultimately to a career in mental health advocacy. Discover the powerful story behind her transition from the high-pressure fashion industry to working with incarcerated individuals, veterans, and those affected by trauma. Jennifer offers profound insights into the complexities of mental health, resilience, and rehabilitation, especially within foster care, incarceration, and high-stress environments. She also sheds light on the critical importance of cultural sensitivity, community support, and understanding the unique backgrounds of individuals in prison. She also discusses the dark realities of human trafficking and the role of mental health professionals in providing compassionate and effective support. Her journey is a testament to the strength found in change, self-discovery, and dedication to helping others heal. Tune in to hear Jennifer’s inspiring journey, learn valuable life lessons, and explore the intersection of personal growth, mental health, and social advocacy. Don't miss this thought-provoking episode that promises to leave you motivated and informed.
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Chapters
00:00 The Origin of Jin: A Journey Begins
02:59 From Small Town to Runway: The Modeling Breakthrough
05:59 International Modeling: The Highs and Lows
09:11 The Dark Side of the Fashion Industry
12:07 Finding Purpose: Transitioning from Modeling to Mental Health
14:56 Navigating Life After Modeling: A New Path
18:02 Working with Inmates: A Unique Perspective
21:00 The Reality of Incarceration: Rights and Rehabilitation
23:58 The Journey to Academia: Pursuing a Doctorate
27:08 Reflections on Life: Embracing Change and Growth
37:12 Understanding the Roots of Criminal Behavior
40:49 Crisis Intervention in High-Stress Environments
45:33 The Importance of Mental Health for Caregivers
48:29 Navigating Professional Boundaries in Therapy
52:36 Cultural Sensitivity in Mental Health Treatment
56:45 Addressing the Foster Care Crisis
01:01:08 The Impact of Human Trafficking on Vulnerable Populations
01:05:05 The Role of Community in Supporting Foster Care
01:10:51 The Dark Realities of Human Trafficking
01:12:50 Transitioning from Military to Civilian Life
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Connect with Jennifer today!
LinkedIn: Jennifer “Gin” Cooley M.S.Ed., B.S., LPC
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gincooleylpc/overlay/about-this-profile/
Instagram: @drinkswithgin
Produced by Security Halt Media
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Speaker 2:Let's go, you're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare with a man who's the best?
Speaker 1:with guns, with knives, with his bare hands, a man who's been trained to ignore ignore weather to live off.
Speaker 2:The land job was disposed of enemy personnel to kill period.
Speaker 1:I was wondering that. What was the origin of that story?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I, you know I thought about this and it was at some point in my modeling career and my music career. I was a singer and a songwriter, and I guess I still am, and it's one of those things where you're kind of like that's who you are forever. Um, but somewhere along the way somebody started calling me jen with a g and next thing I know my bank is cashing checks made out to me as gin and i'mN and I'm just like, okay, fuck it, this is my alter ego.
Speaker 1:Fuck it, we ballin'. This is what we're going to do, right? Oh well, dr Jennifer Jen Cooley, welcome to Security Out Podcast. Thank you for being here today. You have quite the life journey and, man, I just want you to take us along. Let's start it off where it all began. Where did things kick off for young Jen?
Speaker 2:Young Jen. Young Jen was so. I was born and raised in Northwest Tennessee. I had very humble beginnings. I was raised up in Buchanan, tennessee, which is like an unincorporated part of henry county okay um in the woods. So, yeah, that's where I grew up. Um. I went to college when I was 16 at murray state, um, yep. So I grew up about 30 minutes South of Murray, kentucky, um, and then at that point, you know, I knew that I had a genetic build of a runway model. I mean, it really wasn't rocket science.
Speaker 1:I was five, 10 and a size, zero and um, genetically engineered for this profession yeah, and so I was 5'10 and a size zero, genetically engineered for this profession yeah, and so I was like, fuck, I need to be doing this, why am I not doing this, like I want to get out of here?
Speaker 2:So I jumped on the first. So actually I was on my way to school, I was on my way to Murray State and I had a full cast on my left arm, a long story that I've broken my elbow, and I was listening to the radio because that's what we did back then.
Speaker 2:And in the 1900s in the 1900s we listened to the radio and there was an ad on there about a modeling competition in Clarksville, tennessee, called Pro Scout. And so I pulled over and I wrote it down on a piece of paper and I went to it with a cast on my arm and they just give you like this little up and down, like you know, 30 second interview, and they're like, yeah, you're in. You know, jump on board, we have this, the convention is in Memphis at the Peabody and you know you're, this is your official invite. So by that time the cast was off. I ended up getting more callbacks that day than anybody in the history of that competition. So there were agencies there, modeling agencies there from New York, from all over North America.
Speaker 2:Um, like Chicago, new York, from all over North America, like Chicago, new York, la, miami, all the big ones. And so I ended up signing a contract with BMG Chicago and, of course, hailing from the middle of nowhere, my mother, I mean God bless her. She just like I don't know how she dealt with me. She was just like okay, like I guess this is what we're doing, like I've met. We had no guidance. Um, I ended up signing with BMG Chicago. They told me that I was too commercial to work the international market. What does?
Speaker 1:that even mean.
Speaker 2:So I didn't have like high fashion editorial, I didn't have that look, that's what they told me. Um, so they wanted me to work like just the American market in Chicago, like the commercial catalog market. But the whole time I was talking to this guy named JJ Cortez who's no longer with us, and he was just a free agent who was really well known in the industry out of New York City and he was like that's bullshit, like I can get you on a plane to Singapore in three months and with like zero, zero experience. And so we ended up dropping BMG and I went with him and I was literally on a plane during the SARS epidemic on on my way to Singapore at 17 by myself, and it was the best thing ever. Like I fucking loved it.
Speaker 2:And um, I think I arrived on a Friday, and so I remember this vividly. I I got there on a Friday. Um, I was. I was picked up by one of the guys from the agency. He took me to my apartment, the model's apartment. Me to my apartment, the model's apartment. There was a girl there from Hong Kong named Percy, and my first casting like we had a fax machine back then and that's where we, our agent, would send us like a long, you know, a list of you have to be here, here, here and here for your castings.
Speaker 2:I had no idea what a casting was and, fortunately, in Singapore, english is one of their main languages. Most people there speak English, but also, if they don't, they probably speak Mandarin. And so I ended up hailing a taxi and my taxi driver did not speak English and he spoke Mandarin, so I had the address written down in Mandarin. I just showed him a picture. On the way there, I started getting this cramp, this wild cramp, in my abdomen, and it got worse and worse. I started getting sweaty and lightheaded and next thing, I know, like I walk into this casting, that I'd never been on before and I am just like doubled over in, like pain, like crying on the floor and so, um, I had to leave. Uh, and this was my day morning at this point, it was my I hadn't even met.
Speaker 2:I hadn't even been to my agency yet. I hadn't met my agents at all. Um, it was elite model management, singaporeapore. That's who I so that my mother agent was jj and then my sister agent was elite. Um, so I had to get another taxi.
Speaker 2:And I'm in this country and I'm 17 and I'm fucking pain and I have no idea what I'm doing. And I get another taxi. He doesn't speak english either, so I show him the address and he takes me there and I get out of the cab and I'm just like crying, there's snot on my face, and this guy downstairs, like on Orchard Road, owned a jewelry store. And he came out and he was just like, are you okay? Like what's going on? And I'm like I need to get here. And I was like trying to show him where I needed to go. And so I go upstairs to get here and I was like trying to show him where I needed to go.
Speaker 2:And so I go upstairs to my agency and the first, like I remember walking or actually kind of crawling in the front door, just like hysterical, and they all jumped up and they're like oh my God. But when I first got there, when I, they took me straight to the emergency room and that's where they got their first look at me in person. But when I first got there, the one of my neighbors was this older british guy and he goes oh you'll be fine, don't worry about sars, just stay out of the hospital. Yeah, and so I end up. The first place I end up is the hospital yep um which it all ended up.
Speaker 2:It worked out fine.
Speaker 1:I passed, I had kidney stones oh no, I was just gonna say it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was kidney stones, like what that? No, I was just gonna say, yeah, it was kidney stones, like what. That was, yeah, the most random thing that could have possibly happened. That happened to me yeah.
Speaker 1:That is like a pain that you, when you see it on somebody and shout out to Tony D, he's the first one I ever saw with kidney stones. My man was doubled over and he was on death's door. And I mean hospital ride, emergency room, everything. We're sitting there for hours trying to figure out what's wrong and like people are like telling us five different things and we're like, oh my God, this dude's going to die. One doctor walks in, looks at him, reads the chart yeah, kidney stones at them.
Speaker 2:Reads the chart yeah, kidney stones. I've given birth, all naturally, to a 10 pound baby and it's very similar as far as pain it's uh, yeah, it's something to behold. So that kicked off my modeling career internationally and I ended up doing really well in singapore. Um, it was a secret, a little industry secret back then. It may still be, because all the print was in English. So, in the high fashion world, if you have, like you know, a really good magazine like Harper's Bazaar or Marie Claire and it's in English, like they think that's, like they don't know where it's from. It could be from Canada, it could be from North America, it could be New York, you know. So I had, I built a really good book out the gate, and so then I, I went from Singapore to New York City. I signed with Supreme, which was the baby face division of women. At that time they were the number two agency in the world. And then I, you know, I was sent all over the world.
Speaker 2:I was in italy, off and on, for two years. I loved the european market. Um, I worked in china, which was a nightmare. Um, it was terrible. It was illegal. Everything in china is illegal. So, and that's how they get you with communism. So I remember being in china. I got there.
Speaker 1:It was actually, I think, yeah, I was 18 holy shit, that's like that's gonna be scary for anybody but for an 18 year old model well, and I flew in.
Speaker 2:I remember flying, flying there. I was in Hong Kong. I was in Taiwan first, which was great. Taiwan was great. Totally different market, though. They treated the models like shit, and this was back in the early two thousands, when models were like dying from anorexia.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Nobody gave it. Yeah, nobody cared about, like you know, like body shaming was not a thing back then, you know like they literally. They were so cutthroat and ruthless if you had any fat on your body like they would send you home or threaten you and um yeah, you had to be.
Speaker 1:Uh, what's the name? Kate, carry on, carry on moss. What's the name of that popular bottle? Kate moss? Yeah, like that was the industry standard and she weighed all of like what?
Speaker 2:like 50 pounds 50 pounds, just the heroin sheet. But again, we were. We were teenage girls, we weren't women, and so it was easy for us. But that's a whole nother issue where women are looking at these publications and comparing their bodies to teenage girls with makeup on, like you can't. There's no comparison. So, yeah, I worked that for a while, for about four years and um, and I did. Well, I, really I I got to see the world. You know, it was a really cool experience. It's something. It was a dream of mine that I checked off the list, um, and then, you know, at one point, point I. It did not really make me happy. I wasn't. I remember being really depressed in italy, um, just super down. I mean, it was a very toxic. It was a lot of pressure. People weren't just dying from anorexia, they were killing themselves. You know, models were killing themselves, like left and right, um, so it's like a the big misconception.
Speaker 1:People think like you have all the money, all the luxury in the world, like you should be completely happy. But oftentimes we look at people in this world and you're right like a lot of them are killing themselves. They're not only the pressure to maintain a certain size or image, but then the lifestyle, like when you were living that like what were some of the things that you saw as like a like a reoccurring theme amongst your peers in that life, like was it like a lot of abuse of drugs, a lot of just you know, just reckless abandonment and just not having like anything tangible to really like define? I was like, wow, this keep me grounded and happy.
Speaker 2:So on the international scale. Back then I had roommate I remember my. I had a roommate that was 13, from Brazil and she didn't speak English and she was in Singapore with me and I remember her just crying at night and we didn't have a luxurious apartment. They would stick us in these apartments with bunk beds and put like 10 of us in there and we had a very luxurious and glamorous nightlife beautiful restaurants and bars and clubs to decorate the you know to be, you know to decorate and to to make things look more attractive and appealing so that they could get customers.
Speaker 2:But we did not really have a glamorous day-to-day life. You know, we were very young, very. We had no idea how to manage money. I had no idea how to. I was negotiating international contracts at 17, 18 years old and I did not, I mean, and I got fucked on.
Speaker 2:I remember, after I left China, like I got fucked out of $20,000 and I it was my plane was about to leave and I was cashing out and I'm 18 years old and they just looked at me like what are you going to do about it? You know, and I'm just, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to get on the plane and go home with no money and um and so the recurring theme is, I think, the abuse of power and manipulating young girls and using them. And I mean we had ridiculous expenses, like our apartment expenses, where there were 10 bunk beds and 10 of us, or 10 beds and 10 of us. We would be charged like six grand a month to live there and we had no idea, like we didn't know, we didn't really care. I mean 13, 14, 15 years old. Like what do you like? We had no idea we were getting screwed.
Speaker 1:And there's nobody there advocating for you and protecting you and like saying like, hey, no, this is fucked.
Speaker 2:No, especially because we were working in other countries. So, and a lot of these girls this 13 year old girl from Brazil was sending money back home to her family A lot of Eastern European girls, a lot of girls from Russia, you know, like a lot of people from poverty stricken areas that are just again kind of they had a ticket to get out and they did. But unfortunately, when you're that vulnerable, people do take advantage of you. Photographers try to sleep with you, there is a lot of drugs and whatever you want you can pretty much get. I remember being outside a club one night with my roommate, this French, canadian model. She was very successful, but we drank a lot and she started throwing up and I remember her saying don't worry, I do this all the time and I just remember just like feeling oh okay yeah, it looks all shiny on the outside.
Speaker 1:It looks like you're living your dream for anybody that's seen the pictures in the magazine, seeing the ads on TV. But the reality sounds absolutely terrifying for a young girl, like for anybody. Anybody would be friggin, scared out of their mind. Show up here, do as you're told and then, you know, survive. How do you, how do you make it out of that world?
Speaker 2:You know I, I loved it. I mean I'm highlighting on some things that were really negative, but it it really it was so cool, like back then. It taught me so many life skills. It taught me how to survive. It taught me emotional intelligence. If you're in a, in a country where nobody speaks your language and you're a kid, I mean you, just you know you stick and move. You got to figure it out, so it it taught me a lot about myself and just about and just about just interconnectedness. Like it doesn't matter what country you're from or where you are, like we're all human beings and we all have so much more in common than we think. I learned that very young. It opened my eyes. It made me more open-minded and appreciative of the United States and everything that we have here and our rights. You go to a place like China. You really appreciate the United States. I learned that very young.
Speaker 2:So I got out of it. I kind of just left. I was out of it. I just I kind of just left. I just I was sick of it. I wanted to. I, you know, I started very young. I wanted something more. I didn't feel like I was operating. I didn't have the education that I wanted. You know, I think that contributed to my depression. I was depressed. I was more intelligent and I had more intellectual capacity than my education level, and so I had, I had no outlet. I felt like I was just a mannequin, you know, with no voice and no purpose. So I came back to the US and and that was shocking to me Going back to my little bitty town in the middle of nowhere as this high fashion runway model that had walked for Christian Dior and was in Gucci ads and Louis Vuitton, like I had nothing in common with anything that I ever knew, and so that was, that was a pretty harsh reality check is that I came home but I really didn't feel like I was at home.
Speaker 1:No, you'd lived you'd seen the world, the broader, like an experience just like you highlight yeah, some horrible things, but you lived, you experienced some great things. And then that's sort of like for a lot of us that get out of our hometowns and experience life outside. You come back and you're like fuck, played it safe and I have no way of relating to you. Like it's that, that feeling when you're on facebook and people reach out to you from like where you grew up and you're like dude like I am, I don't know how to relate to you. Like I've lived a life like I didn't stay home in the cozy little town and just lived, like I went out and they experienced things right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was. That was a tough. Um, I think that was a period of my life where I was. I kind of went a little wild like I was just trying to find my place. Yeah, you know, I was like, well, I can't stay here. So you know, I'm gonna go to louisiana and try to hang out with my dad. That I don't really know that. Well, you know, that was on the run from the law my whole life. That didn't really turn out well, and so I was just kind of going from place to place trying to find a new home and I found myself in Atlanta, atlanta, georgia, randomly and I lived in hotels and I started working at a bar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't gonna go home, I didn't want anybody to help me I lived in a hotel like south of 20 which is like kind of in the hood.
Speaker 2:I know atlanta very well, I was gonna say dear god I was like, yeah, I remember there being caution tape outside like I. But I got a job at a, at a bar, as like a shot girl. And then I made friends with this girl from sierra leone and I just loved her. And then we came, we became besties and I got a, we got a place together and and then that became my, the first place that I could really plant my feet as a young lady. I was 19. And I stayed there for about four years and I did some modeling there locally and in the US and Atlanta.
Speaker 2:You don't have to be a size two, you don't have to go size two, nobody cares, there's no pressure. So it was a relief for me and I just enjoyed my life. So then, you know, at some point I became a mother very young. I was 24 when I had my oldest son. So I wanted to raise my children around my family. So I came back to my little bitty town in Northwest Tennessee and it was still difficult for me. So I stayed there for maybe a year and then I ended up moving to Franklin, right outside Nashville, and I'm just at that time Nashville really was not it was nowhere what it is today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what time period is this? Now, this is 15 years ago.
Speaker 2:so Nashville had just kind of started becoming, you know, a place of interest for people, entertainment industry, people from LA who are trying to get you know tax breaks and things like that. So we had like music execs and people like that moving out from New York and LA but it really was kind of still a great place, kind of still felt like like the old Nashville back then. But at that point I was like I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do here, like, like as a model, like what am I going to do? So I ended up just doing a bunch of music videos Like and I didn't know anything about like modern country. I really love outlaw country. But at the time, like I got I remember I got the lead role in like a lady in a bell and video.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I had. No, I no idea who lady on a bell and was um, and Jason Aldean, like I didn't know the names.
Speaker 1:I have no clue about what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was just like.
Speaker 2:I'll just show up. And so I planted my feet there, um, and and, and it was a cool experience. I was able I've been raising my kids in this area Um, but I did everything I could do there, yeah, and and. At that point, around the same time, after I had my, had my first child, I decided to go back to school around the same like 2011. He was two and and, yeah, I got my bachelor's in in business because I really didn't know what I wanted to do do, but then, at that point, whenever I started thinking about my master's, I, you know, you really you get to decide, like, what you really want to be and what you want to focus on. And I've always been fascinated with psychology. I've always had a natural ability to like people just tell me things that I don't even want to know, like they just feel like they can just tell me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they can just be vulnerable yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, their darkest secrets, people that I don't even know that well will just fucking tell me the craziest shit and um. But so, yeah, I knew that I had a natural ability, um, to disarm and to listen and to be empathetic, super empathetic. So I decided to make that my focus. And then I focused on clinical counseling, got a master's in clinical mental health, and then I'm from the University of Tennessee and then I took a break for a year. I knew I wanted to get my doctorate Iate but I also had another kid at that point. I had two kids.
Speaker 2:I wanted to jump into a clinician role first to see, you know, before I commit to something like a doctorate, like I really need to make sure this is what I want to do. And I ended up working in a medically assisted treatment facility in my hometown and I didn't see myself landing at a place that treated substance abuse. It was actually not on my radar at all. I didn't. I actually didn't think I would enjoy it. My, you know, I have. I come from a family of alcoholics and addicts and I just never thought that was for me. But it turned out to be something I really loved. It's funny how that works out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I did that for a year. I developed an intensive outpatient program for that part of Tennessee because there were no resources, wow, and we partnered with I was the only licensed person at that clinic.
Speaker 1:No shit.
Speaker 2:So they kind of put that on me to do it and I did and we. So we were taking people from who are in the court systems, who were incarcerated repeatedly repeat offenders for drugs. They didn't belong in jail, they needed treatment. So Tennessee started this grant funded program where they would pay for these people to get treatment and not go to jail. Our jails were overcrowded with people who had addiction issues and that didn't help them, it just made them worse. So that's what I started there.
Speaker 1:What was the success rate of that program?
Speaker 2:You know, I left right after it took off and I knew that I could not work full time and get my doctorate. So right after the program like kind of took off, I stepped out and started focusing on academia. Now if you look at what's going on and there's these. These clinics are everywhere, um, and they are grant funded. There's so much grant money out there that people don't know about and it's first come, first serve and if you just tap into it, like if you don't have insurance, well this grant is going to pay for you to get treatment, um that's how do you bring that up.
Speaker 1:I've been, I'm looking for a grant writer. So if anybody's listening and you have grant writing experience, hit your boy up, because that's some big plans. That's not easy work too it's. It's a lot of planning and grinding trying to find grant money.
Speaker 2:So I started going to Western pursuing a doctorate in applied psychology, and then 20 like right and I started in january 2020 oh no I know.
Speaker 2:And then my kids had to be homeschooled for a year, so I, um, and then at that, like, western was about two hours away from me, so I was driving to Western like two or three times a week and it was just. It wasn't feasible. But thankfully, this is the good thing about how we adjusted in 2020 is we started having class online. So that made things easier for me, nice, but I ended up. I knew that made things easier for me, nice, but I ended up. I knew that I needed to be like on campus, and so I ended up moving to Bowling Green in 21. And then I ended up dropping the program at Western and started another program online at Cal Southern same accreditation way cheaper. So then I was just like, well, I guess we're just here, you know, so now we're just Kentuckians, um, and then, yeah, so that's kind of how that, that's kind of how I got into it and and how I arrived at this place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just following your path. Like it's um, it's awesome seeing somebody is just being able to just follow what they're like paths ahead of them. Like just tell them to do it. Like a lot of times we get fixated on this direct route we have to follow and then forget just live a life Like it's not all about just check marks and you have to follow, and then we forget to just live a life like it's not all about just check marks and you have to listen and be open to change man like that's, I think, a lot of veterans, a lot of us to get out.
Speaker 1:We're not open to that. We immediately want to go into, like I'm gonna go contracting work, I'm gonna do this because it's exactly what I used to do. Pay me an awesome amount of money to do it. It's like, yeah, or you could pause, reflect on what you really want to do it. It's like, yeah, or you could pause, reflect on what you really want to do, what you're excited about, and explore that. It's just taking a knee, figuring out what you really enjoy. That's really hard for a lot of people come to find out.
Speaker 2:It is. You have to be um willing to go off the beaten path.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you cannot be afraid to fail.
Speaker 1:No, the thing that really struck a chord with me when I read and we were engaging and talking, is you're serving a population of Americans that is often more often than I should say like there's no sympathy and there's a very there's a lot of uh, polarizing views on how you should support these individuals and the resources they should be met with. But you went into this world helping some of the most violent individuals with their mental health issues. Like, let's dive into that. Like, how did you find yourself working with inmates and not just run of the mill every day, just shoplifters or, you know, guys that ran a red light?
Speaker 2:These are, these are hardened criminals red light these are, these are hardened criminals. Well, so you know it. Actually it was one of those. I've lived a very intuitive, I move intuitively. So I don't really have a plan with my life. Like I have an idea, but you know, that's kind of like the way life is, like you kind of have an idea of what you want to do but that's just not always how it works out. So I don't have the same element of fear that a lot of people have. Safe to say, I also come from, you know, I think me traveling the world and and that kind of comes. You know, it kind of goes into that as well. Like at a young age, like I just I didn't have that fear factor, like I wasn't. I was like, yeah, I'll get on a plane and go to singapore by myself, I don't give a shit. And so it was exciting to me. I got the opportunity, I I saw that there was a job opening and I just applied.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I had no experience with that population and it I ended up getting the job. I ended up going to, you know, the first interview. I did Great. Second interview, did great Third interview. They offered me the job and I was like yes, this is so cool, like, and all my friends were like no Jen, no Jen no.
Speaker 2:Jen, you have children that need you, like, don't do this.
Speaker 2:And I'm just so like excited about it because for me, clinically, it's like the coolest opportunity ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and you know, if you know, like, if you know my background, like my grandfather was in prison, my, I did a genogram in one of my classes, one of my family family counseling classes, where we all had to do like this genogram where we look at our family tree and then we look at Traits and behaviors and similarities that are passed on from generation to generation, like systemically, some are biological and you know, anyways, it, it, I was like, wow, my, my grandfather was in prison. My father was, you know, on the run most of my life and absent and you know, um, not you know the paradigm of integrity at that point. My grandfather was shot and killed with a shotgun in a trailer park right in front of my dad. My great-grandfather was shot and killed at a taxi stand. My great-uncle was beaten to death in a hotel room in Santa Barbara. It's kind of like hanging out with that one side in Santa Barbara, like you know, it's kind of like hanging out with that one side of my family, like these. I'm just like I'm comfortable there.
Speaker 1:So that's just the one side of my family. There's a lot of trauma on this side of the tree, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, I feel, but I'm good, like I feel like I can handle this, thank God for my mom's. So, uh, I ended up. I remember going and I was nervous. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous but I was excited. So, um, I remember driving up it was. I remember driving to the prison and just seeing the barbed wire and and going in the front and like it was, it was tough, man, these people are tough it's so funny.
Speaker 1:If you're not, if you're not watching this on youtube and you're just listening. It's like when you, when you describe it, you're smiling and you're just just so happy, like the barbed wire and the grime and the screams, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I, yeah, I remember getting there and getting a checkpoint and then you know, it's like it's a super max security facility that houses everybody in the state that's on death row and we have the most violent and high profile criminals in the state and I felt like what an honor to be there. And so my job was to everybody in prison, everybody that's incarcerated, they have rights. They have medical rights. It's their constitutional right. It's their constitutional right If they need, you know, medical care, if they need dental, vision and mental health care, it is their God given right. It does not matter if they're incarcerated. So we have like a little kind of like an emergency room type set up where we had we did have like our medical offices our nurse practitioner, we had MDs, we had them like right here on this side of the building and then, like, as you kind of go down the hall, there's our mental health group. We had a psychiatric nurse practitioner, a psychiatrist, me, our clinical director, who is a veteran psychologist that had been working with that population his entire career. Just some of those brilliant people, honestly, and I, yeah, I'll get to that in a minute but these people were just, they're an absolute joy to work with. We had an old school LADAC that worked there, and then we have nurses old school LADAC that worked there and then we have nurses, and then you have your, your dentist and your eye doctor, and physical therapy and all that, so, and we're all there together.
Speaker 2:And then you have your units. You have your low side guys, which, which this was new to me. I was assuming, oh they're, they're medium security. They're able to walk around freely on the campus or on the yard, but it doesn't mean they're not in there for beating somebody to death or raping them. They still have the propensity to be quite violent, but they're behaving on the yard, so they get more freedom. So you learn situational awareness real quick. You don't let people come up behind you. You watch, you are constantly watching the room. What shoes is everybody wearing? If everybody's wearing boots, you probably don't need to be in there. You know there's some shit that's about to pop up. You just you know you gotta you learn to read, read the room, um, and trust the vibe and trust your instinct. Um, but for the most part these guys were fine. I see, and you know I there there's.
Speaker 2:There was a couple of times I did not feel comfortable. Um one time I was on a unit and um that I was abandoned by the officer on the unit and the unit was kind of overtaken by all the inmates and it was just me and them and I was in the security office and there was about 20 of them there all around me and they were, but it was fine, I did not feel like they weren't going to hurt me. Most of those guys in there I'm the best like seeing coming to see me, or the nurses or the doctors is like they they're. It's total reprieve for them. They are around dudes all day. 99% of them are in gangs. I mean they see people get stabbed, they deal with horrible shit all day. So they're not going to hurt me. I'm the best thing that's happened to them. Like you know, they can't wait to come see me and and so and and most of those guys are. I mean they're not bad dudes. They were in shitty situations. They're a product of their environment. Yeah, you know they made decisions and they got caught for it.
Speaker 2:A lot of people do things that they don't get caught for.
Speaker 2:A lot of people think about killing somebody.
Speaker 2:You know they just they did it. Most of them are roughneck men. A lot of them came from you know, really traumatic backgrounds. They had terrible childhoods. It really does start at home. Adverse childhood experiences that I'm not talking about. Just like you know, their mommy was mean and, you know, took away their PlayStation. Like they were severely neglected, abused, abandoned in the most horrific ways. Them are recruited and taken in and groomed by gangs at seven, eight years old because they have no family and they're taking care of their three-year-old brother and the gangs kind of provide for them and they get. You know that's how they groom them at a young age and get them in and get them, you know, caught up in that lifestyle and that's they're not in there because it's their first offense, like they've been doing that since they were kids. Some of them, you know, were like the guys on death row, the guys on super max. They're in shackles when they talk to me but everybody else, it's just me and them in a room, just like I would talk to anybody else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, them in a room just like I would talk to anybody else. Yeah, and I gotta, I gotta wonder and what's it like sitting there with some of the the more violent, like the guys on death row? On death row, like how, how is it being able to work with somebody, give them some sort of like support, when they know, and you know, like eventually, like this person's still looking down the barrel of an execution, like how is it possible to give them resources and tips to like overcome any of the challenges they're going through?
Speaker 2:so at that point and here's another thing, and I want to highlight this like when you work with that population, like we're there not to necessarily reform, we are there to maintain control. You know, if we've got a guy that's losing his shit and he's disturbing, he's a he's a big, he's disturbing the peace on the unit, he's a big, he's disturbing the peace on the unit. Well, we don't know why he doesn't like, we don't know what's going on with him. He may have just found out that his brother was shot and killed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's losing his shit and he's trying to kill somebody. Now you know. So when that happens, there's a lot of crisis intervention. There's a lot. So we don't do. You know it's a traumatic environment for them. You know they're living in a in a fight or flight state most of the time in that environment. So the guys on death row, you know they're different. I mean, I think it's uh, it's case to case. Some of them have made peace with God. Some of them, you have to think, they're in isolation 23 hours a day and they have been for years. And to like that alone changes a person. Like that alone is like like that will break a man's spirit.
Speaker 1:It's got to be extremely difficult to try to connect with somebody and provide any sort of support when they've been isolated for so long.
Speaker 2:At that point, death is something they look forward to Fuck yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's like the only thing they have to look at, like ending that sort of like day in, day out, I think, and it I have to imagine, though it's got to be how do you walk away from the office, work to go back home? Because I can only imagine that some days are heavier than most, like it can't. I mean, at some point it does feel like a normal nine to five, of course, for you, but I would imagine there's got to be some days that are just a little different.
Speaker 2:It's so funny that you say that, because every day you know in a supermax prison there's never a dull moment.
Speaker 2:It's like, okay, who who got stabbed today? And it's like whenever we do group, it's so fun. I love doing group there because these guys are brilliant, they are smart. I mean we could do trivia and they smoke me and, like the psych, one time it was me and the psychiatrist doing trivia for fun and these guys were just smoking our asses. They were so smart so that I saw that actually was very challenging. And it's still challenging to separate, because when I leave I have an hour drive home hour and a half, and so that hour and a half drive is good for me because I can decompress and I found that I have to. It's not like I can just talk about work with you. Know, my friends, I can't, I don't, I can't like that. I'm like, yeah, I worked with a guy today that chopped up eight people with a hatchet and like people just look at you, like what like, that's just a normal day for me.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, you just can't talk about it really with everybody, so you compartmentalize a lot, um, and you, you're, you know you're in a state of fight or flight. When you're there, I'm always kind of looking over my shoulder and I'm on high alert. And I'm not just on high alert there, I'm on high alert when I leave because I work with really high ranking gang members. I work with some of the highest ranking gang members in the state and the country and they find out everything. They find out where you live. Oh, they know where I live, they know my middle name. Like I had guys come up to me to like, so your middle name's Denise, and I'm just like looking at them, like, okay, so you know, they will try. They have nothing but time and they all have guys on the outside working on the outside.
Speaker 2:So I always you know I have to make sure nobody's following me home or I just you kind of maintain that level of of high alert even when you're not there, because you are still working with a very dangerous population. It is not for the faint of heart, it is a very serious job, it is a dangerous job. So you have to keep that in mind. You know, these guys are very, very manipulative, very manipulative. They will find a way to get to you. So you kind of always have to be keeping yourself in check too. But I learned, um, when I get home, I don't want to talk about work, I don't want to think about work, I leave it at work. When I, when I drive off um the property, I leave it there, um, and that's, I mean, it's, it's necessary. I also have to go to therapy. You know, I was just going to ask.
Speaker 1:I was just going to ask cause, like a lot of people have this assumption that if you're a mental health professional, like, you've got it all taken care of. I was like no dude, like these people do so much for you and talking, you know, uh, whether you're a veteran first responder, like your therapists are there to support you. They do a great job to help you, but they're also taking in all of that baggage, all those stories, all that information they have to get help themselves. All professionals will tell you like, yeah, I have my own therapist.
Speaker 2:I mean first responders, like they have. I mean people that work in an ER. They see people die every day. They see, like you know, kids come in getting rape kits Like they. I mean we cannot. We need to be so thankful for our first responders and our police officers, our correctional officers. They literally risk their lives every single day. They see trauma every day. So, yeah, maintaining my own mental health is the top priority, because if I'm not okay, I can't help other people and we kind of keep each other in check too, like when you're working at this level, when you're a therapist. You know we have we have to be mindful of you know we have lives. We might be going through a divorce we might have, we might be, you know, facing our own demons that might interfere with our ability to do our job. We have to, um, reach out to our peers.
Speaker 1:You know and say hey, this is what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:I need you to sit in on this session with me, yep, and you know, or I'm going through a divorce and I'm working with a guy that's, you know, cheated on his wife and it's I need to make sure I don't. You know, you have to be mindful of transference and counter transference and and make sure that you're operating, you know, objectively, because and that's another thing I wanted to get into like with professional licensure, like that is so important for anybody that's wanting to get a therapist and wanting to get mental health care. Ask questions and ask what your license is, what is your specialty? Do you have a focus? What is your license? Where did you go to school? Ask about education, because there are a lot of people out there that do not have any business practicing and when you don't have that professional body like the American Psychological Association and the American Counseling Association to keep you in check, you could really hurt somebody.
Speaker 1:yeah, if you don't know what you're doing, you could really hurt somebody there's a lot of grifters out there come to find out that there's a market. People are finding themselves being able to label themselves a healer in the space.
Speaker 1:So be, willing, if you're listening, make sure you're going through the right person, and it's okay to ask questions, it's okay to look up at their wall and see their degrees. It's one thing I realized look at the names of the universities, of the institutions this person graduated from. If it's a school in Costa Rica or another country, maybe ask some further questions and clarify.
Speaker 2:Yeah, are you a life coach? And did it take 20 minutes to get the certification online? Like what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it took three weeks. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:So but yeah, you got to know that you're working with somebody who's competent and practicing within that scope of competence and and with mental health there is not. It's a case-by-case thing. And with trauma especially trauma is, you know, it's unique to the individual. There's, I think sometimes, whenever we talk about trauma, it almost feels like the playing field's been level and PTSD is just, this is what it is and this is what it looks like for everybody and this is how it manifests pathologically. And that's not the case. You know, I also work in in foster care and all my kiddos have a significant amount of trauma.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And and whenever you do an assessment on anybody, you, you do, you, you know you take a mult-dimensional assessment and you know you're looking at everything Before you before you want to, you know input like a behavioral change, you want to look at the bigger picture. You have to know what to do and how to collect data and how to make sound clinical judgment on how to proceed with their treatment and their level of care. If you have a person that says they have PTSD and they have trauma, and you assess them and they had one incident that was highly traumatic, they had an adverse reaction to it, and they have trauma, and you assess them and they had, you know, one incident that was highly traumatic, they had an adverse reaction to it and they're kind of, you know, and it's causing, you know, significant, significant problems in their life, then you know that would that's a different level of care than somebody who was sexually abused when they were three level of care, than somebody who was sexually abused when they were three, four, five years old, repeatedly by a family member for years. You know, trauma essentially is when we it's, it's when we experience something so benevolent that our perception of reality becomes fragmented and it can be quite severe, you know it can.
Speaker 2:It can manifest and turn into borderline personality disorder. It can turn into schizophrenia. It can. It can really it can be quite complex to knit back together and help that person knit back together. You know their reality that was so distorted and destroyed. And so and I've worked with people all over the world before I got into people who are incarcerated and foster care, for a couple of years, I was working an online platform and I was working with people around the world, which was wonderful online platform, and I was working with people around the world, which was wonderful, because, as a clinician, you see, you really see how multiculturalism plays into mental health care and how people from Thailand view, you know, taking a knee and reaching out for help and talking about things that you know are not. They have issues in their culture that we don't necessarily have issues with in our culture, and everybody looks at mental health, of course, absolutely.
Speaker 1:What are some of the differences that you picked out and seen?
Speaker 2:So well. For example, in male dominated cultures. I was working with someone from Serbia. She was in what we would consider here as an abusive relationship. In that culture it is male-dominated. They have a different view on their values, are different, their beliefs are different. So we have to take that into consideration. When we work with people. We have to understand, we cater our treatment to what they value and what they believe and we do not project our own values and beliefs onto them. It has to align with what's you know, what's unique to them. So so that's just an example.
Speaker 2:She was very dependent. He was very abrasive, he was like the leader of the house, he was very controlling, but in that culture that's pretty common. You know, things that we would consider child abuse in other countries are, I mean, it's pretty common. It's. To me it's still abuse, something I would classify as abusive. But you have to be real careful to do your research on whoever you're working with and look at their culture Like if you're working. I've worked with all kinds of high performers Look at their culture Like if you're working. I've worked with all kinds of high performers. I've worked with judges, lawyers, microbiologists from Pakistan. I've worked with people from UAE, jordan, Japan.
Speaker 1:I would imagine the guys from Pakistan and Jordan would be very difficult.
Speaker 2:It was an interesting. You know it was quite, it was an interest it's. You know it was quite, it was interesting, um, but to be able to reach them is it's just the reward. There's nothing like it. When you're able to, you may not have anything in common with this person, you know, and you may not think they're like, they're just made you. Finally you hit like you have this moment, it's like this eureka moment, and you're like that's it, that's where we connect, that's, and then that is priceless. And then you see them start to heal and you see treatment become effective and, um, and and there's yeah, there's nothing like it. We also. I've noticed in America a lot of people are so entitled I don't think I'm the first person to pick up on that A lot of people. I found that my customer, my clients in the U? S were so much they were rude to me If I was a few minutes late, they would just be furious at me.
Speaker 2:I want to yeah and tell me how incompetent and terrible I was.
Speaker 1:They should try to VA.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people in other countries like we're so kind and like so respectful, yeah and um yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's definitely there's some differences there and um that's crazy, you know, you know I, in your work both with the foster care system and then with our super max population, it's almost like you can see the linkage probably between, like the, the aces, the adversity a child goes through early on in their development and how it will lead and affect and potentially lead them down that path, like in your experience, like what are some things that we can do?
Speaker 1:Like what are some things we should be doing in order to help, because we always think about the stick, we always think about more penalties, more rigorous prison times, but we often don't even look at the services or things that we could do to help mitigate that problem. It starts at a young age, it starts when they're children and in my own experience, one of the things that I've realized is, man, if we don't have a family, if we don't have fathers at home, like that value raising their kids. That's one thing. That's just one thing that could help stem this constant flow of people going into the prison system. What are some things that you've seen that you're like shit, like we should be talking about this. This could help alleviate the problem.
Speaker 2:That's a really good question. I also just signed on to work with Louisville Metro Louisville and the jail population is quite different than the prison population, If you think jail is a revolving door.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get there, you can leave prison, you're not going anywhere, like it's a whole different. You know, in that sense it's it's quite different. And in jail there's actually more p. There are so many sick people who are in jail, who are just they need, and there's actually. That's why they have a behavioral health unit in jail, because there's so many people there that don't need to be there. So I signed on to work the forensic unit with people who've been deemed incompetent to stand trial, to work with these people to get them to a working level of competency so that they can proceed with their case and move forward and get out of there. And then also, we can't it's not like we can just Baker, act them and then, you know, send them out for an assessment at a state hospital because the state hospitals there's no vacancies, they cannot, they cannot do it. So they just had they have their own little behavioral health center there in the jail.
Speaker 2:And, um, you know, as far as, yes, there is absolutely a correlation of, you know, foster care. Like I said, it starts at home. Um, people are so resilient, um, and I've learned so much from working with my kids, like, oh, my gosh, like these kids are so brave and so tough and you talk about trauma. I mean we take kids that are where I I am the treatment director for um, a therapeutic foster care agency, and so we have the kids that are higher levels of care and so they typically have a lot more problems. There's a difference in a kid that's in foster care because their parent was truant and they didn't go to school and a kid that was. You know, we see the most severe cases, the worst of the worst, and if you really want to help the foster care system is they need so much help. We don't realize. You know there's half a million kids a year go through the foster care system and they are. They bounce from house to house to house. I see it every day. You know the reason they came into foster care in the first place and the experiences they had before they came to us and it is as complex as it gets and what they need is a safe home, a kind home, a loving home. They need love, they need somebody that will not abandon them, that will be consistent and committed and dedicated and protect them. These kids have nobody, nobody. But they are so good and they are, so they. I mean, they are wonderful, they really are. And it's amazing how a kid's life can turn around and I've seen it when they get into a home that is loving and kind like that, it, you know, it turns this child into a different little human being Um, and we work with um all ages. And so what we need are homes. We need good homes with good people, and nobody.
Speaker 2:A lot of people talk about the issue. Oh, it's a problem. Oh, they want to help, they just don't know how to help. Yeah, you do, yeah, you do. You have to get over yourself and you have to step up and offer your services, open your home up. You know be, if you want to make a difference, that's what you have to do. You cannot turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to the most vulnerable citizens in this country. Children have rights, so we kind of just think you know, oh, somebody else is taking care of it. They're not.
Speaker 1:That's, unfortunately, what a vast majority of population thinks, and it's it's heartbreaking because a baby that gets put in the in the foster care system has a higher chance of getting adopted instantly, is everybody you know.
Speaker 1:There's, unfortunately, there's a lot of couples out there can't conceive or having difficulty, so a baby looks, it seems, like the best option.
Speaker 1:What they don't stop to think about is the nine-year-old, 10-year-old, 12-year-old that also needs a home and it's, it's and I I understand everybody wants to have that experience of, like bringing a baby home, but it's like man, like we've got tons of kids, young kids, that are going to be extremely vulnerable and susceptible to later on in life, you know, maybe follow that path that will lead them into the system, unless people step up and are willing to take them in and give them a home.
Speaker 1:Because that's honestly one of the things that you will read, whether you've read um the deepest well or read um vessel bender quotes body keeps the score. Like as a child, you need those, those parents, the people that can show you love and affection and take care of you and provide you with the guidance and counseling of how to be an adult, how to go about being a good person and when we look at what you're doing with foster cares, it's just beyond admirable, like we need more people involved that can help them, and it's just heartbreaking to see how many children in good families like the numbers are. If you look at the stats, it's it's downright depressing. It will break your heart looking at how many American kids go without a parent, go without somebody that can take care of them and provide them a loving, safe, secure home.
Speaker 2:It'll change your life. If you see it, if you actually step up to that line and you, you know you see it for yourself it will change you. It will break your heart every single day. But you can't just like, and that's with me, it's like I'm involved. Now I'm not, I'm not leaving these kids. You know I'm not. I've dedicated myself to them, like they are so precious. It's their right to be loved. It's their right to have a good, safe home. It's their right to have good nutrition and good food and everything that I mean. It's their God given right. And so, um, yeah, it's, it can. Yeah, it's a heavy, it's a heavy subject, um, but if you want to help and you can help, that would be a great way. Just open your home up, do some training, google it. There are so many agencies. Mine is Heritage Foster Care and we work the entire state of Kentucky and you know we have kids from all over. We have we just took eight siblings from the Middle East.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And we don't know how they got here. They don't know. Some of them don't speak English. Their caregiver was arrested for human trafficking in Texas and they were in Kentucky. They were taken to Texas. I don't really know the. I know it's under. You know I can't talk too much about it, but that is something that we also deal with is the border crisis and human trafficking, and it affects us here in Kentucky.
Speaker 1:It's not just a you know that is something that is people are. So I mean are? We are days away from the election and people are still trying to deny that human trafficking is an issue. Let me tell you, it's been an issue in this country. It has grown exponentially. Um, when people refuse to understand the complexity of the problem, you just outline just one incident Eight siblings trafficked from the Middle East, jen, what are some other things you're seeing there? And in Kentucky, which people tend to think? That the problem is like San Antonio, texas, it stays there. No, this is going out throughout the entirety of the United States.
Speaker 2:So let me be clear. They lived in Kentucky. They were taken to Texas to be sold across the border.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I mean, they had, yeah, and we don't know. You know, like I said, they are ages 1 to 13. Um, you know three we don't really have good documentation. Three of them it says they were born on january 1st. That's like you know. They could have come up with something a little more creative. Um, they, they don't have proper documentation. It is heartbreaking. That is just one case. That is our most recent case. We have kids that are trafficked by their parents for drugs. They're sold for sex so that their parents can buy drugs. They have. We deal with a lot of human trafficking cases that are, you know, local. They it happens in our backyards. But, yeah, as far as the border you would be, if you can't comprehend it, then you need to actually step up and work the front line and get a good, a good hard look at it yourself and then at that point you cannot deny it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everybody attaches themselves to the heartwarming story of an immigrant family coming over the border seeking asylum, and that's that's not the whole picture.
Speaker 2:That's a very small portion of the picture, um and to make this even more, um more eye-opening for me was these kids were indoctrinated and taught that we were evil, that white people were evil the littles you know I'm talking. They fought, they cussed us, they were taught that we were the enemy. They didn't come over here seeking asylum.
Speaker 1:God that I mean there. It is like if you're looking for any more truth to what's really going on, like this is, and this is just one of thousands and thousands of stories out there absolutely it's horrific.
Speaker 2:It is horrific and if you just think, like one case, one case is enough, like in science, like in psychology, like if the degree of error is too broad, like we can't, it's there's no validity, we can't do it. Like it's too dangerous, this is so dangerous, like why would we? Like? I don't understand, I am dumbfounded by just the blatant denial of our politicians on like there's mountains of evidence that shows, like this is dangerous. We should never have done this. The degree of error is there, like there's too many things that are happening that are not good to make it worth it. It's not worth it. Yeah, so, yeah, that's a problem and I want everybody to think about that. And you know, with foster care we have, we get all those kiddos that, all those kiddos that come over here across the border, border, when they're people that brought them or deported or abandoned them, they end up in our agencies, that's. You know, we get them all and that's best case scenario.
Speaker 1:That's that's, that's the thing to realize. That's the best case scenario. The these kids are found, they are brought to a place where there are people that care and can provide food supplies and love and truly try to care for them. That's best case. The worst case scenario is what's happening that none of us know about, or we pretend we don't know what's going on, and they're being brought in into a hellish existence and I I don't want to continue living in a world like that. I don't want this to continue being the everyday norm, like. We have to have some sort of awakening to realize, like, okay, we, we need to actually like, go to where the source and fix this problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we're highlighting like the best possible outcome for these kids. But you know you go down, it gets darker and darker and darker. Human trafficking is not just sex trade, it's not just, you know, free labor, it's organ harvesting it is. You know, free labor, it's organ harvesting it is. You know they may sell somebody into the sex trade at a young age, from the time they're born, and then you know they may get murdered in the process. But they're going to put those organs on ice and they're going to. It doesn't just stop there. It's a very dark, very evil.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Truth. It's happening that we all, all need to, just we need to accept it and we need to do whatever we can to prevent it. So, closing the borders, making it tighter to come in, like, like, like you said and like I said, you'd be a fool to think that it's not a problem. At this point, there's too much evidence that suggests otherwise.
Speaker 1:No, jen, I can't thank you enough for being here. I do want to end it. We were talking about one of the most tragic and most heartbreaking aspects of our current life right now in the United States. But to take it back to something positive, you're also part of our community because you're a military spouse, and I just want to say thank you for coming on and being vulnerable enough to share your entire story, but for also being part of our community because you're married to. You know you want to. You're one of us. You're married to one of our Greenbrae brothers and I just want to say I know it's not easy. It's probably one of the hardest things you have to do coming from work and then having to deal with our green brave madness but thank you for what you're doing on all fronts and we have to connect. So I have some information to pass off for your husband, because he's coming close to retirement, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, Jason writing ladies and gentlemen, writing ladies and gentlemen, he's coming up on retirement at 29 years and he wanted to stay. He wanted to stay, but they would not let him stay past mandatory retirement. I'm honored to be his wife. He is my hero. I tell him, if I could be anybody besides myself, I would be Jason Ridings. He is the best. But you're too kind. Thank you for your kind words. He's very supportive of my career and, yeah, we're excited about it. I know it's it's you know it's happening in real time for us and for him. So it's wild talking about it, because it's really like it's happening right now and he's had an entire life of this.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, you know he came in as a Marine for a few years and then he became a Green Beret. He was with Third Special Forces Group, then he was with SWCC for a while as an instructor at Range 37. Then he came to Fifth Group. It'll be a huge change. I would love to get some information, some resources from you. That would be great. That's what we're all about. Some resources from you, that would be, great.
Speaker 1:That's what we're all about, and I got you. Everybody goes through transition. We all have to leave the world of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys at some point we all have to. And it's going to be even better for him on the outside. He's going to have an amazing chapter two because he's got an amazing warrior right next to him who's going to keep his ass in check. That's what we need.
Speaker 1:It's not going to be easy. Some days are not going to be pretty because, you have to remember, this has been his entire life. So it does have some elements of grief. It does have some elements of feeling like you don't have any purpose. But I mean he's got the best partner to get him through this and a security hall. We'll definitely be throwing some resources your way to help him transition and find his next best chapter when he finally puts his boots up and retires him for good. But yeah, it's awesome to see that. You know there's those Pete, those guys that stick around around like they're. Everybody has to go through it. We have to all eventually go through that final test that's going on through the outside. But, like I said, he's going to be great and it's going to be an amazing chapter for him.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I love the positivity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it doesn't have to. There's this whole camp where it's like it's the best and I forget who it was they posted this video of. Like this firefight from a movie is like that's what I wanted my career to end and I'm like no, fuck. No. There's so many life out there and life really does get better once you find out that next chapter. Because, let me tell you, you are a person of service your entire military career.
Speaker 1:When you get on the outside, you're an even more powerful person of service. You can advocate for your brothers and sisters. You can advocate for people in other groups that need support. You can work in prisons and help change the mental health culture within there, or you can get involved with foster care, like Dr Jen Cooley right here. You can do so many different things and here's the great part Nobody's telling you what to do.
Speaker 1:It's all about you, what you want to do. If you want to friggin' just go fishing and hunting and start an outdoor guide company, you can literally do that. An outdoor guide company, literally do that. But it's just great having that ability. So I know he's going to land on his feet. I know he's going to find something amazing for this next chapter and I can't wait for you guys to come back on the show to talk about it, because I know you guys are going to be a powerful couple and a powerful force for good on the outside. So thank you so much for being here. If people want to get involved absolutely People want to donate or bring any sort of resources to bear to help your foster care little ones when can they go to find out more information?
Speaker 2:Oh, you can reach out to me personally. Actually, we have things going on all the time, you know we have. We need sponsors for Christmas for our kiddos. Sponsors for Christmas for our kiddos. Um, and you know a lot of guys, um, I've already I've already got people um in our community and your community that have signed up to help sponsor these kids um for Christmas. So you can reach out to me personally. Um, uh, my Instagram is drinks with Jen.
Speaker 1:Uh, I'll put that in the episode description and then right here you'll see it pop up.
Speaker 2:Video editors.
Speaker 2:I love that yeah, and then also, if you wanted to just look at my agency, heritage foster care, um, and, and don't just stop there, like we're only we're in the state of Kentucky, but just look up, look and see who's in your community and and they would be so thankful, like they need all the help they can get.
Speaker 2:There's so many, so many foster homes outside of the state, like outside of DCS or DCBS, like there's a lot of private foster care agencies that take that the runoff because the state is, you know, they have, they're inundated with so many kids. So that's why you have these private agencies that open up to take, you know, to help them. And to, you know, take those kids, like you said, that do need a higher level of care, that are older, that might be teenagers that aren't, you know, do you need a higher level of care that are older, that might be teenagers that aren't you know they're, just they've had a hard time, for whatever reason, finding permanent placement. So look in your local community, you know, do Google search it, call your local sheriff's department, call the Department of Human Services, the Department of Child, and just start there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, jen. Thank you so much for being here. Uh cannot wait to have you guys back on to all y'all tuning in. Thank you for being here, thank you, uh. Thank you for checking us out and I'll see you all next time. Until then, take care If you like what we're doing and you enjoying the show, don't forget to share us. Like us, subscribe.
