Jannetta Marie LCSW

09/18/2025

Trauma & The Brain — A New Insight

As many of you know, I specialize in trauma work. Right now, I’m participating in another in-depth training about how trauma impacts the brain, and I wanted to share something powerful I just learned.

Attention mothers: Trauma doesn’t always start after birth. Research shows it can begin in utero.
When a mother is in a state of chronic stress or dysregulation, her body produces higher levels of stress hormones (like cortisol). These hormones can cross the placenta, meaning the baby begins life already receiving signals of stress.

This doesn’t mean hope is lost; it means awareness is key.
With support, healing, and healthy regulation, both mothers and babies can move toward safety, balance, and resilience.

What are your thoughts on how early life experiences shape us? comment below

08/31/2025

“Conferences won’t heal a broken church, but prayer, fasting, and mental health awareness can.”
Right now, too many churches are facing scandals, including devastating allegations of s**ual abuse in leadership. At the same time, people are feeling more hopeless than ever in this political and cultural climate. What the church needs most isn’t another conference. It needs healing.
The truth is this: from pastors to lay members, mental health struggles are everywhere in the church. And because mental health awareness is often overlooked, too many suffer in silence, untreated and unsupported. When struggles go untreated, they don’t just disappear. They grow into mental illness.
This is why I believe mental health must become part of the church’s ministry.
📢 Coming Fall 2025: Mental Health Training for Church Leaders.
It’s time to bridge the gap between the church and mental health so the church can truly be a place of hope, healing, and restoration.

08/01/2025

06/25/2025

Women's support group loading

06/22/2025

The recent shooting in Tulsa our Black community is deeper than Black-on-Black crime.
This is a **mental health/illness** and "trauma response issue".

It starts at home with what our children *see*.
Children learn how to manage stress, solve problems, and regulate their emotions by observing their parents. Key word: **watching**. If parents are overwhelmed, angry, shut down, or emotionally unavailable, children internalize that as their blueprint for life.

**A trauma response** is how the mind and body learn to survive in unsafe, chaotic, or emotionally painful environments. It can show up as anger, emotional numbness, hypervigilance, people-pleasing, lashing out, shutting down, or even detachment.

Over **90% of the behaviors we see in our community are trauma responses**, but most of us have no idea.
Because many of us were never taught what mental health really means, we were just taught to **keep going**.
And now we’re raising kids in that same survival cycle.

**Black people, please**
Get a mental health therapist who looks like you.
Get someone who understands the weight of generational trauma and can help you walk into healing, not just survival.

We deserve better. Our children deserve better.
Let’s break this cycle, not repeat it. 💔🖤

02/08/2025

✔️ out my new podcast The kitchen table focusing on mental health and parenting.

The kitchen table holds deep cultural and emotional significance in the Black community. It’s more than just a place to eat—it’s a space for connection, stor...

01/24/2025

12/03/2024

Who is here right now and how does it feel?

11/14/2024

10/10/2024

Part 1 Are you or were you a Narcissistic mother? Is your mother a narcissist?
Narcissistic mothers can have a profound impact on their children due to their need for control, attention, and validation. A mother with narcissistic tendencies often prioritizes her own needs over her child's, leading to a range of emotional and psychological consequences for the child. Here are some characteristics commonly associated with narcissistic mothers:

1. Lack of Empathy:
Narcissistic mothers often struggle to empathize with their children's emotions, focusing instead on how situations affect them. This can leave the child feeling unseen and unsupported.
2. Control and Manipulation:
These mothers tend to be highly controlling and manipulative, using guilt, blame, or withholding affection to achieve their goals. They may also attempt to control significant life decisions for their children.
3. Enmeshment and Boundaries Issues:
A narcissistic mother may not respect her child's boundaries and may treat the child as an extension of herself. This can lead to emotional enmeshment, where the child's identity and desires become subsumed by the mother’s needs and expectations.
4. Perfectionism and Criticism:
Children of narcissistic mothers may experience constant criticism and unreasonable expectations. This can create a sense of inadequacy and a feeling that love is conditional upon meeting the mother's demands.

10/07/2024

Here's a helpful mental health tip for today!
Getting enough rest is crucial since the glymphatic system kicks into gear while you sleep. What exactly is the glymphatic system? Thanks for asking! The glymphatic system helps remove waste and toxins that accumulate in our brains throughout the day. Lack of sufficient sleep can disrupt the glymphatic system's function, resulting in various issues for the brain, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, concentration difficulties, and other cognitive impairments. Don't forget to prioritize your rest!