[00:00:00] Meghan Judge: We've all been put here for a reason and we all deserve acceptance. Judging Megan 

[00:00:10] Angela Kennecke: with Megan Judge. As one of the most popular podcasters out there, Megan Judge may look like she has it all. I moved to

[00:00:25] Meghan Judge: LA to become an actress, met my husband who was a working actor at the time. And on a TV show had a billboard on the Hollywood Strip and Sunset Boulevard, you know, I was like, Oh, I'm going to forget about all my problems. 

[00:00:41] Angela Kennecke: But as you may know, wealth, money and fame doesn't solve all of your problems. In tonight's episode of Grieving Out Loud, Megan opens up about her past traumas and grief.

She reflects on the pivotal moments that led her to heal and offers invaluable advice for others facing life challenges. 

[00:00:59] Meghan Judge: We're here for such a short time on this planet. There's gotta be a reason why these things happen. And what you do with the aftermath is what really matters.

[00:01:16] Angela Kennecke: Megan, it is a pleasure to see you again. Thank you so much for having me as a guest on your podcast. I'm so happy you could join me on Grieving Out 

[00:01:23] Meghan Judge: Loud. podcast. I loved meeting you. It's always sad when it's under the circumstances of loss and grief and losing a child like you did is so devastating. I say a lot of times, because I do talk a lot about grief myself, that it takes a village, you know, like you're in a club that nobody wants to be in when you go through the labs.

But, you know, I really look up to you. And from the minute I met you, I just knew you were a really special lady. So it's really an honor to be on your podcast. So thank you so much. That's 

[00:02:02] Angela Kennecke: so kind of you to say thank you. I saw something. It might've been after we talked on your podcast. I saw it on your Instagram and it was a picture of you and I believe your husband and you looked so happy and everything looked so great.

And under that picture you wrote, I posted this and I don't remember what year it was and everything was horrible and awful, but nobody knew that. And I thought it was so interesting, you know, cause we all do that, right? We all post pictures. And they're essentially lies. 

[00:02:38] Meghan Judge: It's so true. I like to say, I wish I had my Facebook life, my social media life.

And when I started my social media for judging Megan for my podcast, I just decided I have a personal one that I use where I post like pictures of my kids and stuff like that, but I really kind of. Now, even when I post on my personal, and I just like to be real, so I might post pictures of my kids or if we're on vacation and we are happy and smiling, but I just, I think part of what's ruined the world, and I hate to be so cynical, is the fact that, like, we can't be real anymore, and we have a mental health crisis, and if one thing I leave this planet doing is trying my darnedest to Be authentic because I wasn't for a really long time and pretty upfront and honest about, I felt like I had to portray a certain image, which I still do.

I still love nice things like we all do. I still get Botox. I want to look good for my age, but I also want people to understand that. And when I posted that picture. I was trying so hard to fake that my life was perfect, you know, but it really wasn't. Inside I was crumbling and in a really, really dark, bad place.

Yeah, I think 

[00:03:59] Angela Kennecke: when my daughter died, I wrote a lot of blogs that are very raw, very, very honest. almost probably painfully so for some readers, but I wrote a blog called faking a perfect life long before social media. So I had a picture of my husband and I at our wedding where we said it's never too late to live happily ever after.

And this was a second marriage. It wasn't even posting. It was just, you know, I had these pictures, right? So they, it looked like everything was perfect. So it was before everybody was posting on social media and, I thought of all the things that went wrong at that wedding and with the children and everything, but I didn't, none of that.

You could tell any of that by the picture, 

[00:04:44] Meghan Judge: right? I mean, you have a major background in like TV and journalism. So, because I was an actress when I was young, it's kind of like the same kind of thing. You're supposed to portray this like perfect image of a human being, like blonde, pretty, you know, just to fit in.

And I would think that it would be the same way. When you're a journalist, because it's all about what you look like, right? 

[00:05:09] Angela Kennecke: Especially a television broadcaster. You know, the thing about even before social media, people would send me letters about my hair call, you know, especially for women, if you not a certain way, you don't look a certain way.

So you do get to the point where you feel like you have to look perfect. And of course, no one ever looks perfect, but we feel like you have to look a certain way all the time. You just feel this incredible pressure, and I had 35 years of that, 

[00:05:37] Meghan Judge: so. But also, don't you feel like, as you age, it really does damage to us as women?

I don't know if you saw the Burby movie, but. Yes, I did. I did. Like, so many women, I saw that, and I watched that scene with Margot Robbie, and I just was hysterically sobbing. Because it is so true as women, you know, we're really supposed to be everything to everyone and that includes like how we age. And it's a very difficult thing when you are young to look a certain way and then kind of know that that's not going to last forever, right?

And we can do whatever we. Can do to keep up with like the hands of time and we have so much technology behind it But I think like being a mother to two girls I really try to focus on that because my mom was a beauty queen Like I don't want them to fall into the same kind of trap that I did, you know 

[00:06:40] Angela Kennecke: Right that comparison and I think when you have something really horrible and traumatic happen in your life that is public Then that sort of upends all of it right like so you can't pretend anymore.

I think that's what I just had to really embrace when my daughter died from fentanyl poisoning, that this was my new reality. And I remember feeling like this is not the way our stories were supposed to go, right? I had no control. I guess I could have hidden from it, right? I could have never disclosed the cause of her death.

I could have just gone on, not talked about it. And I do know people that have made that choice. I know people in the public eye that have made that choice. Maybe somebody knows their child died, but they don't know anything else, right? And I just made that decision that I couldn't run from it, I couldn't hide from it, I couldn't pretend like everything was okay.

[00:07:31] Meghan Judge: I think it's such a brave choice. I mean, it's kind of along the same lines as suicide. You know, like we can kind of get into my story, but most people that struggle with the loss of a child to suicide or their suicide of a parent or suicide in their family in general, there's one of two directions they're going to take.

They're going to pull their Facebook or their social media down and pretend like that person. You know, we're just not going to tell anyone and we're going to have a memorial service and that's it. Or the same thing, I would assume, with like Elastifentanil or any kind of drug overdose or addiction. I think it's so brave of you because the lives that you have helped along the way with Emily's Hope.

We're here for such a short time on this planet. There's got to be a reason why these things happen and what you do with the aftermath. is what really matters. And it's living an authentic life. That's what I think at least. And part 

[00:08:32] Angela Kennecke: of that for you was starting the podcast, Judging Megan, and talking about your own trauma and other people's trauma.

Just these things that happen to us in life, so many things out of our control. And in your own case, you've shared your own story.

Megan's story begins with heartache at a very young age. When she was just two, her little sister died at nine months old due to a liver disease. My

[00:09:07] Meghan Judge: mom found her. That was kind of the beginnings of life. You know, our brains aren't fully developed until we're actually 27 for women. So. for a toddler, not trauma. It has to go someplace, right? So for me, that was just like the very beginnings of my life. And then it was just loss after loss in my life. I lost my dad to leukemia when I was 13, after nine months of struggling.

And then I lost my very, very best friend, who I met the day after I lost my dad, to It was really awful. She was going to deliver my godson and they didn't connect the tubes and the epidural properly. So one of the tubes was airborne. They actually did a Dateline about it. 

[00:09:59] Angela Kennecke: This 

[00:10:00] Meghan Judge: is Dateline Monday. 

[00:10:02] Angela Kennecke: On the Dateline episode that aired in 2006, the reporter said that her friend Julie's autopsy found she died from acute bacterial Meningeal encephalitis, a swelling of the brain caused by an infection.

[00:10:18] Meghan Judge: She contracted meningitis into her spinal cord and her brain swelled. You know, she was brain dead, so I had to fly all the way across the country from L. A. to D. C. and they pulled her off life support right after I got there. a medical mistake. Yes, which is very common that people don't really understand how many errors and things can happen in hospitals not to scare people.

I try not to tell pregnant women that story ever because it's so rare too, but it's, it happened. And basically what happened after that was, you know, I also had an abusive alcoholic stepfather, like I had an eating There's a whole slew of things in my up to my twenties.

[00:11:08] Angela Kennecke: Megan was set on making a change and leaving her past pain behind. She decided to move to L. A. to follow her dream of becoming an actress.

[00:11:19] Meghan Judge: Met my husband, who was a working actor at the time. And on a TV show had a billboard on the Hollywood Strip and Sunset Boulevard. You know, I was like, Oh, I'm going to forget about all my problems. My life is totally different now. And the thing about grief and trauma is it eventually boils up. You can run, but you can't hide.

I like to say that to people. So I ended up, you know, moving to the beach, a really pretty beach community. And outside of LA, I live there still. I had both my children. Thought I was supposed to like, live this life of, you know, everyone around me is attractive, has money, got myself into this really bad group of friends with not very nice women, got really burned.

And basically what happened was that friend breakup, the way the women kind of treated me, just brought everything. everything, all my trauma to a boiling point. So that happened in like 2019. Found myself just for six months of my life. Just I can't do this anymore. I'm done. And I and I wanted to kill myself.

I was suicidal.

You know, I was in therapy. I went in medication. There is always a way out. I like to tell people that and I'm still here. It doesn't mean it's perfect. It's not 

[00:12:49] Angela Kennecke: perfect now, you mean? No, life is never going to be perfect. 

[00:12:52] Meghan Judge: No, life. So I know that's a huge mouthful, but you know, it was a lot, a lot in my younger years.

I almost went through, I like to say, like a horrific tragedy, like every decade. Yeah, 

[00:13:08] Angela Kennecke: well, what strikes me is losing a sibling at such a young age, you don't understand what's going on. But you can certainly sense the adults around you and you certainly absorb all of the emotions and the feelings and that's imprinted on your brain at such a young age.

And so much loss losing your dad, losing your best friend. I mean, I can't, I haven't lost my best friend. You know, I have a best friend since college, right? And we talk several times a week on the phone. We don't live in the same city, but we see each other. And that would be such a horrible loss to endure, I just think.

But also like. Women friendships are so important and I had a similar experience, maybe I'm sure it's not exactly the same, but after I lost my daughter, Emily, and this happens to many people who lose a child and you're in extreme grief, like your behavior is not always rational. It's not always normal.

You are suffering intensely, especially in the first year to two years. And I lost my entire group of female friends that I hung around pretty much. I mean, there were a few that stuck through. that was hurtful too. It's like a loss upon another loss. And, you know, I guess you find out who people really are, but it certainly isn't fun.

[00:14:25] Meghan Judge: It can relate. The thing about women, and I talk to groups of people, like do speeches and talk to people, and a lot of times women reach out to me and they say, Oh, I went through this, because I do talk a lot about these women. I still have to have, Encounters with them. I'll say that in a nice way. My kids still go to the same school.

It's very hard, but women are so amazing in so many ways, right? We have so much love in our hearts. We are taught though, from a young age, almost to be jealous of each other. I don't know what it is and be pinned against each other. And so there's this. kind of weird side where we're really catty and can be really mean because I think it all stems from like jealousy and Competition or something like that, but I'm really sorry to hear that that happened I think sometimes I found that your true friends are the ones that matter So I'm so lucky enough to have my other best friend from childhood Kara some of my college friends and my high school friends And I have friends here in this area, but I'm very selective now.

I'm wondering if you are too. I think I just really, when I have a bad feeling about something, I don't give people chances like I used to. Right. You don't 

[00:15:45] Angela Kennecke: trust maybe the way that you used to, but it's a very common thing. I've talked to lots of moms who've lost a child who also lost friends. You know, it's, people don't want to be around that intense grief.

Not everybody can handle it, and a lot of friendships are more superficial than you may think.

Because of her abandonment, grief, and trauma, doctors diagnosed Megan with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Complex PTSD, has recently gained attention after being first described in the late 1980s.

[00:16:23] Meghan Judge: It could stem from childhood trauma, so it's different than PTSD because PTSD could be somebody that was in the war or somebody like you know, what you went through, like finding a child, sadly, that's PTSD. Complex PTSD is just a little bit different because it kind of stems from childhood trauma. So a lot of times I talk a lot about being an ace, so adverse childhood experiences, so I'm an ace, and it kind of goes hand in hand with that.

A lot of times aces are also diagnosed with complex PTSD. 

[00:17:00] Angela Kennecke: And addiction, and addiction, you know, that's One of the main precursors for addiction. I have so many. I ace gork, but I don't have addiction, but I just thought, you know, it's, it's interesting how those things affect us throughout our entire lives, where I think people used to think, Oh, that was when you were a kid, you know, you put that behind you, you move on, you go on.

And I also want to talk to you about like the death of a sibling. Cause I really worry. My kids were in high school 

[00:17:27] Meghan Judge: when they lost their sister, 

[00:17:28] Angela Kennecke: but I really worry about how that. impacts them for the rest of their lives as well. 

[00:17:33] Meghan Judge: I don't think that I have survivor's guilt, but I do think I had it, if that makes sense.

Because I was so young, I also have two older sisters and a brother and my brother wasn't even born. So my mom had Patrick after Maura died, but my two older sisters, I've always wanted to ask them if they have had survivor's guilt because For me as a kid, I know I had it because I would have reoccurring dreams.

And my parents had to send me to a psychiatrist when I was probably in like fourth grade, because I would have this reoccurring dream that I picked my sister up out of her crib and I lashed her down the toilet and I would wake up screaming, like terrified. I mean, that happened when I was two, so I was still having the dream until like nine.

So, Yes, I think that that manifested for me as SurvivorSkill, I think that the loss of a sibling is so hard for people that could have really comprehended it, I just couldn't because I was so young, although I will say this, we were almost Irish twins, so I think that I've always had this like weird thing with wanting to bond with And I'm wondering if it, this is me like psychoanalyzing myself, but I wonder if it stems from being an almost Irish twin and losing my sister, you know, I don't know.

Sure. Yeah. It's an interesting question though, for sure. 

[00:19:12] Angela Kennecke: How does the complex PTSD show up in your life? Is it still show up or do you feel like you have things in balance now? 

[00:19:20] Meghan Judge: No, it's, well, I'm going to be honest with you. So I'm in perimenopause. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. And so I don't know if it's, I just had a conversation, I have a, a menopause specialist coming on tomorrow.

And I just said, I don't know if this is like. me like losing my marbles because I'm in perimenopause and like, I want to give the middle finger to everybody pretty much at this point. Or if this is a period of my trauma where I need to get myself back in therapy, because I'm a huge advocate of always being in therapy if you can, or do I need to be on like some kind of anti anxiety medication again?

I don't know. I don't know what's going on, but. Things that I personally deal with, with the complex PTSD, part of it is I have major abandonment issues. I have major trust issues. I have lifelong anger, like anger, anger, and I have like an overwhelming sense of always feeling like I'm not good enough, or I'm not worthy, or I'm a sham, or like someone's gonna find out I'm not great.

Nobody really needs to put me down because I put myself down in my head like a hundred more times a day than you could ever say something mean about me. 

[00:20:46] Angela Kennecke: Sadly, I think there are a lot of people walking around the planet feeling exactly like that. I've heard that a lot before. Kind of that imposter syndrome is what you're talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't have that, but I definitely push myself too hard, work too hard, do too much. So there's probably something in there with that. So the perimenopause thing, when you bring that up, I think that one of the things, it will be interesting to listen to your podcast with the doctor because women's health and hormones have just been horribly ignored by.

Our medicine, modern medicine and our health systems. And I, I've, I've learned so much from some really great doctors that I've had a chance to talk to and work with, uh, those issues and just like hormones and understanding women's hormones and how to balance them and how to keep women healthy. And I mean, I'll just been ignored and women have just been told, you know, Oh, go home.

This is just part of aging, you know, when they come in to see the doctor. So I think, you know, you see Oprah talking about that now and lots of other people. And so I think some of that is starting to change. But we need to take the changes that women go through seriously and find therapeutic ways to treat that that are 

[00:22:02] Meghan Judge: healthy.

Yeah, thankfully, I mean, Oprah, who doesn't love Oprah? She's like a pioneer in so many ways and I consider us like lucky to be in this time. I cannot imagine what it was like in the 80s. you know, for all time to be a woman, because we now are starting the conversation about it. Thank God. It's just so unfair.

Like I said, in the beginning of this episode, you know, we're expected to be perfect. We're expected to be pretty. We're expected to be smart. We're expected to say the right thing, wear the right thing, but not too smart. And don't get angry. Smarter. Yeah. And then we have our children. And then. We can't have babies anymore.

And then we're just kind of like pushed out and ignored, become invisible. Yeah, we're invisible. And I think the first time it really hit me was I always have had a young, kind of a young voice, and I've always been fortunate probably because I started getting Botox at 25. Wow. Yeah. I like deep 11s. I know.

I live in LA. That explains it. The first time I noticed it was like, I went to the grocery store and somebody called me, ma'am. And I turned around and I was like, what? I'm not a ma'am. I was so offended by it. And then I thought about it and it made me so sad because I kind of went, is this the end? Like nobody's going to pay attention to me anymore and it's always been about like what I look like and now do I have to worry about like, I don't know.

It's a weird thing like how we treat women and the thing is, is like science and the medical community doesn't put money into this cause because we're women. But if it was a man, like look at the little blue pill, look at like how much money they put into men. Right. We're always going to be the second class citizen.

So it's like a whole thing, but thank God for Oprah. 

[00:24:15] Angela Kennecke: Well, and your guests will be interesting to listen to. And you had a lot of interesting guests on your podcast. What have you learned? Is there anything that you've really learned or is there a theme or something from all the guests that you've had on talking about, you know, grief and trauma and all the things that 

[00:24:32] Meghan Judge: you talk about?

I think I've learned that as hard as I consider my life to be. or things I go through in a day, or feeling like I sometimes don't want to be here, or whatever, or not fitting in, or all the things that we feel as human beings. I've learned so much from other people, like life is not easy for anybody. It's just not, and I love what I do because it really gives me a purpose, and it kind of like, starting this podcast, I know this sounds random, but it, Kind of saved my life in a lot of ways because I started it in COVID.

I was in the worst place. It was when my husband and I took that picture right after that. I had no friends because I had gone through that friend breakup. All my friends were back East. I literally had no friends. I was like, I have nothing to lose. I have a scarlet letter on me already. Everybody thinks they hate me.

I might as well do what my dad always taught me. which was my dad used to say, be happy by making other people happy. He was a really, really good person. And so I was like, I'm going to really try to be a good person for as long as I'm here. Because I wasn't always, I've always been like a nice, funny girl and fun, but I didn't really like think my life's mission was to normalize mental health or talk about, you know, being an ace or talk about abuse or.

the homeless crisis or all the things or the drug epidemic, all the things that really matter to me right now. I never would have thought I would be at this place, but now I'm happy about this part of my life. I'm guessing you feel the same way. I know that I help other people and that's really fulfilling.

It really honestly is for me. I always 

[00:26:33] Angela Kennecke: say that helping other people helps me because it's a place for me to put my grief. It's something for me to do. With something that was so horrible and I didn't know what to do with it and it helps me almost more than I think it helps the other person and I always wanted to help people through journalism, through telling stories, but I was also really focused on my career and now I'm not focused on a career.

I'm just focused on trying to do good in the world and change the world. I mean, I think when I was an investigative reporter, it was about change. But it was a lot about my own work, what I was doing for work and how I was doing it. And now it's always, always about the other person, you know, yeah, it's 

[00:27:18] Meghan Judge: different.

Yeah. I think it's, it's a gift that you don't want, you know, it's like, do we want these glasses in our lives? Hell no. Like I see people sometimes and I go, God, that girl has everything. She lives in this big giant house. She looks happily married, left, by the way, in class. She has everything, but then you think about it or you hear like a week later, that person's getting a divorce or whatever.

It's like nobody has it perfect, but I also selfishly, I'm very spiritual. I want to get to the other side. And so I feel like if I try my best here, maybe I'll get some points with the man upstairs. And I'll make it up there to be reunited with my family and my friends again. I mean, a lot of religion 

[00:28:13] Angela Kennecke: is based on that, right?

Like you're in your way, but yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. What do you think happens after we die? I really have no idea. 

[00:28:22] Meghan Judge: I spend a lot of time thinking about this because I'm at that age, like we just talked about where I'm up at three in the morning until like five sometimes. Yeah. Me too. The last two nights.

Yeah. It's so fun. I have a whole array of things that I think about. And I don't know the answer. I wish I did, but I, I talk a lot about signs on my podcast. I was born and bred up Catholic. Me too. Yeah. I'm a reformed Catholic because all the social issues like gay marriage, women need to be priests. All the things that I think in my personal life that are so important to me, the church needs to get with it.

But I still go to mass because it grounds me in a way. It's 

[00:29:10] Angela Kennecke: so funny you say that because I've always said I'm a bad Catholic because I don't agree with no birth control, women not being priests, but yet mass always felt like going home to me in 

[00:29:21] Meghan Judge: a way. And that's, I think what that is. And I also left my priest.

I have 

[00:29:27] Angela Kennecke: a really close friend that is a priest too, I think very highly of. 

[00:29:32] Meghan Judge: To answer your question, I think we all wish we knew what happens, but I, I have heard so many signs from guests of mine. I always ask, what's your sign that you know somebody's with you? And the things that I've heard, there's no way there's nothing after this.

[00:29:50] Angela Kennecke: You know, I had a lot of signs from my daughter, especially in the first two years I felt like. And then I thought, are these really signs or am I just wanting them to be signs? And then my grief counselor said, what does it matter if it brings you comfort? You know, what does it matter if it's, you know, is your brain just trying to look for things?

And now I don't get the kind of signs that I used to get early on, which kind of bothers 

[00:30:13] Meghan Judge: me a little bit. That just means, and this is just my opinion, because I never get a sign from my sister, never get a sign from my dad, ever, except one time on an airplane, I heard my dad's voice. I sound like a fack right now.

I was a horrible flyer my whole life, hated flying, got on an airplane, I saw, this sounds so weird, but it happened, I know it happened, unless my brain was idle, and I wasn't drinking, and I was not on an airplane. So, I looked in the window, and I saw my dad's reflection. And my dad used to call me baby girl, and he goes, baby girl, it's going to be okay.

That was like one of the only times I've ever had my dad. This is probably like five years ago, ever since then I've been okay flying, that kind of life. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So like, I don't feel my dad a lot. I don't feel my sister, but Julie, especially when I was going through the horrific pain of that friend breakup time.

Her sign has always been a butterfly, a monarch butterfly. I would see them everywhere. And one day I was walking up a hill and a monarch butterfly, I was going up this huge hill because I like to go on really long walks by the beach and followed me all the way up this hill, all the way up. I mean, so many things have happened where I just, I feel her present and I know she's with me.

So I think some souls just are like far away, but it doesn't mean they're not with us. We just can't feel them. And then other souls, I think, stay really close to us. Yeah. 

[00:31:53] Angela Kennecke: And I just wonder, maybe I needed it more, you know, in the first few years than I do now. I don't know. Definitely felt some days like I couldn't go on.

And I don't feel that as often as I used to. I think that's a normal feeling for a parent who's lost a child. In fact, I know parents who've. Completed suicide after losing a child or drank themselves to death. It's not unusual. I think those feelings are normal. I never, you know, thought of how I would end my life.

I never went that far, but I definitely felt like I can't do this anymore. And I don't feel that way now. I really cling to my other children and my husband and worry about something might happen to them. But you know, grief is fucking that way. 

[00:32:34] Meghan Judge: Right. And maybe that means that she felt like she could like release you a little bit.

Maybe. Because sometimes I don't feel like if I'm, if I'm not going through a hard period, I don't feel like she's close to me. But then other times if I, you know, like I said, grief is that backpack we just said that we carry all the time. And sometimes the backpack is too heavy. And other times you're perfectly fine and you almost like.

not forget about it, but you put it in a place where you're like, I'm having a good day. I'm happy.

[00:33:15] Angela Kennecke: Even though Megan says she has good days or weeks or months, dealing with grief is just part of her journey. She shares this story, not only on her podcast, but also with live audiences, keeping it real about the ups and downs of healing.

I talk about Emily's story to communities and schools. And, you know, there's a lot of drug prevention efforts that I do and trying to end this fentanyl overdose epidemic. And you're out there talking about this trauma that happened to you. And when I talk about trauma, I go right back to the day my daughter died and I talk about it.

And then I think a lot about all this talking about trauma also retraumatizes me. You know, do you, do you feel that way? Like just even summing up, like, yeah. All my younger sibling died, my dad died, my best friend died, but even just talking about it, it can bring up so 

[00:34:11] Meghan Judge: much. It's interesting that you bring that up because I remember in your interview on my podcast, you said, you know, some days I can just tell the story and kind of like put it in a place on a shelf and be done with it and be like able to move on because I've been doing this for a while.

Don't quote me on that, but it was something along those lines that you said. And I'm the same way, like I just told you that story really briefly because it's a long, you know, years of stuff, but some days, the one that really gets me is Julie. That was my best friend's name, just because we were so close.

I believe people come into our lives and friends can be soulmates, just like husbands and partners. I think. We're very connected. I still feel connected to her in this life. I feel like I say a lot, she's just in the next room and I just can't see her. And that's really hard for me, but I know she can see me.

And when I kind of talk about that, that chokes me up a little, but other days I can just, you know, it's almost like I've told this story so much. I can just share it and be okay. But then I don't know if you're like this at the end of the day, some days. or watch a movie or hear a song and I'll just go to bed, cry, grieve.

It's just part of my being for the rest of my life. 

[00:35:45] Angela Kennecke: I do understand that. I feel like grief is something I will always carry. It's kind of like an extra backpack, right? It's not something you really want to carry, but you have to carry it. I'm not a crier. I mean, I have cried, I have bawled, I have cried.

But I get more to the point where I just feel complete exhaustion and despair. That's where I go when I know I'm like burned out on talking about it. And sometimes I've done two presentations in one day and I'm just like, Oh my goodness, it's a lot. And so I think I'm trying to learn, you know, to have boundaries and to take care of myself better.

I'm lucky. I have a really supportive husband who's seen this and realized this about me. He's like, he'll drive me or whatever it takes, you know, 

[00:36:30] Meghan Judge: to help. I think that sometimes, because I do a weekly episode, I've barely ever in three years taken time off. I think I've taken a total of two weeks off the entire time.

Sometimes hearing the stories is a lot, because I, I usually deal with pretty heavy stuff. You know, like I talk a lot about like mass shootings because I'm very passionate about that or suicide prevention or the mental health crisis. And the stories that I hear are really hard, so sometimes it'll put me in this weird place.

Kind of like, I could be having an awful morning, screaming at my kids, and you know how it is to be a mom. You're trying to get your kids out of the house, and you're like, I'm not going to scream this morning. And you do, just because it's so hard. And Then I meet somebody like you or I meet somebody that really doing stuff to like keep somebody's memory alive that they love so much and it really just like fulfills me.

So it's, I don't think to answer your question in a roundabout way that it does really put me in about, I think it always kind of lifts me up, to be honest. 

[00:37:43] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, I was in a room full of people who had all lost children to fentanyl poisoning at a DEA family summit a week ago, and I said to that room of people, I said, We're all here for the same reason, and it's a noble reason, because we don't want anyone else to go through this.

And I think so much of what you do and what I'm doing is we want other people to know they're not alone, who have faced and gone through difficult, horrible things. And we also want to somehow prevent other people from having to go through it, right? We all learn from each other, learn from each other's stories.

[00:38:19] Meghan Judge: I actually knew I was going to be talking to you today and I try really hard as a parent to monitor my 13 year old, like I talked about, and she's really, really hard right now. And I've always been like, do not have Snapchat, you know, like I've heard so much about people buying a pill laced with fentanyl.

off Snapchat. So she knows how strict I am about that. And I walked in her room and she had Snapchat on her phone and she had like random men, like she's 13 following her. And then I really started to think about like you and Michelle and I've done numerous episodes now about people that have less children or someone to fentanyl overdose, that what you do matters so much because.

My daughter has been taught and talked to over and over again about the dangers of fentanyl and snap fat and all this stuff. And yet she's still using it. Yeah, 

[00:39:23] Angela Kennecke: that's the hard part. It's just, you can't control everything that's going on in your child's life. Even parents who are on top of everything, you know.

It's just so easy these days and I think it's interesting that somebody, the social media companies are being sued by attorneys general right now for their addictive properties that they knew they were addictive and some of us, you know, I didn't even know about some of these apps until our kids already had them, like when Snapchat first came out and we weren't really prepared for everything that was happening.

But now we know so much more, right? My kids are in their early twenties. Your kids are younger. And I just think it'd be great if we could just never have them be on any social media until they were adults. But how, how does that happen in our 

[00:40:08] Meghan Judge: world? I mean, that's the thing. It's like we created this monster and it's like an avalanche falling down a hill.

And now we can't get rid of it. Now we have like the dangers of AI. But all I know is I made the mistake of giving her phone in sixth grade because she was the last kid to have one. Yeah. She's addicted to TikTok. Everything's about her appearance. And so I won't do that with my fourth grader. And I'm trying to have a pact with other moms not to do it.

But. Yeah, 

[00:40:40] Angela Kennecke: the pressure I had from my kids was they had to plug their phones in when they were in high school in the kitchen at night. They couldn't take them into their rooms Oh, I was the only parent that ever did that. Every other parent allowed their kids to have their phones all night long and you know, they'd be on those phones all night long.

And about senior year, finally, I think I finally caved into the pressure from my own children to say, okay, they're gonna be in college next year, so they're gonna have to learn how to self-regulate this. But I mean, it's just not a good deal all the way around. 

[00:41:09] Meghan Judge: No, no. And if there was a way that we could go back in time, be back on our phones with the.

What's a wire? Rotary phone? A rotary phone? Because I was the child of the 80s and a teenager in the 90s, you know? Me too, yeah. And it was just like such a great time. We didn't have this same pressure that these kids have now. You know? 

[00:41:35] Angela Kennecke: Not at all. Not at all. I think you and I could talk for hours and try to solve all the world's problems, couldn't we?

[00:41:41] Meghan Judge: Rina, I think what you do is so fantastic and, you know, just telling you that story. is really proof that you need to keep going and sharing the story and maybe the more that people hear it, the less likely somebody would be to like download and Snapchat or buy a pillow or, you know, so I'm so grateful to you for what you're doing for people.

Well, yes. And 

[00:42:08] Angela Kennecke: thank you too, for talking about these things and, you know, keeping the conversation going. It's so 

[00:42:14] Meghan Judge: important. Well, thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure. And, and I'm just so grateful to have met you and know you and looking forward to great things ahead for both of us. Thanks Megan.

[00:42:29] Angela Kennecke: Thank you.

Thank you for spending your time with us. We hope you found this episode helpful. If you did, please consider leaving a five star review and sharing it with your friends and family. You can also check out Megan's podcast by clicking on the link in our show notes. Thank you again for listening. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage.

This podcast is produced by Casey Wandenberg King and Anna Fye.