Jessica-Truman Group
[00:00:00] Mickelle: Welcome, Jessica. Thank you so much for coming on to the House of Peregrine podcast today.
[00:00:06] Jessica: Thanks for having me, Mickelle. It’s great to be here.
[00:00:09] Mickelle: I want to start out by asking you first about your background. I want to get into what the Truman Group does, um, very soon, but I want to ask you, what’s your story?
[00:00:21] Jessica: So my name’s Jessica Fonzi and I’m a clinician with the Truman Group and I I’m joining this call from Nairobi in Kenya, and I just moved a month ago from Kigali in Rwanda. So in the midst of the transition, I have this large empty house, haven’t got my stuff yet, so probably a bunch of people can relate to me creating this desk out of boxes.
[00:00:50] Jessica: So my kids just started a new school, they’re 5 and 8, and before I moved to The continent of Africa, uh, was in New York City. That’s where I did my clinical training and got my licensure. Before I moved, I was running a psychiatric rehabilitation center in New York
[00:01:10] Mickelle: City. And so your international journey began with your husband, when you and your husband decided to follow his work to Africa, is that right?
[00:01:22] Jessica: Yeah, I think it started. I was reflecting on this this morning that actually before I started this career, I was a classical musician, and so I had traveled for that work, but that’s a little bit different, right? Those are really short. It’s a highly scheduled type of thing, and it was mostly in Europe. So just moving abroad, moving to Africa, having, following my, I think we weren’t even engaged, so following my boyfriend at the time was a real big shift for me.
[00:01:58] Mickelle: I can imagine. And so you’ve, you’ve highlighted already a difference, and actually you are probably I’m so used to hearing this is traveling is different than moving abroad.
[00:02:11] Jessica: Yeah. And so
[00:02:13] Mickelle: it sounds like you’ve experienced both, but in your work, you are helping people reconcile with their new, new reality and sometimes, or the effects of that years later.
[00:02:25] Mickelle: And so why don’t you walk us through what you’re seeing there?
[00:02:28] Jessica: Yeah, yeah. Um, as you said, it’s, it’s, um, it’s a real transplantation when we move abroad or some people get transplanted over and over again. And the reasons for it are diverse and the effects of it are diverse. The glimmers that we get in these lives that we’re creating and also the struggles.
[00:02:56] Jessica: But I would say finding. Your comfort and community can often be a challenge, especially if you’re the person that’s not initiating the move. If you’re, yeah, if you’re following someone as was my experience versus my husband’s experience being part of a company or an organization that automatically gives you a structure and community.
[00:03:27] Mickelle: And then I think, yeah. Sorry to interrupt you. So is that who you’re, when you see people in your work, that’s, you’re seeing them at these crossroads often, or after these crossroads.
[00:03:41] Jessica: Yeah, it’s a journey, right? You have that first settling in and that can be challenging. You have the longing for what you left and the reasons that you left and the reasons that you’re there.
[00:03:53] Jessica: And then these lives are transitory and our lives are full of change and transition, no matter where we are, no matter what we, you know, stayed in the town we were born in and never left. Or we travel the world, we experience transitions of life, of death, of loss, and new exciting things, which also bring a lot of change
[00:04:18] Mickelle: and transition.
[00:04:20] Mickelle: What do they say? No matter what’s happening, it won’t last forever. Yeah. It won’t last forever. Yeah. But what would you say, is it more that they, that people have to be aware of these things because it’s not the same as what’s happening to them around, to those around them. So. I always say it feels like I’m living a parallel existence to those who grew up in, I live in Amsterdam.
[00:04:42] Mickelle: So it’s like, I, I feel like I know a lot about Dutch life and a lot about Dutch culture, but, and a lot, like I do as much as I can. And I love learning about the culture here and, but I’m not Dutch and culturally because I grew up in the US, but also I I’m living, I have different challenges. So Not only are we from different cultures, but we’re living different challenges.
[00:05:04] Mickelle: So yes, I travel to see my parents all the time. It seems very luxurious. Not all the time, like once a year, um right. But on the other side, I can’t visit my parents whenever I need or want to. And so those are the two sides of the coin that I think make it so it’s sometimes difficult to confide in people who are around you or relate, uh, to your, to the struggles you’re having.
[00:05:26] Jessica: Right, right. I think that’s so insightful. And then we also have that separation from the, where we grew up and the people and community there. I think about it like a straddle where I’ve got one foot where, um, oh man, I’ve got a lot of feet, right? And then the other locations I’ve been, and then also back home.
[00:05:49] Jessica: What is home, but you know, with friends and family and community back there and their lives keep going.
[00:05:56] Mickelle: Yeah, you’re both, you’re, you’re moving away from each other in some ways, but what I’ve discovered in my life is that actually the, the quality time, there’s not as much quantity, but there’s a lot more quality time that we got to get to spend together, partially because we know it’s, um, precious, but also, um, Yeah, I think you’re just more present to the fact that you, you don’t have infinite amount of time with each other.
[00:06:21] Yeah.
[00:06:23] Mickelle: So these are existential kind of questions and realizations. And so do you think that that is more present with people who are living internationally because that’s just. part of the equation. I think so.
[00:06:37] Jessica: It just becomes very stark. We really see our own culture and the culture of others in a way that it’s a bit invisible if it’s always been our normal.
[00:06:48] Jessica: And I think we approach relationships perhaps
[00:06:51] Mickelle: differently. Yeah. I always say there’s a cult in every culture. Yeah. Yeah. And the Dutch are fun. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but it’s, it’s, you see your own culture. You see that you have a culture, I think that’s the first thing. It’s not just normal. And then you see the culture and everyone else and what everyone else is doing.
[00:07:12] Mickelle: And so when, who are your, who are your clients right now? Who are the people that are coming to you and tell us a little bit about what you help them through.
[00:07:24] Jessica: Sure. Well, just to put it, just to make it explicit that all of the work that we do is confidential. So when I’m, what I will share will be kind of amalgamations of different stories and generalizations.
[00:07:40] Jessica: So, I’m seeing folks who are, I would say, yeah, for the most part, not living in their home or passport country. They have chosen to move abroad, or their family has chosen, so we see kids as well, so they haven’t necessarily chosen this life that they’re engaging in, and so folks all around the world. I’m English speaking, so I’m only seeing folks who speak English most.
[00:08:10] Jessica: American or carrying an American passport, but I see I see folks of all cultures and Truman Group has multiple language speaking providers.
[00:08:20] Mickelle: Yeah. So why don’t we zoom out for a second? First, we said a little bit about the Truman Group before, but why don’t you tell us. What’s the Truman group is all about.
[00:08:30] Jessica: Yeah. Well, Truman group was started by John Truman, who is an American passport holder and grew up here in Nairobi where I am going to the international school. So he’s a third culture kid, like my kids are and really saw a need for psychological services and supports that understood this community. So it’s a kind of for us, by us, uh, mentality.
[00:09:00] Jessica: All of the clinicians have lived abroad or have significant experience with this third culture that we have. And it started as an experiment. Can this be done? I think a little over 10 years ago with just a few folks and now we’ve just, we just keep growing.
[00:09:23] Mickelle: So I guess that it can be done and it is needed.
[00:09:26] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:09:29] Mickelle: And tell me, when you say third culture, we use this word at House of Peregrine a lot and I, I hear people use it all the time. Why don’t you tell me how you define that or how you think about that, that phrase or that title, third culture kid?
[00:09:43] Jessica: Yeah, well, Mickelle, I think you really, really touched it when you shared that we’re in this other culture, you’re in, in Amsterdam, I’m in Nairobi.
[00:09:56] Jessica: So I’m, I’m interacting with Kenyan culture and yet I have my own American culture. And then also interspersed with folks who are not. In their home culture, so folks from all over the world who are also moving around and this traveling mentality creates almost its own culture. I
[00:10:22] Mickelle: think that’s to me.
[00:10:23] Mickelle: That’s what it refers to. Yeah. And so traveling, I think of myself as. Like, I’m pretty settled, like we’ve lived in Amsterdam for eight years, but I still have more in common with someone from across the world, like yourself, than I do from the people that I grew up with or even other people who’ve lived in Amsterdam at the same time.
[00:10:47] Mickelle: And so I always want to know, is it a, is it a worldview? Is it a mentality? Is it a, of course it’s a. It’s a huge privilege to be able to move the way we’ve done, but I always wonder, is it something else? Is it something, there’s a connective tissue that I always want to put my finger on. It’s a, I’m always asking, I ask everybody, so it’s a good answer, but the other thing is I always think of my, I’m like, I’m not a third culture kid.
[00:11:14] Mickelle: I’m a third culture adult.
[00:11:16] Jessica: Right, right. Yeah, I didn’t even know, I barely knew that this kind of life existed when I was growing up. I agree with you. A worldview. I also think there’s a lot of experiences that we have that are unique to this lifestyle, that, and a way of supporting each other. I feel like we’ve become each other’s safety net, or we can.
[00:11:42] Jessica: Yeah,
[00:11:43] Mickelle: yeah, well we, we have to seek our own safety net and our own. Yeah, like. culture or people around us. And so that’s, it’s one thing. So that’s a skill that you learn, you learn, and is that, I think I can guess that that may be part of what you help people with when they come see you is realize this is not going to happen automatically anymore.
[00:12:03] Mickelle: This is a skill. And it also
[00:12:06] Jessica: is, I mean, it’s a little bit of a trial by fire, right? For all relationships and yourself, you pull yourself out of everything. So many things that you didn’t even notice.
[00:12:19] Mickelle: Like
[00:12:19] Jessica: what?
[00:12:19] Mickelle: Tell us. Tell us. Like, I think of things like, um, the things that you, that the places you went, the people you said hi to, the places that gave you comfort, um, you have to rebuild every single thing that brought you comfort, that you liked.
[00:12:35] Mickelle: that supported you. Um, and that’s a manual process. Normally, if you live somewhere for 10 years or you grew up somewhere, you’ve done a lot of that work already. And so this is actually a manual process of reconstructing everything you need, which brings opportunities, but also it’s just a huge.
[00:12:55] Jessica: It is.
[00:12:56] Jessica: There’s a lot of, a lot that is implicit and unconscious that must become very explicit. I remember when I moved to South Africa, I mean, I can’t think there were, it would be harder to list the things that felt familiar.
[00:13:13] Mickelle: And that’s a big shift from growing up in the U. S. and then moving to Africa. That’s a pretty, I always think of for me, at least moving to Amsterdam was like. I always say when we moved here, I was like, Oh, it’s like living, it’s like expat light because the cultures are similar. Boy, was I wrong, obviously.
[00:13:32] Mickelle: But I felt like it was like, um, it was like a test. It was like an easy test to see if we really liked living internationally. And at the time we had three tiny kids, so we really needed it to be a little bit easier. And of course it was, it was a, it’s a direct 10 hour flight back to our family. We tried to go easy on ourselves.
[00:13:52] Mickelle: Right. English is spoken widely. Um, But the challenges still remained, right, even though maybe it was a little bit easier. But in your experience going to a country that I would say is maybe, I don’t know, like I’ve never been to Africa. Let’s put it that way. Like I, I think more people have been to Europe than they have to Africa.
[00:14:12] Mickelle: So they have even a visual understanding of what their life will look like. What was that like for you?
[00:14:19] Jessica: Well, I love that you bring that up. And I will just say that all the places that I have been are called Africa lite. So South Africa, Rwanda, Nairobi, all of that is Africa lite to people who have, you know, been to other parts because they’re very developed, comparatively, places.
[00:14:37] Jessica: I remember when I was first moving to South Africa, you know, people. It was so shocking what people would assume I was going to, whereas when I moved, it felt a lot like Los Angeles there. And I was in Johannesburg, there are giant highways and shopping malls everywhere. And, you know, we have places in America that are full of palm trees.
[00:15:00] Jessica: That wasn’t where I grew up, but, um, but driving on the different side of the road, uh, the level of violence in the society, having to live behind the nine foot gate with a two feet of electric fence on top. Those were shocking, but also the sense of humor and the food and the culture was amazing and the history.
[00:15:27] Jessica: Yeah.
[00:15:28] Mickelle: And so you didn’t choose exactly where you went. Right. This is for your, your husband’s job, but you kind of, it was different than you expected. You, it was more at least visually alike to what you were from or what you expected, but then the culture came in and that it’s always, it’s always, always a transition.
[00:15:50] Mickelle: Even if you move to a different state in the U S there’s different cultures within there, but. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so do you think it was different? Because you, it sounds like you chose, like you were on an adventure in a way. You were like, yes, let’s do this. You were like up for it.
[00:16:07] Jessica: I was up for it.
[00:16:08] Jessica: I was also freaked out. I think when we, we met, I was telling you that I had just changed careers. I was working, I was trying to build a career as a classical singer, but not really enjoying it. And realizing that the career was very different from singing for my own joy. So I decided to leave that career path and I was.
[00:16:33] Jessica: Studying to be a clinician. I hadn’t even finished that study. And my now husband, then boyfriend, we’ve been together for a while. It was like, let’s just go come with, come with me. Take, take a semester off, take a year off from graduate school. Just come. And I, it’s just wild. And then there were some women in my training program who were trailing spouses themselves from other countries.
[00:17:00] Jessica: So one was from India. One was from Singapore. They had careers and lives back in their home country and had relocated to New York before their husband’s careers. And they were doing this. And so I sat them down and I said, what advice do you have for me? How am I going to do this? And they were so wonderful and so supportive.
[00:17:21] Jessica: And they told me that I would learn things about myself that I never knew existed within me. And they’re the piece of advice that they Share that stuck with me was don’t say no to things, put yourself out there if some and tell people what you know about yourself, whenever you meet someone and there’s a little opening in the conversation, just put yourself out there and tell this person who you are and what you are, what you want to do in your life and why you’re here and what you’re hoping for, even if it doesn’t seem like it really makes sense in the conversation and that advice changed my life.
[00:18:00] Jessica: Yeah. I went to South Africa. I quickly realized that I am not interested really cooking or creating a home or, I mean, those things are fine, but that was not going to build a life that way. I love reading books, but I need to be doing something. I need to be connecting with people in my life and I need to be working towards something.
[00:18:21] Jessica: And I knew that music was a part of that, but it wasn’t going to be my whole story. I wanted to be doing work that was similar to exploration of clinical work. So I just started telling people what I’m interested in, what I’m doing. Ended up helping to get off the ground an amazing startup in gender based violence and psychosocial support.
[00:18:43] Jessica: Now, we’re now across Africa at the time they had been around for a year, but how I met them was at a wine tasting. I just was talking to the woman next to me and I said, this is what I’m interested in doing. This is the volunteer work I’d done in the past. And she said, you’ve got to meet my friend. who’s running this organization.
[00:19:02] Jessica: So I went to that organization and I said, Hey, this is me. This is what I’m interested in doing. Uh, and she was like, Oh, you’ve got to meet this friend of mine. This woman just started this other organization. And it ended up changing my life.
[00:19:14] Mickelle: Yeah. And that is such good advice because you don’t have a network.
[00:19:20] Mickelle: There’s no, no, one’s looking for you. International life. No, there’s no headhunters. No one’s like, Oh, welcome to the country. We’re going to find you your people. That’s a, that’s an inside job. So that, that is a really great North star for how to find your place in a new place or find your people in a new place.
[00:19:40] Mickelle: So I want you to say it again. So we tell people who you are, what you know about yourself and what you want, uh, or what you’re looking for.
[00:19:49] Jessica: Yeah, and that’s not me, right? The reason I love singing was because I don’t like doing it in front of people. There are parts of me that are nervous just knowing that this is being recorded.
[00:19:59] Jessica: I like to listen. I don’t like to talk. So the general friendliness and open, you know, American culture, I see it very clearly now, right? There’s very outgoing. You send a lot out. That was not me and who I naturally am. So now that I’m in Nairobi, I’m actually telling myself like, okay, Jessica, you can be like an American golden retriever.
[00:20:24] Jessica: You can just go up to people and just, just put it out there. Just give them your warmth.
[00:20:30] Mickelle: Yeah. And that’s a, once you see it, it’s almost hard to do it. I think, I think it’s been an interesting ride to see your own culture and then it changes you no matter what, even if you don’t want to, or even if you’re not conscious of it, you changed.
[00:20:46] Mickelle: Um, It’s, it’s funny that you’re now choosing when to bring those things out now that you’re seasoned at this, you’re like, okay, I have the strength. I can use it to get to know people because that is really what you’re doing right now. I mean, you’ve moved a, what, a month ago. This is a prime time where we’ve caught you at the perfect time and you, you are, um, solo parenting.
[00:21:06] Mickelle: You said because you’re, yeah, quite a bit.
[00:21:09] Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. So new school, new community.
[00:21:15] Mickelle: Is this the first time you’ve done this with kids or is this multiple times with kids? Yeah.
[00:21:20] Jessica: Multiple times, but I guess only once before I moved to Kigali when my oldest was just over a year old. So that’s very different. I mean, it was, it had its own challenges.
[00:21:33] Jessica: As you know, little kids are really portable and they have needs. Exactly. So wherever you go, they’re like, okay, I have my snacks, you know, we figure it out. The milk tastes different. You know,
[00:21:50] Mickelle: my son was five when we moved here. And he said, after a few weeks, he goes, mommy, when are we going back? And we had, of course, blamed him.
[00:21:59] Mickelle: When are we going home? We had explained to him we’re moving, he didn’t know what moving was, and we explained to him everything, but of course he’s five, and so that was the tipping point I saw, was around five, when he had to go to school, and his world kind of turned into school, that my daughters, who are younger, they were like, okay, they didn’t care, but at five, he was like, he had his notion of home, and what was and wasn’t comfortable.
[00:22:26] Yeah.
[00:22:27] Mickelle: And so that was, that was an interesting thing to have. And then his teacher’s telling us, he doesn’t speak Dutch all day. And us saying, well, he didn’t ask to speak Dutch and they were like, Oh, good point. Good point. He didn’t. He didn’t ask to learn to speak a new language. He wasn’t like, Oh, I’m going to be bilingual.
[00:22:45] Mickelle: He didn’t. There was, it was our desire, not his desire. And so it seems like, do your kids have to learn a different language where they are? Are they at international school?
[00:22:54] Jessica: They are at a British school, so that’s a real shift for us. We were at a kind of forest Montessori school. And that was. Really diverse.
[00:23:03] Jessica: So they’re having a lot of culture shock. When we first moved, we, yeah, we, we did, we chose schools that, I mean, it’s preschool, so we just want them to play and explore. And our daughter went to a really, you know, she was speaking. English French and Kenya Rwanda and all the, all the mixes of that, which was really adorable.
[00:23:27] Jessica: And then, you know, as, as things progressed and we realized that she actually needs some structure. Yeah. And
[00:23:36] Mickelle: you’re making that you’re making those decisions in the vacuum of a move in everything, making these transitions in some ways, it probably is nice because you could change without too much social impact because you’re moving.
[00:23:48] Mickelle: So those are the times to make. Larger changes like that from Montessori to a British school or, it’s an easier, in some ways easier. You don’t have to explain to anybody. You just start up in that new thing. Making those decisions for each individual and your family while at the same time doing a move is actually, it’s quite a lot.
[00:24:06] Mickelle: It’s several projects at once. Yeah.
[00:24:10] Jessica: Oh yeah. I feel like we’re all really great project managers. I mean, the Excel spreadsheets to do the packing itself is just wild. Yeah,
[00:24:19] Mickelle: it is wild. It is. And I think, um, it’s a skill and, and sometimes I think, where would I, what would I do with all the time I would have when I’m not trying to translate something?
[00:24:30] Mickelle: Like, imagine, imagine the things I could do, you know, but I would never, I would never change it. But it is an incredible amount of cognitive overhead that I think sometimes goes unnoticed by us and maybe others.
[00:24:46] Jessica: And I also, you know, I really want to explore how it affects relationships, right by my relationship with my now husband was, I mean, that’s a trial by fire and we do a lot of relationship and counseling work and work with kids and families at the Truman group. And it’s something we see a lot. Yeah. And I understand firsthand.
[00:25:07] Mickelle: Yeah. So someone would come to you if someone’s listening and they are thinking. So when I look up the Truman Group, I see a group of people who help with mental health with people who are international with an internationally minded group. But but it sounds like tell us, tell us all the things that Truman Group covers.
[00:25:30] Mickelle: Okay.
[00:25:31] Jessica: Yeah. So, so couples, individuals, families, kids, we also do the psychological testing, which I think is an amazing service that we launched with a lot of thought and preparation. Because when you’re international and then things come up, right? You suddenly realize that your kid is struggling or you’re struggling in a way that you hadn’t experienced before.
[00:25:57] Jessica: And it’s hard to navigate the resources in your country to get an accurate diagnosis. And figure out what, how can I, how can I drive this car that I find myself driving? Or ride this train I find myself riding? And sometimes You know, we have the culture that we’re living in, the place we’re living, they might have wonderful resources, but they might not understand us and the language that we’re using and the context that we’re navigating.
[00:26:29] Mickelle: Because health and especially mental health is, it’s, it’s an emotional language, right? And so it’s hard to communicate outside of your own language. Um, and it’s hard for people, clinicians sometimes to understand you when you’re speaking your language and they’re speaking their second language or they’re listening in their second language.
[00:26:50] Mickelle: And so it’s hard to get through, but also normal things are not always normal. The stress that maybe an international kid would be under from a move, let’s say, could be mistaken for something else. Right. And so, or vice versa, um, I’ve seen it a lot happen where it’s like, Oh, sorry, your kid, um, isn’t a native Dutch speaker.
[00:27:11] Mickelle: So that’s why they’re having this. And it’s like a few years later you realize, no, no, no, they, they had something going on that they blamed on the language. And so I think this is what you’re saying is the Truman group is able to maybe better assess these things because they’re taking into account the uniqueness of this population.
[00:27:31] Jessica: Yeah.
[00:27:31] Mickelle: Yeah.
[00:27:32] Jessica: And asking questions. I say it,
[00:27:33] Mickelle: I say it like I’m not part of it. The uniqueness
[00:27:35] Jessica: of
[00:27:35] Mickelle: us.
[00:27:36] Jessica: Right. It’s for us, by us, very much so. So I know what it’s like for my kids to suddenly be, to be learning English because they’re little and then also learn, hearing and learning two or three other languages at the same
[00:27:54] Mickelle: time.
[00:27:57] Mickelle: And that brings, that may change the way you Learn how to spell, especially at first. Or you could have a dyslexic kid that you’re, you’ve missed there, you’ve missed a diagnosis.
[00:28:09] Jessica: We’ll see. Right, right, right. But, but having the assessment done with folks who know this in their own lives and also see it, you know.
[00:28:20] Jessica: That’s who we’re serving.
[00:28:22] Mickelle: Yeah. That’s amazing. And so there’s probably patterns and things you guys see over and over again. Of course, every person’s an individual, everyone’s story’s individual, but that pattern recognition as clinicians helps you to maybe take a closer look or to kind of hear things differently, which is important.
[00:28:44] Mickelle: And what I think I heard you say earlier is people can usually receive services in their mother language, their native language. Is that right?
[00:28:54] Jessica: Well, I would have to go back and check the exact number of the clinch. I think we have our team is about Is it a hundred? I think it’s over a hundred now clinicians.
[00:29:05] Jessica: Everybody is licensed to practice in the U S and the Truman group is really discerning about who joins the team. We want to make sure that the services we’re providing are excellent. So they’re very rigorous and growth is a secondary to quality and making sure that we’re, we’re doing right by our folks.
[00:29:27] Jessica: So that all that to say, I know that. There are Spanish speaking providers on the team. I know that there are other languages that I can go back and check.
[00:29:39] Mickelle: Yeah, okay. So it’s, it’s focused a lot on English speaking. Yeah, yeah.
[00:29:46] Jessica: Not to get into the nitty gritty and go down a rabbit hole, but there are a lot of regulations, for good reasons, about all types of Medical practitioners and mental health practitioners and who’s licensed where and what are those regulations?
[00:30:00] Jessica: So navigating that kind of defines who can be on the team.
[00:30:05] Mickelle: Yeah, makes sense. I find that this is, is, it’s not the same thing, but often social media can’t figure out who I am. And so they, it just like. Because it’s made for someone who lives in one country, and so is the, you know, mental health system is kind of made for that.
[00:30:23] Mickelle: Like my Facebook keeps telling me, sorry, we don’t know which country you’re in. My Amazon account keeps saying, can you please register in a country? And I’m like, no, I can’t. Cause I have, you know, two lives. And so I feel like this is what you’re saying a little bit. The regulations are made for people who live in one country and that’s just not, not how our lives go.
[00:30:45] Mickelle: Right. Right. Right.
[00:30:47] Jessica: So I would say the majority, I think, see, I hate to say things in a black and white way. This is the thing about being a clinician that I’m always, I’m always looking for the not black and white. I’m looking for those shades of gray, but everybody on the Truman group is licensed in the U S they might also be licensed in other countries and speak
[00:31:15] Mickelle: other languages.
[00:31:16] Mickelle: We have, uh, folks from around the world. And so this allows people to have the care they need in English while living abroad. Um, because it’s not like you can go, you see, I’m an American as well, even if I went to a therapist virtually in the U. S., they wouldn’t actually know maybe what my life is like.
[00:31:40] Mickelle: They’d have to ask me a lot of questions. It’d take a long time to find some understanding or some sort of, for them to be able to dig in. It would just take a really long time. And then they may never understand, not that they have to understand, but it just really Maybe work through things or get to the bottom of something when you have this experience.
[00:32:02] Mickelle: And so that is what I see the treatment group doing, because there actually isn’t a place sometimes. Um, and in my own life, I’ve seen that with my kids. They go to Dutch school, and so we always have to source outside. If we think something’s going on, whether it is or not, just those checks. We can’t actually always go through the system here, even though it would be really nice.
[00:32:26] Mickelle: Because they don’t know our kids. They don’t know what they’re doing. Always, they don’t know their challenges, and so that, and, and their strengths, they often don’t know their strengths.
[00:32:36] And
[00:32:37] Mickelle: so that, that, I think it’s an incredible thing the Truman Group is doing because it is a really unique use case.
[00:32:44] Mickelle: And it is sometimes hard to find, especially in, like we just talked about, all the things you’re doing in your everyday life. And so I think it’s really incredible that this group exists for this cause. And so I want to know, if someone’s listening. If they are thinking, Oh, I need a little bit of support, um, for myself or for my family, I don’t quite know what I’m going through.
[00:33:08] Mickelle: I can’t, I’ve moved here, I’ve moved somewhere and it was great at first, but now I just can’t put my finger on something is not right. Anywhere from that to, you know, figuring out how to support themselves, support their kids to their relationship, which you wanted to go to. Tell me how relationships are affected.
[00:33:27] Mickelle: I love this subject so much. I cannot tell you, I would love to go down that rabbit hole, romantic relationships.
[00:33:36] Jessica: Right. Right. Well, for myself as an independent woman building my life and my career to suddenly being so, so reliant on my partner for everything financially getting around, he had already lived abroad.
[00:33:56] Jessica: He’d already lived and worked abroad. So he had so much knowledge. And so much experience that he could rely on. I was from New York. I hadn’t driven a car in over 10 years. Suddenly, I have to learn how to drive a stick shift on the other side of the road, uh, with, you know, a frequent threat of carjackings.
[00:34:18] Jessica: That was So to suddenly lose your support system, lose your independence, have to do things you’ve never done before, and maybe a small part of you chose to do them, but you didn’t know that it was going to be that hard. It puts a lot of pressure on a relationship. Meanwhile, on his end of things, you know, he’s never had someone be so dependent upon him.
[00:34:44] Jessica: Um, Yeah, it just, it just really shifts the power dynamics that You might have been used to and the supports that you were used to and then even if you meet abroad So say two folks are have an international career. How do you choose? Who goes where? How do you Navigate all of the decisions you have to make.
[00:35:13] Jessica: That is hard enough as a couple to figure out what to prioritize when How to communicate with each other, how to navigate and build a life together and how to grow together and achieve goals. Then you add in a myriad of other constraints and choices that make it very confusing and, and. We can often fall into patterns that feel helpful in the moment, like emergency crisis management stuff, but then when does the crisis end and we find a new normal?
[00:35:54] Mickelle: Well, and is that the perspective you give people? So when you see a couple, let’s say, is the first step to bring awareness to this, this power? This change in power balance.
[00:36:04] Jessica: I think it’s really important and there’s, and it’s something that we hold really lightly. There’s a lot of culture that comes in to power dynamics and finances
[00:36:16] Mickelle: as well.
[00:36:16] Mickelle: Yeah. And I think, honestly, at least the people I’m surrounded with, um, they didn’t expect that.
[00:36:26] No.
[00:36:27] Mickelle: They didn’t know what it was like to be on their partner’s visa and not have their name on a bank account or. They didn’t understand what that might do to their self worth, to their self esteem, to their, their ability to speak up.
[00:36:40] Mickelle: And I don’t think it comes from the other partner. It’s not a, it’s a, it’s a system problem. It’s not a couple problem. And so do you turn them towards that? Of course, it probably depends on the culture, but turning them towards that, that instead of towards each other, because it can very easily turn towards each other when especially towards the person who’s, yeah, maybe didn’t ask for this power.
[00:37:01] Jessica: Right, right, and doesn’t know how to solve this problem. So I love what you said about, we so often internalize what’s happening and we think, oh, there must be something wrong with me. And that has a wonderful evolutionary roots, right? This can be helpful to us in the moment to look inside, to try to solve a problem, but so often we, we take on responsibility and blame that isn’t ours.
[00:37:32] Jessica: And we come up with explanations that are unconscious. So recognizing that, Oh, it’s this outside thing. It’s all of this structure that I’m responding to that I’m taking in. That’s not
[00:37:44] Mickelle: mine. Or bringing into my relationship and my relationship is bouncing off of that structure. Yeah, I really think my partner and I really had to turn towards the structures.
[00:37:55] Mickelle: It was like, we didn’t know that the bank wouldn’t give, put my name on the account, you know. You can’t know that ahead of time. And suddenly that was a big problem that we couldn’t solve, right? It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t my fault. We were just in it. Um, and this is a small, such a small thing, but it becomes the big things over time because they amplify.
[00:38:17] Mickelle: Um, and, and we can talk all day long about visas and how kind of archaic and wrong they are in so many ways, not just this way, but, um, but they do have consequences for romantic relationships. Yes. Yes. And then so once you turn them, maybe bring to their awareness that there is this, because I think people don’t, at least in my experience, my friends, they don’t realize they’re going through something.
[00:38:41] Mickelle: They don’t realize this power shift is causing small little things over time to add up. And especially it’s been interesting watching when it’s the woman who has a career they’re moving for. And, and then even more, they don’t realize this. Um, power imbalance is causing, is causing changes in their relationship that they didn’t intend and wouldn’t have asked for, but that they do need to address, um, to get to where they want to go.
[00:39:09] Mickelle: And so I think. The awareness is the first, maybe the first, like, I can imagine you in a, in a session being like, look guys, it’s not you, it’s this. So then they’re turned towards this. So once they’re turned towards this awareness, what is the, maybe the next step? And I know it’s probably cultural. What does that awareness look like in practice?
[00:39:31] Jessica: That’s a great question. And I’m running through, I think, really orienting towards a shared goal and a shared vision. We so often can forget in the moment what we’re working towards. So helping each other come back, and I can only be responsible. One of the hardest things I think about relationships is That paradox of I can only be responsible for myself and how I’m reacting or responding in a moment and how I’m reacting and responding will have an effect on the people around me.
[00:40:08] Jessica: So recognizing that dual
[00:40:11] Mickelle: stance. So I can only, I can only control my actions, but my actions do affect others, no matter what, no matter what the people close to me will be affected. And I think with that awareness. At least for me, when I have learned about my own privilege or my own power, it does help me to be more conscious of the way I’m, I’m wielding it.
[00:40:33] Mickelle: And so I think that that might be a really big unlock for some people to be like, I’m, I’m carrying a much bigger sword than I thought. Right. Um, and so for the partner that maybe has a little bit more power because of this move, not because they asked for it, they can move a little bit differently with their partner and that might start a different dance and then the person who.
[00:41:01] Mickelle: Maybe feels more in the down position might be able to say ouch sooner because they aren’t feeling as powerful as they maybe once did. And so that shift is really hard. I think it’s really hard no matter who you are in that shift, because especially if you’re not aware that this shift is coming,
[00:41:20] Jessica: no
[00:41:20] Mickelle: matter how much you try and fight it, it usually, it changes moving to a new country.
[00:41:24] Mickelle: I feel like changes, there’s a recalibration that happens. And so I think that awareness is just powerful.
[00:41:31] Jessica: I love that you bring that up, and that is something I normalize a lot, and I remember a lot. So I will often bring in, particularly to bring this awareness, I will bring in my, that I’m a white bodied person.
[00:41:45] Jessica: That’s, that’s a privilege that I hold. I never signed up for it, I didn’t, I never chose it, and it comes with privileges. It doesn’t make me a bad person, and I need to be aware. The more I am aware of it, and the more I respond and recognize that, and, and be thoughtful about how I’m interacting and the weight that that has, and that it will be perceived that it has, even if it’s in no way my intention, really just normalizes.
[00:42:14] Jessica: We all, we’re all on this journey together in a different place. And recognizing where we are in relation to other people is going to be very
[00:42:22] Mickelle: helpful. And I think there’s actually a mourning and acceptance in that. If I, if I tap into the final stage of, of being able to hold your place in the world within a relationship, within a family, is there’s, you have to, you have to accept your place in a way.
[00:42:38] Mickelle: And that And within a couple, I think it could be really hard if you didn’t ask for either of these positions is to accept it and to, um, and to make sure you’re gentle with yourself, but also just accepting it and because you can’t change it unless you change the entire system, which is.
[00:42:59] Jessica: I also want to say that, you know, one of the consequences of these dynamics and shifts can be resentment.
[00:43:06] Jessica: And I know for myself, when I was. Experiencing this, I did not know how to hold my resentment and how to allow it to actually be a really powerful part of this journey because you know, it’s anger. It’s we, we think, Oh, it’s bad. It’s gotta be bad. We got to get rid of it. That’s not helpful. And so I knew that it wouldn’t be a good idea to act on the resentment, but it’s also not helpful for me to ignore my resentment and shame myself for it.
[00:43:43] Jessica: It’s saying something really important about what I need and what I’m worth.
[00:43:48] Mickelle: So say more about that. So what was the shift and what does it look like that’s different? So you don’t push it away. You listen to it.
[00:43:56] Jessica: Yeah. I listen to that. What does that
[00:43:58] Mickelle: look like in practice?
[00:44:00] Jessica: Well, it’s a journey, Mickelle, that I am still
[00:44:06] Jessica: I also have these parts of me that are like, I can do so much, right? I’m so capable. Right. And so hearing, allowing both of these parts of me, the part that’s like, I can do so much, right? Let me try on this challenge and see if I can do it. And also the parts of me that are going to get tired and resentful.
[00:44:24] Jessica: I need. I need to make decisions and choices as much as possible with both of those parts of me contributing to the decision making and then communicating for them instead of from them. So I could say when I’m effectively communicating, I think for these parts of me, I could say to my husband, Hey, you know, when you’re traveling, here are the things that I take on.
[00:44:53] Jessica: So when you come back, here’s what I need from you in order to not feel resentful about it. I need for you to plan that you’re going to take more things off of my plate, just like I took more things off of your plate so you could do this. I need you to do that for me. So I need you to plan ahead and find time in your schedule and say, okay, here’s time and resources that we’re going to devote to Jessica now.
[00:45:20] Jessica: Be AIMED. Able to do some things that she wasn’t able to do because she took on some of his tasks and she used her resources. So that way, I’m effectively advocating for myself instead of maybe what I might have chosen in times in the past of silencing that. Resentment or that frustration and choosing to continue to over function because that’s that’s crisis.
[00:45:49] Jessica: That’s what I was talking about. Crisis response like in a crisis. I’m going to just do what I need to do. I need to know when the crisis is over when the crunch time is over and then I need to incorporate rest.
[00:46:03] Mickelle: Crisis is not a way of life.
[00:46:05] No,
[00:46:06] Mickelle: we don’t base, we don’t base our lives on crisis mode, but it’s really easy to do that, especially as someone who’s the trailing or supporting spouse in a country.
[00:46:18] Mickelle: The entire system gets built on you over functioning and effectively creating additional resources for your partner and in turn the company they work for.
[00:46:26] Jessica: Yeah, when we look at mental health, moving is listed along the same amount of stress as losing your spouse. That’s high stress. It’s a very high stress thing and how often are folks doing it
[00:46:44] Mickelle: and how often are they doing it with sure?
[00:46:47] Mickelle: Maybe they have a movers, but did they have the right? Mental health support, but do they have the right perspective? Do they have the right structures within their relationship and families built so that it’s actually sustainable Instead of like you said just crisis mode. Yeah, and so is that a conversation you is that a conversation you facilitate with your clients?
[00:47:09] Mickelle: Yeah, yeah It would be like, Hey, we’re thinking of moving abroad or we have moved abroad and we want to do it differently. That seems very preventative. I’m, I’m assuming at least. Maybe I’m the only one, but usually I’m assuming you’re seeing people in the midst of something.
[00:47:27] Jessica: Right, in the midst of something or, but yeah, but also wanting to do it differently, right?
[00:47:33] Jessica: There’s a reason that someone actually, you know, sends the email. I was going to say, pick up the phone, but who does that? I mean, clicks on the website. Right. So thank you. We see a lot of folks who have been doing this for 20 years. And they’re like, you know, we’ve fallen, we’ve fallen into these patterns of crisis after crisis or change after change, and we want to do it differently.
[00:48:02] Jessica: Or should we move back home? Where’s the next place for us to be? Um, there are now different needs in our family of origin or our family here that we need to navigate and we don’t know how to do it. Infidelity. Should we be married to each other? Should we have kids? Is this the right choice for us?
[00:48:24] Mickelle: Yeah.
[00:48:25] Mickelle: So that’s a little bit of a mediation or a, like you’re almost like a life advisor, helping people navigate those, those. Yeah.
[00:48:33] Jessica: And as you, as we’re talking about so much of this is unconscious, our emotions come to us, our insights come in our bodies. They’re not fully articulated. Maybe there’s a thought somewhere that’s just one part of it.
[00:48:47] Jessica: So having a space to really, and time to dedicate to what am I doing here? What’s going well and what’s, what’s uncomfortable and what is that discomfort about? How can I start to shift to more comfort, to more joy, to the life I want to be living instead of maybe a feeling of stuckness?
[00:49:13] Mickelle: Well, and or have tos.
[00:49:15] Mickelle: So I’ve, I’ve experienced people who have been moving from country to country and they, they don’t know anything different. And actually that’s what their career now requires. And so there’s a have to, and sometimes the spouse is like, well, I don’t have to anymore. And that’s a crisis, right? Because both people have to want to do it, and they don’t have to, but healthily, yeah, that does feel very much like there’s not a choice.
[00:49:41] Mickelle: And so helping people find the choices
[00:49:44] Jessica: sounds like
[00:49:45] Mickelle: what you’re trying to do.
[00:49:47] Jessica: In a place of, hey, I get it, no judgment, right? It’s, there’s a smile and a knowing. The faces of the folks that I serve knowing what it’s like. Like they could, they saw me through the whole transition of packing up my own house as they were packing up their houses and figuring out the new time zones and dealing with the echo in this empty house with no art on the walls as we wait and wait and wait for our stuff to come.
[00:50:13] Mickelle: Yeah, there’s that knowing, but also is there that knowing like we wouldn’t have it any other way?
[00:50:18] Jessica: There’s, yeah, there’s the joy and the heartache in the midst of it.
[00:50:23] Mickelle: Yeah.
[00:50:24] Yeah.
[00:50:25] Mickelle: The knowing can, can mean so many things.
[00:50:27] And so
[00:50:31] Mickelle: couples is, I mean, that’s sometimes the, if there is a family, that’s kind of the heart of what everything has to be built for a successful family. Individuals are. Obviously, they’re building their life. They may have their own crisis points or points where they need to, inflection points. And then with kids, when you’re dealing with a system of family, with kids, I always say it’s incredibly difficult to make five people happy with where you live.
[00:51:01] Mickelle: I have five people in my family. So people ask me like, why Amsterdam? I’m like, it’s where all five of us are happy. And as long as that’s the case, I’m not sure there’s another place all five of us can be happy.
[00:51:10] Mm hmm.
[00:51:11] Mickelle: Or this happy. And so in my case, we choose where we live. In some cases, that’s not the case, where people get to choose where they live or, and so I can imagine that’s really difficult.
[00:51:22] Mickelle: That’s a really difficult, that can breed a lot of resentment as well, where you have to be somewhere for someone’s job, but then the kids are not doing well.
[00:51:29] Jessica: Yeah. I mean, right now my kids, it’s like a rollercoaster. You know, some parts of the day they’re like, why did we even move? Why aren’t we in America?
[00:51:38] Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Why aren’t we in Rwanda? Why are we here? And then it’s like, I love Kenya! This is so great! So it’s very challenging to make space for all of those reactions. And recognize that kids are inherently pretty powerless. They don’t get to make a lot of choices. And this is a lifestyle that can add to that.
[00:52:01] Mickelle: Yeah, not only are they inherently powerless, This, this is a big moment where they actually have no say. Did you find ways to help them maybe feel like they had a little bit more control over did you help that they look at the houses with you? Do you try and give them that sort of thing or do you employ something different?
[00:52:20] Mickelle: It’s a real tricky balance
[00:52:22] Jessica: because you also don’t want the kids to feel responsible for something that they’re not necessarily responsible for. Just like we were talking about how I could so easily internalize. My right to work or not to work in a country, unconsciously, kids will absolutely take on responsibility for things that are not their responsibility.
[00:52:47] Jessica: Ironically, they’ll believe it’s because of them and they’ll do a lot to try to preserve their good feeling with you and your, your good regard as the caregiver. So finding places where I can consciously in good conscience, give them a choice. This is really important, giving them power, giving them freedom, and then also guarding them from feeling responsible for things that they aren’t.
[00:53:17] Jessica: So when we moved, we decided to not let them see houses. We just said, this is the house that we’re going to once we. Chose the same with school. We took them to various schools, but we did not make them responsible for the choice, just because that’s what my kids needed at that time. Yeah,
[00:53:38] Mickelle: they’re little.
[00:53:39] Jessica: They’re little, right. And that’ll shift. But then they get to, you know, they, they make I think a lot of choices about what they’re going to eat and how they’re gonna spend their time and things like that.
[00:53:51] Mickelle: Yeah. And I’ve heard. Um, and this is actually interesting because you’re navigating this as an international person.
[00:53:57] Mickelle: So you’re doing it for the first time. I always say, my son is now 13. I always say, this is the first time I’ve had a 13 year old. So, uh, but also. I have no idea what you’re, what, what we’re doing because we just did this middle bar school, which is a very Dutch thing where they choose their own school.
[00:54:14] Mickelle: And so I was like, this is the first time I’ve done Dutch school selection and the first time I’ve had a 13 year old. So let’s do this together. But I think my relationship with my kids is a bit different than it would be if I was living where I grew up. So I have to be a little bit more. At least I feel like I have to be, it’s a little, it’s, it’s to my advantage to be a little bit more candid with them instead of them internalizing that like everything is out of control or everything is, it’s like, nope, this is expected.
[00:54:45] Mickelle: This is part of what life we live. Um, but it just means we have to learn things, you know? And so it’s like, we could live in the States and I would know a lot more, but then we wouldn’t be able to do this. And so this is part of it is mommy has to learn a lot. And sometimes I don’t know the answer, so we have to ask a lot of questions and sometimes you have to translate things for me and we try and make it fun.
[00:55:06] Mickelle: We try and make it them powerful and in all the right ways. But every, every one of us, this is the first time you’ve had an eight year old or five year old. And so I think that that’s part of, I think it’s part of, at least it was part for me of actually a little bit of the sadness of it is that it was going to change my relationship with my kids and it’s really beautiful.
[00:55:25] Mickelle: But I had to let go of being. Knowing everything and being able to protect them from everything. Not that I could do that anyway, but there’s some weird comfort we have and being in our own culture that we can protect them from something. Right. So I had to really grapple with that when they were little.
[00:55:41] Mickelle: And now I find it very beautiful, but it was a journey.
[00:55:45] Jessica: It’s a journey and I think there’s so much about repetition and just making space for things kids need to repeat things so many times and each time it’s going to be a little different and that can be maddening when we’re just Trying to manage so much stuff, and we’re feeling uncomfortable, and we’re trying to navigate all of this, and we’re second guessing ourselves in the middle of the night.
[00:56:10] Jessica: Yep. Why is it always the middle of the night?
[00:56:12] Mickelle: I don’t know.
[00:56:14] Jessica: Right, right. So Making space for them to talk about it and you know, if I had, if I had never left the hometown, my kids wouldn’t encounter newness and they wouldn’t encounter grief and loss as much as they do here and transitions. So, You know, we just did this big move.
[00:56:36] Jessica: We have family back in the States that we visit once a year. So just one of the things I talk about and we, we talk about all the time is that missing someone and is, is the other side of loving someone. So we wouldn’t have this pain if we didn’t have that joint connection of love.
[00:56:56] Mickelle: Yeah. And it’s true.
[00:56:57] Mickelle: Yeah. And
[00:56:58] Jessica: you
[00:56:59] Mickelle: have that with people all around the world. If you do a couple of moves. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And so what you’re saying is, even as adults, we actually have to grapple with grief and change and transition more than we would if we lived in the same place. And so it’s a practice, but also it comes with gifts, but it can also come with challenges.
[00:57:20] Mickelle: And so do you find that that also brings challenges with actually making connections and keeping connections so people don’t hold tightly to anything?
[00:57:29] Jessica: Right. You could just be a little bit distant. Because you know that, oh, that person’s going to leave in a few years or, oh, I’m going to leave in a few years.
[00:57:37] Jessica: I’m going to protect myself from the pain of this loss by not getting so connected.
[00:57:44] Mickelle: And how do you, how do you give people perspective of the skills to that? Just, is that, is that just part of? The extra awareness we gain is I’m going to go all in on this relationship, even though I know it’s probably very temporary.
[00:57:57] Jessica: That’s the choice. Instead of it being just something that happens, it then, for some folks, has to become an active choice. I’m like, what am I choosing here? Can I be conscious about what I’m choosing? Can I be aware that in my desire to protect myself from pain and suffering, I’m choosing to disconnect?
[00:58:19] Mickelle: And so knowing I always, is this Shakespeare? I don’t know. I always use the phrase it’s better to have love than lost than never have to love at all. So is this where we invoke Shakespeare or whatever it is? He knew a lot. Yeah, he knew a lot. Yeah. So is that, is that kind of the ethos we can have is like everything’s temporary.
[00:58:38] Mickelle: We don’t always know it. This time we do know it because we may have a Especially the people who are around us. I always say all my friends are a flight risk whenever they come to me. They’re like, I need to have lunch. I’m like, are they moving?
[00:58:49] Jessica: Right.
[00:58:50] Mickelle: Right.
[00:58:51] Jessica: That
[00:58:52] Mickelle: can make it precious too.
[00:58:54] Jessica: Absolutely. It’s a paradox.
[00:58:57] Mickelle: Yeah. And so do you, do you see people struggling with that, with that awareness? And once they realize they’re doing this over and over again, when people normally do it once or twice in their life, does that help them feel a little bit of comfort, do you think, and, and get new skills?
[00:59:10] Jessica: Yeah, right. That, that, that actually we, we didn’t realize, I didn’t realize I was driving in this gear.
[00:59:16] Jessica: I use a lot of car metaphors. I realize this is ironic. It’s not like to drive. It works. That’s a powerful vehicle. Right, right. Um, I didn’t, I didn’t know I was on this path. I just, I realized that this, this path exists within me. As a way to make things easy for a time, but let me recognize I’m on it. Let me recognize where it goes.
[00:59:39] Jessica: Do I want to be on it? Can I choose another one and where, where are those inflection points where I can make a choice on a different path and which one am I choosing? And that just becomes so much more complicated when we’re
[00:59:52] Mickelle: choosing
[00:59:53] Jessica: where
[00:59:53] Mickelle: we
[00:59:53] Jessica: live.
[00:59:54] Mickelle: Yeah, it really does. And, and again, I think if I’m thinking through life of someone who lived in the same place all growing up, they would, would experience loss when someone maybe left, moved away, which doesn’t happen as often.
[01:00:06] Mickelle: Someone passed away, which happens later in life, and maybe they would lose a friendship, but that’s a lot harder to do when you’re in a more insular place. Um, and so I do think we’re facing it earlier, more often, constantly, no one ever taught us what to do because most of us didn’t have parents who did this life.
[01:00:24] Mickelle: And so that’s where becoming a third culture adult, there may be another word for it. We say Peregrine, but it’s like you are learning how to have a you too, how to, how to learn how to deal with all of these changes and all these things, how to make friends, whether to make friends. And it’s actually a really big inner journey, which I think is really beautiful and why we cover it with House of Peregrine with the podcast, because I want people to feel, feel they’re doing something monumental, feel that they are actually up for an inner journey, or if they are up for an inner journey, it’s really rich.
[01:01:00] Mickelle: And if they’re not, it might be causing. A lot of consequences they didn’t realize in their relationship with their kids and their community, with their family. And so I really think that that awareness is really powerful to be like, I have been doing a lot, even though it feels like I’ve been doing very little besides surviving as you said.
[01:01:24] Jessica: Right. Trying to find basic needs.
[01:01:29] Mickelle: Yeah. So after that, after you’ve got the basic needs covered. Or maybe even during, having that awareness that you are actually doing something really, really big, I think is really powerful. And so then, I want to just cover all the uses really quick, so you can come for your kids if they need some testing.
[01:01:46] Mickelle: Maybe for, like, anything from, like, psychological disorders to, like, developmental disorders. So anytime your kid, you feel like you need some extra support, the treatment group could be a stop for you.
[01:02:01] Jessica: We also provide Family and individual counseling to kids, and we try to get really creative about it. We really try to individual, well, try to, we individualize our services.
[01:02:13] Jessica: We don’t try to, we do do it. So it’s a very personalized Experience as soon as you connect with the Truman Group, one of our senior clinicians will meet with you, hear what’s going on, hear where you are, where you want to be, and we’ll try to figure out whether we can be helpful, and if we can’t be helpful, whether we know in our network some place.
[01:02:38] Jessica: Somebody that could be helpful to you and we’ll let you know that no matter what, you’re not alone. And then we have all sorts of, all sorts of ways of figuring out where people are and if we can help.
[01:02:50] Mickelle: Yeah. And you match people with the right clinician based on what their goals are and what their needs are, language, country, time zone.
[01:03:02] Mickelle: And it’s all online, right? Everything is online. Is that right? Everything’s
[01:03:06] online. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:03:08] Mickelle: And so. That is great. So you guys could be a frontline. So if you call the Truman group, you’re struggling in some way or want some insight, or maybe you want some. To be proactive in a move you’re thinking of making, get in touch with you guys and then you can decide if there’s a resource there.
[01:03:25] Mickelle: Yeah, that’s great. And if you’re an international, you’re a third culture adult, you might just need the insight from the Truman Group, I think. So, um, yeah, that’s my, my mission in life right now is to help people realize they are adulting at a new level.
[01:03:39] Jessica: Yeah.
[01:03:40] Mickelle: There’s never a, there’s never a time that I can think of more.
[01:03:44] Mickelle: That you might need a little bit of perspective or help or support in this way. That’s very specialized I’m really glad you could come on and tell us about the Truman Group and your work and yourself, Jessica. You have an incredible story and the Truman Group is doing incredible work. So I, I thank you.
[01:04:01] Mickelle: How can people get in touch with you or the Truman Group if they want to know more?
[01:04:06] Jessica: Sure. Well, they can check out our website or Um, send an email to the Truman Group or to myself. I’m jfonzi at the Truman Group and you can also find me on the website. But yeah, we are, we are here and um, your people are our people and I love Mickelle what you’re doing.
[01:04:26] Jessica: Building community in this way. And I was able to listen to some of your podcasts and see what you’re doing and just really appreciate your perspective and, and, you know, we’re going to be referring people to the resources that you’re creating and to the community that you’re building as well.
[01:04:44] Mickelle: Yeah.
[01:04:44] Mickelle: Great. Happy, happy to be a part of the big, big international family together. So it’s really fun. Thanks for coming on. We’ll put everything in the show notes. Um, and please reach out to Jessica and the Truman group, everybody, if you think it sounds interesting or helpful to you. Thanks again for coming on and thanks to everybody for listening to the House of Peregrine podcast.
[01:05:04] Mickelle: I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you.