Black Family Table Talk
Black Family Table Talk
S6:E1 | Against All Odds
Leticia Francis joins Tony and Toni at the table to share her battle stories and rise to a triumphant win against all odds.
This week's episode of Black Family Table Talk podcast/blog is sponsored by Frans Body Care.
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Thank you for the courage. To share your story, you have a harrowing story, I am blown away at how you took an incredibly difficult situation and turned it into something that could empower other people.
Tony:Welcome to Season six of Black Family Table Talk. We are your host, Toni and Tony. Listen in weekly as we share unique stories that inspire, build and give voice to strengthen black families.
Leticia:This season is sponsored by France Body Care. These are handmade products made from organic ingredients. I personally recommend you try free meat deodorant. It really works. And it's free of aluminum, talc perfumes and other harmful pore clogging substances. You can shop these and other black businesses on our website at BlackFamilyTableTalk.com. Welcome to Black Family Table Talk, Miss Leticia. Am I pronouncing that right? Yes.
Toni Henson:Great. Great. I want to welcome you, first of all, thank you for the courage to share your story, you have a harrowing story. And I am blown away at the level of how you took an incredibly difficult situation and turned it into something that could empower other people, which is it's just your resilience should be applauded. So tell us your story and how you got from your youth to today and making this such an amazing testimony.
Leticia:So I was born in Bermuda, born and raised. And at the age of seven, just before my mom's remarrying, I asked a family member, why did my parents got a divorce. And I was told that my birth was the reason why my parents separated. So that was a defining moment in my life. It was something that I carried for years, I never had a conversation with my parents about it. But the actions and the things that were going on within my family dynamics kind of furthered that narrative. So both parents remarried, both spouses made their dislike for me noon, they didn't really want to have anything to do with me. So I was in the middle of two family units, trying to find my way. My mom had two young children right after she got married. And her focus was raising her family with her husband. So I began acting out, and I was looking for attention, I used to get into a lot of trouble in school, and a lot of trouble at home. My mouth is very quick, serious, if I'm honest. And you know, I'm used to hear her, you're too much, you're too loud, you're too opinionated, you're too smart for your own good. Which then made me feel even worse than I did. So, first of all, I was born and I separated my parents. And now this person that ruined the most important relationship in my life is too much for the people that bought me into this world. And as I grew, I think I began to become very resentful, because your personality is your personality. And, you know, as much as you try to change it, it always comes back because that is part of who you are. So my entire life, I heard it from teachers. I heard it from friendly family friends. And I got to a point where I really just wanted to be accepted for who I was. And around of 14, I met a man that was twice my age. And he was actually a friend of a friend's boyfriend. I met him through a friend. And he was the first person in my opinion, that actually saw me for me. And at that age, I thought I was a woman. I was fully developed. And I got a lot of attention from older men. So this older man showed me attention and he's given me the opportunity to express myself, I fell in love. So I thought, and I entered into this relationship, and I can look back now and see that I was being groomed by him. I was being made to be what he wanted. Even though you know, I wanted to be seen for who I was, here is the one person that showed me the attention that I desire. And even he thinks I'm too much. So maybe I'll try to change. The first time this man put his hands on me, I was 15 years old, he checked me from behind, because he believed that I was seeing someone else. And I knew this is not going to be my life, I knew that relationships should not be physical. And what is interesting is when my mom found out about him about a year before that, she had told me, Listen, this man is very dangerous. She had done a background check, and found out that the majority of his relationships had ended in restraining orders. So she was like, you got to stay away from this guy, he's dangerous. But who am I going to trust in this moment, my mama, who I feel doesn't even see me. Or this man that's given me the attention that I've wanted for years. So I just missed that. But it came back to my memory when his hands were on my neck. And someone in his household pulled him off of me. And I had a lot of stuff at his house at that point in time. I packed up everything into a trash bag, and I left. That, for me was going to be the end of that relationship. But I am back home more often more frequently. And the relationship with my mom and I was really contentious. I'm a teenage girl. I mean, it's normal. But I think because of my attitude, because of my fearless way of expressing myself. I think we butted heads. I mean, she told me the sky is blue and that will be an argument. That's just how it was. There were a lot of arguments in my house because of my actions. And one day, my mother's husband was arguing with me, and I decided, You know what, I want to leave, like I can't do this anymore. And I said, I'm just gonna kill myself to him. And he said, Oh, you are, let's call everybody in here so we can watch you die. And he called my mom into the kitchen, he called my little sister's into the kitchen and they are so young that they don't even have this memory. But they all watched me take a handful of pills, and run out of the house. And my mom came out to me, she took me to the hospital and on the ride to the hospital, she was telling me, I'm so mad, I'm so mad at you, why would you take your life. And I'm thinking, I'm mad at you for watching me try to take my life and not do anything about it. So I get in the hospital, go through treatment, and put into psychiatric care for a little while. Outpatient. And I moved in with my father for a short period of time. I'm there for a couple of weeks. And then he comes to me and tells me you know, my wife doesn't really want to raise another child. So you're gonna have to go back to your mom's. So now I'm really angry because I've tried to take my life. And I'm not I'm just being shift and shift around like, this part of this narrative that I shouldn't even be living. No one cares about me. That became raged for me. So anytime my parents said anything, I exploded, it was a volcano, I would exclude. And several months later, my mom and I got into an argument and we came physical. I put my hands on my mother. And several days after that, I'm about 17 year old, I come home and I had a notification of a registered certified letter that I had to go sign for. So I'm telling my mom, why and who would send me a registered letter like Where would this be coming from? So I go pick up this letter and it's a letter from my mom's lawyer telling me that I am no longer allowed on her property and if I return to the property, I will be released by the police. So I put my hands on my mother, my mother's family has treated me for long handled spoon. I don't have a relationship with my father after I was shipped back home. So I can't even really reach out to his family because as you know, if the child's wrong, the child is wrong. No one's gonna overstep people's parenting for the most part. So, no, you were in the wrong you had to deal with the consequences of your actions. So I'm 17 and there's nowhere to go. I call the only person that I don't want to take me in and that was the man that had checked me several years ago. So he takes me in graciously Oh, of course, come. But this psychological abuse was present even before I unpacked my bags. You know, he started telling me, I'm the only one that loves you. Your parents don't care about you. No one loves you but me, and you kind of owe me? And do you argue with that when you're essentially homeless? No. You just put up with it. And that's what I did for years. And that literally broke down my psyche. Was there abuse? Yes. Was it frequent? No. But we then decided to get married. So in 19 years old and then I married him, he made it very clear that I was his property. So the abuse ramped up. And there was really nothing that I could do about it. During this time, I was working in law enforcement, I was a customs officer. And because I worked in law enforcement, my faith in the police was zero. I worked alongside these people who gossiped about what was going on to the calls that they went to, they talked about people's business. I didn't want anybody knew what was going on in my household. So for me, it became a hide and seek game. I shut down. I didn't let anybody know what was going on. Maybe two people in this period knew exactly what was going on in my life. But I put up a front, you know, I put on a show. And I really painted a picture that like I was living this amazing life, people were aware of our age difference. And older I was, late teens, it was still noticeable, like this man's mid 30s? Why is he with you? Why are you with him? So I had to defend that. Because I really didn't want to show the cracks that were were happening. Then I entered my 20s and I have been working in customs for maybe two years, I got a little tired of the job. And I know that I am bigger than this. And I wanted to go back to school, I wanted to go University. And I remember telling him, You know, I want to go to Atlanta, to Georgia State University. This is where I want to go and I'm actually going to be going for a couple of years, let me just get my education. He was like, Nope, you're married. If that's what you wanted to do, you should have done it before. I am a bit of a nerd. I love education. So although I was living in abuse, torture at some points in times in that relationship. What put the nail in the coffin of the relationship for me was the fact that he was holding me back. I didn't want to be held back. Like the fact that you won't allow me to get an education was a problem for me. And I started wanting out of the relationship. I couldn't kind of I couldn't figure out how I would do it. Because for me, in a very small place it's not like I can just disappear. He knew where I worked he would show up at my job. That was the type of person he was. If we had arguments, he would sit outside my job. And I used to work 24 hour shifts, he would sit outside my job until he saw me to farther on the argument so I knew that I wouldn't easily get away from this man. Anyway, I go on with my life resigned to the fact that I will never go to Georgia State and just try to bear what I was dealing with. And because I have painted such a pretty picture about my relationship, a lot of my friends used to come to me for relationship advice. And one night, one of my friends hit me up and she was in a relationship with a heroin addict that was abusing her and she wanted to know what she should do. And I was like, Oh, let me tell you what you should do in this case and let me encourage you, let me help you. So I picked up a book called Until Today by Iyanla Vanzant. I randomly opened this book and started reading a passage to her and the passage was talking about people in our lives for a reason, a season and a lifetime and the reason why our interpersonal relationships do not work, is because we're trying to keep someone in our life that was there for a reason, we're trying to keep them there for a lifetime. And no matter how we try, we won't be able to maintain those relationships, because that person's purpose is up in our lives. So I'm sitting there reading this to her and I'm feeling like a sinner in church, I'm gonna tell you, right, like, she was talking to me. That night, my husband came home drunk. And I had realized that I couldn't find my cellphone. I wasn't overly worried about it, it was like a slip Nokia, wasn't a smart phone, all you can do is make calls and text and play Snake. So if I had to replace it, I would. But he came home with my cellphone. And after he had helped me know about getting school, I wanted attention from someone else, because I checked out of this marriage, and I met someone that was showing me attention. He found his text messages, and he was livid. Absolutely livid. So he came him showing me my phone. And I knew in that moment that I was in trouble. Like, I knew that it was gonna be bad. The first time he ever put his hands on me, he almost caused me to blackout and that was because he thought I was seeing someone else. He now has evidence that I'm having a conversation with a man, this is going to be bad. And I remember running to my landline, and calling my mother and I was like, You need to come get me, right now. Because I had experienced years of abuse, there comes a point where you kind of know how bad that episode is gonna be. And I remember looking at his eyes and seeing a look that I had never seen in the eight years that I have been dealing with him, had never seen that look, and it scared me. Then I picked up the fan he launched to me and I was able to tell my mama to come by, he then pulled the landline out of the wall. He told me, the only way that you're leaving here tonight is in a body bag. He had a knife, he barricaded us in the bedroom. At this time, we were living with someone else. So I think I had become slightly complacent in that environment because we weren't in our own space. Although I was still experiencing abuse, it wasn't as bad as it was when we were living alone. But his friend wasn't home that night. So he barricaded us in the room and we began fighting. I knew that I had to fight for my life in that moment, because that's not something that you say.. I mean, I knew he was drunk, but I believed him. I believed that he was going to kill me. I fought for my life. In that chaos, I always say was like out of the body experience. I saw us fighting as if I was watching a movie. And I remember the knife coming towards me. But I never ever felt pain. So I never registered that I had been stabbed. So I am in any process of literally fighting for my life. And luckily, his friend came him and heard the commission. So he burst into the bedroom. I ran out and I fell on the living room couch. My husband ran out after me and straddled me and proceeded to try to stab me, and I say it jokingly, his is a serious subject but I'm healed from this, so it was jsut like a matrix move like everything was in slow motion. And I was literally trying to bob and weave him trying to stab me in my upper body. He kept hitting the couch and I think that was when his friend realized, Wait a minute, this is bad, like, this is gonna be bad if the police come. So his friend pulled him off for me. His friend then pushed me out of the house. And it was raining that night. The house that we were in didn't have any grass in the yard. So everything was muddy. And I'm standing there in a T shirt and socks, trying to figure out what am I going to do next? Did my mama hear me? Is she coming? I don't have any way to contact her. It is late. So I like I'm not going to go knock on somebody's door. And as I'm outside, I'm realizing I'm processing the heat of my blood running down my body. I don't I don't know how long I was out there. But my mom pulled up. And she went into panic mode when she saw me. When my husband realized that somebody was outside, he started throwing my clothes and my property out the window into the mud. And one of the things that he used to do, to apologize to me was to buy me Louis Vuitton. So I'm in my early 20s. And I'm probably got close to $20,000 worth of Louis Vuitton products and bags and stuff. And they were my prized possessions. I think in those moments, I value them more than I valued my life. So in his rage, he was throwing the Louis Vuitton out the window as well. So I'm trying to pack stuff in my mom's car, but I'm not worried about the clothes, I went down for Louis Vuitton. And then he realized that he threw the Louis Vuitton out the window, out he comes with his knife, with my blood all over him and starts unpacking my mother's car to get these Louis Vuittons. And, again, not probably fully processed what actually happened, I believe I was in shock. I was ready to fight this man for my bags. And my mom was like, Get in the car!! I think that's what made me realize how much danger I was actually in. Like, I'm actually putting my mom in danger in this moment. So I get into car finally and she was like, Okay, I'm gonna take you to the hospital. I'm like, Nope, I'm not going to the hospital. So she was like, Why? I said, Mom I work with the police. I do not want the police involved with this, I do not want to have to go back to work and face my co workers knowing that they knew that I was dead. I don't want that. One of the things that I had learned to do in my early teens, actually before I was in this relationship, there was a murder in Bermuda. It stood out in my memory. And I remember them having like an assembly in school talking about abusive relationships, and telling us that if you don't feel comfortable with telling someone what's going on, always go to your doctor and document your injuries. So that was something that I had been doing for years. My doctor knew exactly what was going on. So in my head, I was like, I'm not gonna see hospital, I'll go to my doctor, he'll add this to the file, in case anything else happens. So I convinced my mama to take me to her house. So I got to the house and I'm trying to sort things out and I'm thinking, Okay, I'm going to clean myself up, stop this bleeding, go to the doctor in the morning, and I'll get some rest in the meantime. So I'm at my mom's house, not even two hours and she comes into the kitchen and she says, So what are you going to do? Where are you going to go? Because you can't stay here. That was a hard pill to swallow. Because to date, this was my worse situation that I had experience. And I felt alone, which was the story of my life to this point. So she packed up my stuff that we managed to hail, she cleaned up what she called and she packed me in the car and took me to the police station. And from the police station, I was escorted to a homeless shelter where I stayed for two months. So in that shelter, I was given legal advice, I was given a restraining order, I was able to move on with my life and I thought, Okay, I am putting my life together, we are going to get things back on track. But for the first time in my life, I realized, Okay, who am I actually? I'm not in this relationship anymore. Or the day that I had defined myself to this point, my identity to this point was tied to my interpersonal relationships. So, before I was with this man and I was someone's child. The entire time I was with this man, I was either his girlfriend or his wife. So now that I'm out of this, and I'm on my own, who am I? And that was something that I couldn't answer. What I knew was, I was living in shame. Because I still didn't want anybody to know what I had experience. I was also living in guilt, because I felt guilty about walking away from my marriage. My narrative at that time was I ruined the second most important relationship in my life. I took the blame for that. Even though I understood the abuse, where I was with myself, I didn't like myself. So it was easy to pass the buck on to me to further the narrative that I'm not worthy of being loved. I'm not worthy of being liked. And that's what I did. So now I'm holding this really heavy burden and the only way that I need to deal with it was to drink. And I used to drink a lot. I'm not talking about wine. I'm not talking about wine coolers. I am talking about scotch. There was a point in time that I was drinking a bottle of scotch a day. I used to walk around with a flask. People used to joke with me, Oh, you always smelled like alcohol. Yeah, because I was always drunk. I showed up to work drunk, my hangovers used to kicking in three o'clock in the afternoon, because I had literally continue drinking until I walked in the door. And I got a little tired of that. I didn't actually like being drunk. I definitely didn't like the taste of scotch. So why am I doing this to myself? And I decided, You know what I need to get off this island. Bermuda is 21 square miles. It is a coffin in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It's a beautiful place. But the environment does not allow you to grow. So I needed to get out of there. I signed up to go to Georgia State. I went off to Georgia State, I got a full scholarship and I studied. I started off studying actuarial science and I then realize, Oh, this is a lot of work. I don't want to do this. So I moved into risk management and insurance. I thought I was getting my life back on track while I was in Atlanta. And then I met this guy. I had never really experienced the fast talk of an American. So I fell for quick like, there is a way that Bermudians approach you and there's a way that other coaches approach you and I was trying to figure out, is this guy for real? Anyway, fell really fast. And he was a cocaine addict. And I bet years of torment because of his addiction. That relationship ended because I found out that he was actually married, we were living together, I was going around his family. I thought, Okay, I got to pay attention here. So I did, I moved back to Bermuda, I got a great job. And then I met someone else that was a crack addict that I didn't know. And I was really deep into that relationship. That relationship got me arrested on my job. He was stealing from his job and I wasn't aware of it. I had gone to pick up his bag one day, and I was stopped by the security guards. So I'm in jail. And I have to call my mom. She always take calls of me to picking me up out of my mistakes. I would say it and I remember being behind the glass and my mom saying to me, Why do you love everyone else more than you love yourself? That statement changed everything for me.
Toni Henson:Now, how old are you at this point?
Leticia:At this point, I'm 28 That statement is what I believe changed my life. So I sought out a coach and I started working with a coach. I had been sitting in victimhood, as I called it. I was a victim life was happening to me. I don't have control over this ruins me. And the coaching allowed me to see that I have a lot more control in my life. And that by being a victim, I'm actually giving away my control. So my experiences made me a survivor, my healing allowed me to become a driver. I left Bermuda to come to the UK to finally press that reset that I'm been toying with for the last 10 years. And I came out here, I really, really worked on my career. I got to the pinnacle of my career was working as a manager in Lloyds of London. But as a foreign black woman, I wasn't respected, I wasn't valued. I used to go into meetings where my manager used to give a disclaimer, Oh, she's a bit rough around the edges. You don't do that to a white man. Like the day you said that I was doing in my row, if I was a white man, I would have won awards for it. Yeah. And I got to a point where I was starting to feel triggered by my career as I did with my relationship with my family, with my relationships, my toxic relationships that I had entered, I was unseen. I was unheard, I was undervalued, and everyone thought I was too much. So I had two babies back to back and in that process, I was on a search for my purpose. And my purpose, while my healing allowed me to realize that it's not my responsibility to make people comfortable with the elements of me, that they may not like. My healing also helped me realize that I can turn things around. So I decided that I was going to use my story to help others. And I am now a mindset coach for black women. And I like to say I like to help black women get their mind right, so that they can see the success and fulfillment that they desire in their lives. It's about changing the narratives. It's about taking control of your path, so that you can create the life that you want for yourself.
Toni Henson:Amazing! Absolutely amazing! So where can people reach out to get information on how to heal?
Leticia:They can reach out to me at blaquerace coaching.com. It is spelt B-L-A-Q-U-E-R-O-S-E. I have programs to help women really step into their core values and start taking action from that. And that is when when we are operating from our core values is when I believe that we are most fulfilled in life.
Toni Henson:Absolutely. I agree. Wow. You left my husband speechless.
Tony:I mean, Leticia, you have an amazing story. You overcome a lot. You dealt with a lot of trauma, abandonment. I've seen the signs before, and I recognize them as you were telling your story and it made you stronger. It made you who you are today, What would you change if you had to. That's where you are. Your purpose in life has brought you to this point, you had to go through the things you went through to get where you are. And you found yourself. That's the most important thing- you found yourself. And you turned the corner from victimhood to victory. And that's an amazing story. That's, that's what God has for us all- to live his purpose to find out who we are. And I congratulate you for doing that. And now you helping us as it's a wonderful story, because you you could have quit, you could have said I had enough. I can't do this anymore. You know, homeless? That's a low point. Alcoholism. Abandonment. You have very many valleys and you overcome them all. So I congratulate you, celebrate you. I have nothing else to say you. You told your story very well.
Leticia:Thank you.
Toni Henson:That's Black Family Table Talk.
Tony:That's what's up. That concludes this week's talk. We hope you found some tools to add to your strong black family toolbox. And be sure to sign up for a free subscription at BlackFamilyTableTalk.com for special discounts and products offers reserved exclusively for you.
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