A Force To Be Reckoned With
A Force To Be Reckoned With
211. A Peek Behind the Curtain: Jaliyah’s Story - Part 1
Have you ever wondered what our foster kiddo's bio mom's story might be?
Jaliyah's journey is nothing short of inspiring. Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, she recounts her challenging childhood, marked by separation from her siblings and parents due to addiction and imprisonment. Her grandfather's unwavering support and teachings provided a beacon of strength amidst the turmoil, instilling values of hard work and resilience. Jaliyah's story offers a fresh perspective on the backgrounds of biological parents involved in foster care, breaking down stigmas and shedding light on the complexities of her upbringing.
Jaliyah's strength and perseverance through unimaginable hardships are a testament to her faith and resilience. She details the profound impact of her mother's tragic death, the support she found in her college gospel choir, and the sheer determination it took to graduate and raise her children. Her narrative is a compelling reminder of the power of hope and the relentless pursuit of purpose despite life's setbacks.
But Jaliyah's journey doesn't end in despair. It evolves into a powerful message of resilience and the importance of feeling loved and valued. Through her story, we are reminded that no matter how deep the suffering, there's always a chance for redemption and the courage to share one's story can inspire others to keep going.
Episode Highlights:
- Meet Jaliyah.
- Jaliyah’s childhood & her knight in shining armor.
- A journey of faith.
- The birth of her first child.
- Going to college as a young mother.
- Overcoming tragedy.
- Navigating new relationships after unhealthy past relationships.
Links Mentioned in Episode/Find More on A Force to Be Reckoned With:
- Jointheforce.us
- Follow us on Instagram @bethanyadkins
- Find us on Youtube!
This show has been produced by Adkins Media Co.
We are at war and it's not against our neighbors spouses children, politicians or whatever else.
Speaker 2:We feel like we're battling against. So the questions are who's the fight against, and are we winning or losing? We're the Adkins and we are a force to be reckoned with.
Speaker 2:Are you ready to join the force. Hi everyone, I hope you're having a good week. I'm here today. Many of you are probably haven't even listened to the podcast in years, but you're showing up today because you know what this episode is. And today, over the last couple of weeks, we've been sharing our foster care journey and kind of behind the scenes of that, and this is an episode that I have prayed about and been anxious to happen long before it was ever a possibility. But we have the kiddo's biological mom on today and she has a possibility. But we have the kiddos biological mom on today and she has a name, and her name is Julia, and she has become not just a dear friend of mine but a sister and family, and so thank you for being here today. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:I'm excited as well.
Speaker 2:I am. We've come a long way. We have come a long way. There's been a lot so.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2:We're going to break this into two episodes. So the first episode is going to be really Julia sharing her story, and we want to just just share, spread awareness about backgrounds of biological parents and and there's so many stigmas, and so I want julia to share her story and I feel so privileged to even have her do it on this podcast, because she's really never you've never really shared your story from start to finish publicly no right, I haven't. So this is the first time. So this is one, a huge deal, so big and brave of you, and I just want to say thank you for doing that.
Speaker 1:I'm grateful to be here. Yeah, thank you for having me, you're welcome.
Speaker 2:So with that, let's just dive in. So let's just start at the very beginning. So this would have been even when you were a kid. I know like next week we'll probably pick up at the beginning of where CPS stepped in, but this week I want to hear, like, about your story and your upbringing. Um, because I, like I said, there's a lot of stigmas and I just I don't, there's not one size fits all story, right, would you agree? I agree.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I don't. There's not one size fits all story, right, would you agree? I agree, absolutely Okay. I know that human beings are born with wanting two things they want love and they want to belong.
Speaker 1:They want a sense of belonging. So I was born and raised in Cleveland, ohio. I had a very unfortunate and complex start in life. I did not experience the typical family dynamic. I was not raised by my mom or my dad. I was only three years old when my siblings and I were removed from our mom. I went to live with my dad's father and my siblings went to live with my mom's mom. Since me and my other three siblings had all different fathers, we were all raised separately. My father was in prison until I was nine and as I got older I found out that he was an alcoholic and my mother was an addict. I have very few memories as a child of my father or my mother. My childhood was very lonely, so I developed a very playful imagination and I spent many hours at a time reading books. I lost myself in books.
Speaker 1:My grandfather, though he was my knight in shining armor. Looking back, despite the yearning I felt for my biological parents and my siblings, I considered myself so blessed to be raised by my grandfather. He was a very strong and hardworking man who was born in the South, and he treated me so loving and so special. He was practically the only caregiver that I had who reminded me that I was not in fact abandoned. He bought me happy meals all the time and gave me dollars anytime I requested. I guess I was a little spoiled. He never raised his voice, let alone his hand. He instilled in me two vital characteristics that I embody learn and work hard. He used to always tell me go to school and get good grades.
Speaker 2:So when you lived with your grandfather, what made that transpire? Was it your mom asking? Was it like involvement in the county he?
Speaker 1:just kind of stepped up. Like there was no one that stepped up for my other siblings, my grandfather stepped up for me and fortunately I was the only one whom like knew well the county or cps or whatever knew of having a dad. Um, but my father wasn't able to get me, so my grandfather stepped in which is your dad's dad yeah.
Speaker 1:So, um, my grandfather was illiterate. He couldn't read or write, but he was an amazing carpenter and could probably build an entire house from the ground up by himself. He was my hero. He was also a fisherman and a gardener in his free time, so I got exposed to like everything you could think of as a young girl. I climbed ladders when he did roof work, I helped him paint houses, I mowed grass with him, I raked leaves, I worked at a car wash that he managed. He taught me how to put worms on hooks when he fished, and my summers as a little girl consisted of me sitting in his work truck watching him work hard.
Speaker 1:He was a true example of a provider. He worked in Cleveland but lived in a ranch style home in Jefferson, ohio, which is 50 miles outside of Cleveland, ohio. So during the weeks I stayed in Cleveland with his girlfriend in our small apartment, where I attended Cleveland public schools, and then on the weekends, I spent time with him. My grandfather instilled in me the value of education, so therefore, school was my refuge, and I excelled in school my entire life, like that's just that was your safe place, yes, which I feel like that's the case for so many kids that have hard home lives that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so okay. So I know your grandfather played a pivotal role in your childhood, but I also know as much as I know you said your mom was an addict, but she also did know. You said your mom was an addict, but she also did too. You loved your mom and she was also a great woman.
Speaker 1:So I just want to hear more about that and hear more about her okay, um, so one of my first earliest memories of my mother was me attending a meeting with her. I don't exactly remember like how the arrangement happened, I just remember being in a meeting with her. Um, I had't exactly remember like how the arrangement happened, I just remember being in a meeting with her. I had to be about like 10, maybe 11. But it was an NA meeting, because I remember like the adults hugging over and over and over, and in Narcotics Anonymous they give their members hugs to congratulate them on milestones and recovery.
Speaker 1:So my tiny existence did not even understand the monumental impact that these rooms provide to addicts. Seeing my mom healthy inside of a meeting told me so much about her that at various points in her life she tried her best to get clean and be the mother she was destined to be. The next memory of my mom was like a short visit and her delivering a garbage bag full of clothes that she probably got from Goodwill. I remember her being very proud to give me something, to actually be able to give me like, a present, like, like, and I remember me loving the feeling to receive something from my mother as well, although the coat, the clothes were very like, outdated, it was the thought and effort that provided me with healing.
Speaker 2:The thoughtfulness, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was just. It was beautiful. When I looked at her, she was one of the most beautiful women I ever seen Her beautiful smile, her hazel eyes, her illuminating skin, her thin, curly, short hair. It's like no one could ever tell me that she was not the best mom that has ever lived.
Speaker 1:Seeing my mom ever so often in every few years caused me to start having like identity issues. I struggled relating to anyone my age, because most kids in my very small circle had at least one parent that they live with. Yeah, so there was just like no relatability with kids my age At about 15, now I did go to church with my grandfather every now and then, but I specifically remember, like when I was 15, like probably a freshman in high school, my mom invited me to her church and I saw her worship the Lord for the first time. This is when my mom became a person that not only I loved, but someone whom I can admire. She ran up and down the aisles of the church crying and shouting Hallelujah. I now understand like that was her battle cry. That was her way of declaring victory over demons that were always trying to defeat her and keep her bound in addiction, and it was also a testament of her faith and submission to the creator. Little did I know that I will also utilize the same battle cry as a way to obtain strength from the one who has all power. Hallelujah is one of the highest forms of praise.
Speaker 1:So, basically, my mom was in active addiction during most of my life and that reality was very hard to endure. I often would be overwhelmed with sadness, loneliness and feelings of abandonment. I thought I was incapable of being loved until I experienced the love of God. The older I got, the more I accepted the fact that I needed God. I felt like I didn't have anyone else. I needed God. I had my grandfather, but he was not very like emotional yes he wasn't emotional, he wasn't like physically.
Speaker 1:Like you know, he was a man. Yeah, he didn't really communicate.
Speaker 1:It was Well I shouldn't have said that there are nurturing men out there but he was like he, he took care of me, you know, but we didn't have like communication and things like that. He just he loved me and he had a very different way of showing it. Yeah, um, the older, the older I got, the more I accepted the fact that I needed God. Um, so, and I knew that only he, only God, could fill that void in my heart that I needed God. So, and I knew that only he, only God, could fill that void in my heart that I was feeling. I began searching for belonging within a community of believers. I started searching for spiritual truth and purpose. How old were you at this point? I'm a teenager. Okay, yeah, I'm a teenager in high school.
Speaker 1:So I started searching for spiritual truth and purpose, which led me to several new churches over the course of a few years. If I liked the church, I rededicated myself to Christ and I remember my mom came to at least like two of those baptisms. Like, every time I went to a new church, I've got re-baptized. She was so proud of me. She was so proud of me to be so young and choosing to follow Christ. Uh, I became a member of many Christian churches, including Baptist, pentecostal, non-denomination, even seven day Adventist, you name it. It's like God was always calling me to a different ministry and I was obedient. You know, maybe it was something that just didn't fit for me at that church, or I don't know. He just I just felt like he led me in a new direction and each minute, each ministry provided me with like a new perspective on my purpose in serving God. I finally found a church home, where I have now been a member for over 10 years and to this present day, I'm still learning so much about God's word. God has revealed to me that one of my spiritual gifts is evangelism. I'm a soul winner. So I remember like I was always like just on fire for God and I was always inviting people and transporting people to church with me to hear the good news, the good news that was essentially just keeping me, you know, keeping me in a good place, not like thinking about all of the bad things.
Speaker 1:There's a scripture, hosea, chapter four, verse six. It says my people perish for lack of knowledge. So this specific scripture is what prompted me to want more understanding. I don't want to perish, you know, and I know the enemy is like he's just very real and just wanting to take everything that God has given everybody. So I realized that I can't put a limit on an all-knowing creator, and there's always more truth that he wants to reveal, and I'm certain God was calling me to a closer walk in a more intimate relationship with him. Reveal, and I'm certain God was calling me to a closer walk in a more intimate relationship with him.
Speaker 1:Not knowing that soon God was going to allow me to experience some very serious battles. At first it was hard sacrificing everything that I thought I knew about God's word, but shortly after it didn't matter about it feeling uncomfortable or different, as long as I was living in the will of God. He was my source for everything. Anytime I lost sight of the blessings and promises of God, that's when the enemy crept in and started feeding me his deceit. The enemy wants to kill, steal and destroy, and the first thing that he would throw in my face is that I am unworthy of love. I find myself surrendering unto God on many occasions throughout my life After walking away from him. He always welcomed me back. I got pregnant at 18 with my first kid and of course, my mom was there. She made it to the delivery room and I will never, ever forget that.
Speaker 2:Okay. So you got pregnant. Your mom was there for the delivery. You had obviously a baby boy, which is he's your oldest son now, who's 13, yes, can you even believe it um, tell me about like that situation and just um, getting pregnant with him with that, like, where were you relationally? Where were you? Um, you know, was his dad around, what were you, you know, was his dad around? What were you in school? What was your life like then?
Speaker 1:So my high school years I went to live with my dad's mom, caucasian lady. My grandfather was black. My grandmother, my dad's mom was white so that's why I'm mixed biracial.
Speaker 1:Mom was white, so that's why I'm mixed by racial. So I went to live with her in parma ohio, and they put me in parma parma senior high school, which is a really good school, but it was culturally, it was a culture shock because it was predominantly, predominantly white. I I met my oldest son, father dj dj's father, um, I think my sophomore year of high school Was he at PERMA? Yeah, he was at.
Speaker 2:PERMA.
Speaker 1:His mother had a house on Section 8 in Parma and he actually was in what is it called the military. He was basically in the reserves or something like that, but he was doing training for for the military. So like he had a car and I just was like he has it, yeah, together, yeah, he has it. Going on. Um, long story short, I actually got. I actually got pregnant in my junior year of high school and my mom made me get an abortion something that I've never shared with a lot of people. But, um, it was a very hard experience but I ended up getting right back pregnant when I was due with that baby.
Speaker 2:I conceived DJ and I was like the first one with DJ's dad too yep, yeah, um, and I was like I'm not going through that again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and I think it was more so like my mom was like Jaleah, you gotta finish high school.
Speaker 2:Yeah she had your best interest at heart.
Speaker 1:Absolutely but also.
Speaker 2:I would imagine that was traumatic for you.
Speaker 1:So my senior year of high school, living with my grandmother again, it was just me, my grandmother and her sister and like I got up every day, I went to school, I worked hard, big belly. I didn't really have any outlets or support as far as women like my grandmother. She wasn't really that she. She made sure I had dinner and like, make sure I had money. I played basketball in high school before then. That january I got accepted to. I started going to baltimore's university. Okay, so that's it. There wasn't really like his dad was there at the birth, but we broke up like like shortly after I started college.
Speaker 2:Yeah, A comment that I just want to make is I'm just sitting here listening to your story and still always, every time I hear a story, learning new things every time, and I mean even with your first pregnancy. That is something new to me and I just am continuously amazed by one, your resilience. And two, I'm so thankful for just your willingness to be transparent, because I think, just like you said, you know, God has a plan, but the enemy he wants to steal, kill and destroy. That's what Corey and I say all the time. That's his goal, His mission is to do that. But when we are open and transparent about those things and we allow them to be brought to the light, then that's when God can use them for his glory instead of us harboring them and feeling shame.
Speaker 2:That's when shame happens, because the reality is that we can use those things to help people, right, but if we hold them in, then we just get we. That's when the enemy secret gets in our head.
Speaker 1:Yes, secrets keep you sick yeah and in the beginning, like of my younger adult years, I, I kept a lot of things in. I never talked. Not only I didn't have anybody to talk to, but I just, I chose not to disclose anything because I don't know, and that's, and I just, I was afraid to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for one, because it's heavy and it feels, um, like it feels crippling to share, but really what's crippling is to hold it in to yourself, so I just love that about you. Okay, so you had alluded to you having DJ and then your mom being there and then a tragedy happening, so let's talk to talk about that part of your story.
Speaker 1:So I was accepted into a private college, baldwin Wallace University. I was able to stay on campus with my son in a program called Sprout for the duration of obtaining my bachelor's. I absolutely thrived. The entire time I excelled in my coursework. I was able to raise my son in the most healthiest and stable environment on a beautiful college campus. For four years I was a part of a fashion show and honestly, it didn't matter like at the time it didn't matter if my mom was in or out of recovery, but it felt amazing to hear her scream that's my baby from the crowd.
Speaker 1:So tragedy my junior year, at an evening class, I got a call from my grandmother that my mother was dead. Her body had been identified three days after. She was found in the basement of a burning, abandoned building. I ran out of class and I cried hysterically until I couldn't cry anymore. I later learned, when the us marshals found the two men and the court proceedings started, that her autopsy revealed that she died from asphyxiation, meaning she was strangled to death, and I'm very certain that she fought hard until her last breath and that she thought about all seven of her children.
Speaker 1:This tragedy it happened like right before winter break, my junior year and although all my professors offered me the option to take incompletes, I declined. I had come too far in my studies to postpone not graduating, graduating on time with my peers. All of my immediate family relied on me to make all the arrangements for my mom's funeral service. She was indigent, so I basically had to like brainstorm and problem solve about everything. Both my older brothers were incarcerated at the time. So, as my mom's first daughter, the burden of her sudden and tragic death fell all on me. I wrote her obituary and made every arrangement for every detail, from the flowers to the food, and the church where I first witnessed her worship agreed to hold her service memorial service free of charge. I was also a part of a college gospel choir called Voices of Praise and we basically went on tour like winter breaks or spring breaks. It was it was amazing experience. Um, they not only raised money for my mom but also performed at her service. That's amazing. There was so many duties and responsibilities that were placed on me that I had no time to grieve. I was only 21 and my mom was about. She was 41 when she was murdered.
Speaker 1:There are absolutely no words for the amount of devastation and victimization. I felt that overwhelmed my entire existence. I felt despair, I felt powerless and I felt victimized. And then, ultimately, I felt robbed robbed of a mom. I was 20. So I couldn't imagine like, if I live, you know, by God's grace, if I live to like 70, 80 years of age, that's like 60 years of life without a mother. So not only was my reality completely shaken, but now I'm requested to have an interview with Channel 19 News um, in my dorm, in my dorm on college campus.
Speaker 1:I have no idea how I was able to talk to the news shortly after her death. The only explanation is a power greater than me. I remember countless nights of just crying uncontrollably for god's help, for strength and comfort to console me in such a traumatic and painful moment. I literally had no one to physically hold me. This was the first time I had to completely rely on God to help me make it through and, looking back at every time I cried out for his hand. He never denied me, never left my side, never forsook me. He always sent me a message of encouragement and hope through someone or something.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, I knew that my mom would not want me to quit college, so this was a huge motivator to keep going. These memories I have shared with you are what I hold on to forever, like they're just few, but they're just the memories of your mom. Yes, my mom showed me what a true survivor looks like. Giving up for her was never an option, and this became an intrinsic part of me that I embody every single day. So, with God's power, strength and grace, I was able to graduate with my Bachelor's of Arts in Honors.
Speaker 2:That's amazing I gotta gotta throw that in most people can't do that, just with the normal life. You're raising a baby, you're living on your own, you're planning funerals, you're singing in the choir. I mean that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um. So I walked the stage pregnant with my second child at 23. Solomon, what do you guys call him? Salty? Oh yeah, salty.
Speaker 2:Salty, which I just have to add. First of all, two things. One, I just meant to say this in the beginning Corey wasn't able to be here because he had other stuff going on and he was super bummed. But also, this is the first time on the podcast that we're sharing the kids names, and I'm just so glad that you are the one that gets to do that, because it could have gone so many other ways. And here we are, you and I having this conversation, absolutely, and so we have dj, yeah, and the second big reveal is solomon, yep, and we're just gonna keep going yeah, so um trauma you know, so that trauma so like where.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you have dj, you're dealing with all this with your mom, you're going through school, you graduate, you're pregnant with Solomon. Where were you here, like, mentally like?
Speaker 1:mentally, I, I, I kind of numb, I was numb, I kind of like forgot about it. You know, in order for me to succeed in being a mom of these boys, in order for me to succeed in school and just to figure out my arrangements after school, I had to completely like just block it out. And that's what I did for at least like the first five years. Um, the only time I thought about it or like just took time out for my mom, was on Mother's Day, because I was forced to yeah, remember that, like I don't have a mom, my my mom was killed.
Speaker 1:But other than that, like I was homeless after I graduated college, my grandmother was not willing to let me come and live with her because I had not one, but I had two kids now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's talk about healthy relationships for a second, because I know even now that's something that we have had to work through a lot, because you are so used to just like pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and I say that about myself, but, like I have a whole community of family and friends, like you truly, I look at so much of your life and you truly have done it completely on your own. I mean, would you agree with that? Absolutely. So how does that play in when we're talking about healthy relationships, like to you as a person? Now, I mean, do you resist them? I struggle.
Speaker 1:I struggle because it's foreign First of all, it's foreign.
Speaker 1:First of all, it's foreign territory. I've never experienced a long-term, healthy relationship with anyone not family, not cousins, not baby fathers, not friends yeah, everybody that were my friends in high school. Well, you're, you're a mom, so bye. See, it's like they abandoned me, um, and then, like my dj's dad and solomon's dad, like I kind of just like chose the first thing walking, you know what I'm saying? Well, they chose me, but I, you know, and it was, it was to fill a void yes, it was, they were not at the time.
Speaker 1:Dj's father and I, our relationship, it was completely healthy, but it got unhealthy when I went to college and I started getting closer to God and I told him like I don't want to have sex with you anymore and he was like what? That's like 90% of our relationship and it devastated me and I was like, oh, I can't do this. And like he got really unhealthy, like our breakup was his turning point in his mental health and his life Ever since. He's never been the same ever since. Like I literally had to press charges on him because he started harassing me, stalking me, like it just all went bad, yeah, and then, as far as, like Solomon's dad. I was in love with him, but I was trying to be somebody that I wasn't. Solomon's dad was involved with the streets and I was just changing parts of myself to please him and to keep him, and that all blew up in flames, essentially.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good perspective and, honestly, like just hearing parts of your story from then really makes sense, for even now, as we navigate relationships with each other too, that's just such a an important and valuable reminder, not just for you, but for anybody dealing with these situations or for, like, making assumptions about people with trauma and history. Is that that's? I feel like that's a really common theme. Is I'm having to be so independent to a point where it's really not healthy? Yeah, but it also takes a lot of work to get out of that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and it's like even to this day, like my communication sucks, yeah yeah, it does it does. I'm not used to communicating with people. I'm not used to letting people in, like I don't mind letting people in, but I'm just not.
Speaker 2:I haven't experienced it like. You need people to prove themselves to you. You're not going to put yourself out there anymore absolutely, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's see after college, I was homeless, and I want to say from 2015 to 2019, this is where my life started to take even more dark turns. I had nowhere to go, I had no work experience, I had no family quote unquote family to like go and seek refuge to um. So I was homeless right after college up until my second, until Solomon was about eight months old. So were you house hopping? What were you doing?
Speaker 2:I was house hopping.
Speaker 1:I went to live with Solomon's sister and the day I got out the hospital I found out that his dad had another child on the way and I completely, like I think it triggered postpartum depression. I went to a really, really bad depression. I was devastated because it was like, oh my gosh, you have been a complete lie. Ever since I've been, I've been trying to, like, give you every part of me and you turn out to be a complete lie. So I left her house and went to live with a lady, and this was a good. She was a great mom, mother of like eight kids, and she suffered from the devastation of domestic violence. So she was severely depressed and she stayed in her room most of the time. So me and DJ and baby Solomon slept in her living room and I was just very depressed and I just I was in a constant state of emotional suffering. I started believing the enemy again, that I was unworthy of family and I was unworthy of love. So when Solomon was about four months old, another trauma occurred. Living at this lady's house, I want to say I was doing my best. I was doing the best that I could to be a good mom to DJ and Solomon. Despite our circumstances, I know what safe sleep is about, but I put Solomon in an unsafe sleep position in his bassinet in her living room and one evening I was washing dishes and in her house and I where me and my boys were staying and I heard the voice of God and my mother's intuition say very clearly go check on your baby.
Speaker 1:I go into the living room and I discovered immediately that Solomon was lifeless. He was face down in his bassinet. He had suffocated and he was not breathing. He had no signs of life. I went straight into a panic. I picked him up. I ran across the room back and forth a couple of times, patting on his back like, oh my gosh, my baby, my baby, my baby. I dropped to my knees like in midair, like just dropped to my knees and dropped with him, and I blew very, very hard into his mouth to get air into his lungs and I screamed probably the loudest scream I've ever screamed Help. The Bible says help comes from your, help comes from the Lord. The lady who I was staying with. She ran down the stairs. I gave her my baby and she instantly started back blows to get his heart to start beating. I literally stood petrified in the corner of the room, shaking profusely. I heard her say his color is coming back.
Speaker 1:This experience became the most traumatic thing I could ever witness. I went into shock and I barely spoke about the incident to anyone for years. I held, I held it all in and it was like he was okay. He made it. Yeah, I had like he made it. I suffered from like serious flashbacks and images of his unconscious face and it was just. It was all. It was a. It was a it. It was a dark time, but this is also where I realized I'm so fortunate to know such a very mighty and very present god. Only the true and living god could provide such a miracle that's so true it was just like did that experience like draw you closer to god?
Speaker 1:no, it didn't. It didn't because I didn't have. I wasn't actively in a church and I was going through homelessness and when I called his dad to tell him what had happened, he completely denied it. That night he was like oh you tripping whatever, like hung up the phone. He never came to like support me, to like talk about it, to like nothing. He just completely ignored it.
Speaker 2:When I told him, like dude, our baby was dead, yeah, um, so I just my depression got deeper, yeah, and I didn't know what to do, I didn't know where to go, I didn't know how to come out of this situation yeah, I, yeah, I asked that for clarification because I for people listening who might be going through like really heavy, hard and dark stuff, like as you're telling your story now you're telling it in retrospect where, like, you can reflect on your story and see god all throughout it, right sprinkled all throughout. But in those moments you weren't saying, oh, it's such as I have such a strong and mighty god.
Speaker 2:You were in the pits yes, the heaviness and absolutely so for anybody who might be listening, that's like walking through it right now or going through the pits of you know hell Woo, um you. It's okay that you don't maybe in those moments feel God's presence Right With you, but that doesn't mean he's not. He still is. So I just wanted to clarify that because, yeah, often we we get these stories and we get to look back in retrospect. Right in those hard moments it's like, oh no, yeah, I was a mess?
Speaker 1:yeah, I was a mess. Um, I was conflicted, I didn't understand, like how, how? Like yes, I'm grateful that he survived, but the experience in itself was just terrifying. Yeah, so I started hanging out with young women who were not the greatest of influence, because they were supportive to you, but maybe not in a healthy way.
Speaker 2:They were accessible.
Speaker 1:They were accessible and they were. I knew of them from high school.
Speaker 2:So little bit. I feel like so much of your story. It's there's loneliness, so you will, you will grasp to whatever feels that lonely. Yes, even if it's unhealthy.
Speaker 1:Yes, and knowing that it was, I had to be something that I wasn't, because the natural me is loving, it's kind, it's kind, it's humble and I love God. I love God, I love my babies. So when I started hanging out with these people, I just started trauma bonding. But they were more advanced in their quote worldliness than I was. Yeah, they were already experimenting, experimenting with hardcore drugs. They were very, very promiscuous because I I literally was only with DJ's dad and Solomon's dad, like I wasn't really out in the open, like that. So so I started bonding with toxic men more, even more toxic men, um, experimenting with marijuana and drinking and just making just like a lot of unhealthy situ, um, making a lot of unhealthy decisions. So when solomon was about eight months old, I want to say DJ's like five or six now.
Speaker 2:And like don't, I know, I do the same thing. I'm like I know how old my kids are, I know how far apart they are. I'm not doing that math right now, but when you're on the spot.
Speaker 1:No, so I got housing. I got public housing, my first apartment, and I'm at the peak of my depression. I like I would try to hang out and stuff like that, but most days I couldn't get out of bed. Um, I reached out to Solomon's grandmother, whom you guys have met, um, and asked if she could keep Solomon temporarily so I can get some help. At this point it was just I couldn't get out of bed. So she agreed and then, like the third week she had him, she went and filed for emergency custody. I went, picked him up immediately when I got the court papers and you know, I kept him with me and I went to court and they dismissed the case. I'm like, just like I just wanted to get help. She, you know it was just miscommunication but I ended up not being able to get help because I did, I just didn't have enough time.
Speaker 2:You know, not enough time, but I didn't have the resources yeah, right, when you're in those spots and you're doing it all alone and you're raising kids, it really does feel like you don't have the time, although that's like the number one priority of what you need to do. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah so like right after that, like right after that, I want to say a couple weeks after that June of 2016. So Solomon is about seven, eight months oh, don't quote my math. He was born in September. Maybe nine oh, don't quote my math. He was born in september, so maybe nine, I don't know. Dj's about five or six, maybe five, he's about five.
Speaker 1:And uh, I had another traumatic experience. I was driving a friend home from work and when I when, when we pulled up to his house, my car was shot up. He was in the back seat, next to both my kids. A masked person approached the rear driver's side and fired at least nine shots close range into the back seat of my car, attempting to murder the man I was transporting. Every bullet went towards both my sons. All I could do was cower down in the front seat and wait till the shooting stopped. The young man that I that was in my car in the back seat tried to escape, but he didn't make it out of the car and he was hanging out the back passenger window on top of DJ and Solomon. They were screaming, they were covered in glass and it was just like absolute, like shock at what had occurred.
Speaker 1:I drove the young man to the car. My passenger, which was DJ's uncle at the time, helped me, put him back inside the car and we drove him to the emergency. He died. He was pronounced dead about an hour later in surgery he he died from a gunshot wound. He died from internal bleeding. From that, went through the door and inside um never seen a drip of blood not one drip of blood. Um. So I drove into the ER. He died. The police would not let me leave the hospital. I had to call someone to get my kids and they transported me downtown for questioning to get a statement. They immediately discovered that I had nothing, nothing to do with the tragedy, and I was just simply a ride, wrong place, wrong time, wrong person in my car. They kept my car for evidence and collected several bullet shells from my car. Like I believe there was one in my trunk. There was one in the cushion of the back seat, like in the middle of the seat, um, so so, middle of the seat. So so who was?
Speaker 2:the guy.
Speaker 1:He was a friend of a friend. He was just literally somebody that needed a ride. I wasn't like dating him, nothing like that. He was just a friend of a friend who needed a ride home from work, friend who needed a ride home from work. So I found out later on, because I was subpoenaed at the court as a witness to the trial, that the man I was transporting killed someone three days prior and he was killed all in the name of revenge.
Speaker 2:so talk about a scary and fearful time in my life yeah, and also I want to pause here to like, like I'm hearing this and I know there are people listening like this girl has bad luck. But also I think that people need to realize because I had an, I interviewed another guy which, do you remember, I gave you that book of that guy who was I think it was like 27 years or something. He was in prison for a long time. Yep, it's just different worlds, like I also think that that's just parts of cleveland too. Yes, where, like to you, this is like well, this happens, like this happens a lot. Yeah, where to me I'm listening like this is unbelievable. This is so uncommon, but it's really not. That's the lifestyle there, because people are working in the streets, people are, there's a lot of drug deals going on, and so it really isn't that hard to get wrapped up into, which is like so disappointing yeah and like I just want to do, like yeah, there's so many problems.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's sad because these young black? Because the, the shooter, was only 17 years old, so I was subpoenaed to court for his juvenile trial and his adult trial.
Speaker 1:The guy was transporting, he was about like 27 28, but they grew up in the same neighborhood, literally as little boys they right like you can't control where you're born, right when you're born into these cities, you have to learn to to live that way for survival so also I found out that basically the reason why he killed the person that he killed, like the original person that was in my car, was because somebody took his safe out of his house, and I guess he found out who did it, and so the person that killed him that was his brother. So you got three men Lives are just gone within a week Whom were essentially brothers.
Speaker 2:And OK, so were your boys, ok.
Speaker 1:So, yes, dj and Solomon were OK, dj was, I was in the 2001 Chevy Cavalier, so it was a really small four door car. Dj was in the middle, solomon was on the rear passenger door in his car seat. The bullet this is the bullet that they found in the middle of the seat in the cushion of the back seat skidded DJ's head, the back of his head. Dj had an abrasion on the back of his head at the same height of the seat where you can see like it's almost like the bullet went in the seat and like ricocheted and then dropped. That's crazy. So, absolutely so. But if you look at my car, the bullets were sporadic, they were all over the back half of my car. Like it's like he walked up to the car just shooting and then came up to the window and continued to shoot.
Speaker 2:it's such a miracle that they're alive so oh all of you.
Speaker 1:Yes, praise the lord, thank you, jesus. Um, I remember like being just terrified to go anywhere or do anything. For months I developed severe paranoia of black men like I. Like I couldn't be around black men for a while. So cps got involved. Um, for the first time there's an open case with cps now. I was never charged with any like child child endangerment, um, because me and all the me and my kids all received official victims of crimes letters. We were victims in this situation, um, but they did do. They did do a drug screen and I tested positive for cocaine.
Speaker 1:So snorting cocaine had become my newfound remedy for my depression. Probably about 30 days prior to that event I just started using a hardcore drug, um, and immediately got addicted. Like you hear stories of of people if you don't have the like, maybe like the genetic entity, like of parents who were alcoholics or addicts, they can recreationally drink or recreationally use a drug and don't become addicted. But then if you have the genes of addicts and alcoholic parents and then you also mix that in with mental illness and you also mix that in with lack of support and whatever the case may be, then my case I got addicted immediately and I had a really high tolerance because basically what cocaine did because depression brings you down and makes you feel like you can't do anything, you can't live, you can't do it. So when I tried cocaine, it brought me to a normal functioning level where I felt OK.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could see that. Get out of bed, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and then it just, but it required large amounts, because that's how deep in I was just not functioning. Yeah, so yeah, because that's how deep in I was just not functioning.
Speaker 1:So I can, yeah, go ahead. I complied to their recommendations. They wanted me to go to treatment. They closed my case in about like four months. So, in spite in spite of, like, my drug use at that time, my kids were like very well nurtured and very cared for and and very well cared for. I did a good job for concealing my sickness and my pain. They went to school during the day and I got extremely high at night. I had about like six months of sobriety when I decided to take a drink to celebrate a new job and I relapsed in the same night. At the time I was ignorant. I didn't know that. You can't.
Speaker 2:So when you went to treatment, it actually worked. You stayed clean. You wouldn't just do it to go through the motions.
Speaker 1:Well, I took it seriously, but I didn't actually work the program, which there's more than just going to treatment. There's other things that you have to do. You have to get rid of toxic people, you have to get a sponsor. You have to get rid of toxic people, you have to get a sponsor.
Speaker 2:You have to go to meetings, but all the county really cares about is completing the program where it's a box check and they're like all right you check the box, but really there's deeper work that needs to be done.
Speaker 1:So I check my boxes, they close the case, but I didn't do any more work. Yeah, as far as trauma, mental health, I got a job and I was like life is good.
Speaker 2:Julia's back and I this right here. This, what Julia just said, is so common and is a big problem thing, not specifically in this situation, but like in foster care as a whole, where I feel like we need an overhaul of the system, which it's gonna be. So there's, I don't know, it's gonna be done in somehow, some way. But the county, really what they're bound to by the law, is making sure the box is checked. But, as you hear julia and all that she's gone through and that, yeah, her case was closed, her kids were able to stay with her safely and successfully because she checked the box. But, like her problems, her issues, her years and years and years of trauma, she still had so much work to do.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But because the county is so overloaded with all of these cases, they don't really care about the actual problem solving. They just want the box checked, and that's why there's so many kids who oh, the box is checked, all right. No, it can go out of state because the boxes have been checked, even though there's so many underlying issues and these kids are going back to unsafe situations. I'm not saying that was your specific scenario here, but it is very often yeah, so so what's next?
Speaker 1:So so, yeah, so they seen that the kids were, we had food in the home, we had a house, mom had a job. All that was good, um, but like, once they closed the case and I was just working and I didn't replace my using relationships with healthy relationships, um, that was a part of it. And also, like I decided to take a drink and I relapsed because I never had a problem with alcohol, yeah, but once my like brain was, um, impaired, I just completely was like my body was like, go get some drugs. Um, so, so late 2016, I relapsed and I got pregnant by the, by solomon's dad, um, with. So, um, I got pregnant with my third child. Depression came back. Depression hit me even harder because not only did I relapse, but now I'm pregnant and that is kind of like the story for the next three children.
Speaker 1:So, did you use during this pregnancy? I did. I used um with Sia up until about, I want to say, four months. My sister, um, came to live with me temporarily. She called cps on me. She called cps on me for her. Sorry, it was, yeah, I. I am grateful for it now, yeah, but back then I was pissed, um, but she called cps and told them that I was using while I was pregnant, so I went back to outpatient treatment. I stayed clean um up until I delivered a healthy baby girl, and I took recovery even more serious than I did before. It's like each time I experienced a relapse. Each time I went back to recovery, I gained more vital information that I needed to sustain me.
Speaker 1:So a lot of times when I got back sober sober, I started going back to church and things of that nature. So I had almost a year of recovery when I got lonely and decided to go see what my old using friends were up to and I relapsed again. So that was about mid or beginning. No, josiah, she was born in 2017. So it's about the end of 2018. I relapsed. So from 2019 through 2023, I stayed in active addiction.
Speaker 2:And you had to move from Cleveland to Canton at some point in there.
Speaker 1:Yes, so, but right before I moved so let's say, september 22nd 2019, I got a call that my grandfather, who had raised me, was in hospice and that he only had a few moments left. So when I arrived to the hospital where he was, he was incoherent. He was already at the last stages of dying. So I have a lot of guilt and remorse, because during those last months of his life, I was battling addiction and I just wasn't there and he was my rock my whole entire life. He was the only person that I had, no matter what. So the nurse told me that he only had like a few more hours. I kissed him and I prayed to our father and made a promise that I would continue to do my best as a mother and I wouldn't let him down, because they say, like one of the last senses that you use that you lose is hearing. So I know for a fact that he heard me. Um, I had.
Speaker 1:I was the only one in the room as he took his final breaths. His wife wasn't there, his kids wasn't there, it was just me, and that in itself was like confusing. You know what I'm saying? Because where is everybody? Like why? Why is he on his deathbed by himself, and he was such a phenomenal man. So I had a lot of emotions at this time, mostly a lot of guilt, because of, as of lately, I wasn't being a good granddaughter, you know, and I wasn't by his side. So, looking back, I know that during those hard times, I did the very best that I could do with what I had, and I was absolutely incapable of being something to someone when every day it was a battle for me to continue to live. So I moved to Canton in November of 2019. It was cold. What brought you to Canton in?
Speaker 2:like November of 2019. It was cold. What brought you to Canton? So wasn't it the housing? Yes, they had available housing there.
Speaker 1:Well, two things. One was I was sick of Cleveland. Yeah, I was done with Cleveland, so I was just ready. I didn't have any support, so it was easy for me to just be like you know what we're leaving, we're going, gonna go somewhere and it doesn't matter, we don't have anybody there, like we gotta go. And then the other thing was I had mold growing in my bathroom in Cuyahoga. Metropolitan housing would not move us. They didn't deem it as an emergency and and we were, we were essentially sick. We were very sick. Um, I developed asthma and all these things.
Speaker 1:So I heard from a friend, through a friend, that Canton, like housing, public housing, goes pretty fast. So when I, when I applied for housing which was like probably mid 2019, um, they sent me a letter and was like you know, we got an apartment for you. So I just I left, I left, I left and, honestly, really didn't look back because there was nothing to look back to. So I moved to Canton with my three children. I didn't know anyone and unfortunately, I started trauma bonding with toxic people all over again. The place where I lived was just like, oh, it was a very toxic situation. Like the neighbor on my right was an alcoholic, the neighbor on my left was smoking crack and it was just infested like the community was just infested. But I was so trying so hard to be a part of something and know someone and like make sure that my kids had friends, but these just were just all unhealthy people. So my first experiences of Canton were horrible.
Speaker 2:Like I hated Canton was that the apartment you were in like when we knew? No different one? Yeah, I was the, the apartment you were in like when we knew yeah, I was the first apartment that we moved to.
Speaker 1:I went through some really bad things there because nobody was snorting cocaine in this area or in Canton like the people I met. They were all smoking it. So therefore my addiction progressed and transferred to doing what they were doing because it was accessible and it was available, um, and like, my grief was just just so tremendous and I did not want to feel so that's what I started doing. I started doing what everyone around me was doing, but then I endured a lot of trauma in that just from my addiction, like I was held hostage at gunpoint in my home over a lie and I put in an emergency transfer and then that's how I came to my most recent housing situation, where you guys were has has seen, um, but like, oh my gosh, I was date raped in that home. Um, and like I had to.
Speaker 1:Like addiction is not fun. Like once it becomes, once you become past that threshold of just using recreationally and then you become dependent upon it, you have to literally figure out a way every single day how to provide or how to accumulate money to support that habit, and I started soliciting for money, I started hustling for money in so many ways, very risky, dangerous situations, and then that's how we were there for about a year, and then we moved on the other part of Canton and things just didn't get any better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're what? At 20, that's, from 2019 to 2022. So we're almost to the point where our stories overlap. Yes, okay.
Speaker 1:So I'm a broken down, just not doing good individual. I was maintaining to a certain degree you were hanging on by a thread is what you were doing yes and yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. And how old were your kids at this time? They were what? Okay, well, I don't even know, we don't even need to do that math, okay, so let's say 2022.
Speaker 1:That was two years ago, so 11 dj was about 11. Yeah, solomon was seven. Seven side was four.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, about to be five, yeah and right before our stories overlap, you also became pregnant again. Oh my goodness, yeah, so we're gonna leave off the story here, okay, but at this point you're in canton, had just moved to a new apartment recently. You have three kids and then one on the way, yeah, yeah, do you want to talk a little bit about what caused like cps? I mean, I think we're kind of getting there, you're kind of alluding to it, but why don't you talk about that? And then we'll close out the episode here.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 1:So this girl this is just very just a weird, a very weird situation, how they originally got involved in Canton. This girl, who was my neighbor in Cleveland, called me. She was an alcoholic. Go figure, she was an alcoholic. Go figure, she was an alcoholic. But she called me and she's like hey, girl, it's me and my husband's anniversary. We want to come see you.
Speaker 1:And this was like two o'clock in the morning and I'm just like okay, y'all can come visit. I haven't had a visitor since I've been here and I know you guys really don't care, there's something to this. But okay, here's my address. So I gave her my address but I gave her a different apartment, right? So maybe like five hours later I got a call from CPS that said that they had got an anonymous call to this to. They read me the address and they asked me was that my address? And I told them no, but it was the exact address that I gave her and the report said that me and the kids didn't have food and that I was using heroin. I've never used heroin a day in my life. So they immediately opened up an investigation.
Speaker 1:They came to my apartment like maybe I'm probably say like two, three, four days later they just popped up and did a drug screen and I tested positive for cocaine is this when you're pregnant?
Speaker 1:yes, okay, so so you're on their radar that way so most of my pregnancy I did try to get help, like I knew it was bad. I knew I wasn't doing good and everybody that I was around was telling me like they gonna take them kids, they're gonna take those kids. And so I was trying around was telling me like they going to take them kids, they're going to take those kids. And so I was trying to be kind of like savvy about it. Like, well, I heard that if you're getting help, that they won't take the kids. So I literally went in the midst of them, opening the case and contemplating removal. I took the kids and went to well, actually, they made me do a safety plan with a neighbor. So they removed the kids, not from my custody but from the home, and placed them. Well, I had to find someone because I didn't have anyone. So there was one lady who was a positive person. Yeah, so they went and went with the lady and then one day I just went and picked them up from the lady and I took them to treatment with me in Cleveland.
Speaker 1:Um, I was there probably about 20 some days and a girl that I went to treatment with convinced me to leave and we started getting high and that continued on, you know so, like towards the end of my pregnancy. And then I knew I was getting close, but again I was in the midst of addiction, so I wasn't getting prenatal care. So I was like you know what? I'm going to go and I'm going to get an assessment. So I went to ComQuest Again. I said I had been about like 38 weeks pregnant. I didn't even know what the gender of the baby was. I went and got an assessment at ComQuest and I told them, like I want to go to inpatient treatment and I need a program that allows moms. Well they, they told me, like we have a inpatient treatment center here that will let you take the baby with you. So arrangements were made. But was I, was I prepared to have a baby, let alone like for kids?
Speaker 2:yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was, it was completely it was.
Speaker 2:It was very bad at that at that point, so yeah, yeah, and so we will pick up next week kind of hearing the story and then talk about our overlap in that journey there. But I do just want to close with saying you know, I'm listening to your story and just listening to your journey and it breaks my heart a little bit. You know, obviously for many reasons, but one toward the very end. You know just that our system as a whole is broken and, like I know that the government has many resources out there that are so helpful in so many ways and people who genuinely truly need them. You know, like wick and food resources, but in some ways it also is the cycle that you know. You obviously were a single mom and needed that housing, but the housing that's provided has put you into these. You were put right in the middle of a neighborhood that is so broken and drug ridden and just running rampant with horrible horrible things and these people had their way with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here's this girl from out of town who ain't got nobody oh, they took full advantage of that, and she's pregnant, you know. So, got nobody oh, they took full advantage of that, and she's pregnant, you know.
Speaker 2:So I was, oh man, yeah, yeah. So I want to say thank you so much for being brave enough to share your journey this far and so transparent and sharing so much of your story. How do you feel right now?
Speaker 1:That was hard.
Speaker 2:It was hard.
Speaker 1:It was very hard, but now that it's over, it's like I've accomplished it and it's freeing and it's empowering and I just I feel good, I'm glad.
Speaker 2:So what is your hope with this part of your story for somebody who's listening out there? Is there anything you want to say or like your hope in sharing this? Because obviously it feels good to get it out there in the open, because there's like a sigh of relief.
Speaker 1:But even more than that, yes, there's a purpose behind it and this is a quote that has it stuck out to me suffering in and of itself is meaningless. We give our suffering meaning by the way we respond to it. In this other quote, forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess, except one thing your freedom to choose how you will respond to that situation. So, yes, I went through a lot of trauma. People all over the world are going through a lot of trauma just a lot of distressful, a lot of distressing things. But we do have a choice in how we can respond and react to those things and, fortunately and unfortunately, I made a lot of bad decisions because of my trauma.
Speaker 1:But I also believe that we can turn that around at any point, and it's all about our willpower. And it's all about wanting things to be better and wanting things to be different. And if you don't have somebody in your life that has told you that they love you, that you are valued, that you are enough, that you have a purpose, then choosing a healthy route is going to be hard. But I'm here to tell you that you are loved, you are enough, you have a purpose, you that you are loved, you are enough, you have a purpose, and that God did not allow me to go through such tremendous trauma just for me to keep it to myself, to hold all that sickness and that pain inside of me. No, it's meant for me to share and it's meant for me to be a testament that, hey, look what God has brought me through, or look what he is doing. If I can get through this, so can you. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:So keep going and don't give up.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I love it. All right, guys, we will be in the next episode.