Today we’d like to introduce you to Franchesca.
Hi Franchesca, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
“Do one thing every day that scares you,” as stated by an incredible First lady Eleanor Roosevelt. When I was asked to write my story for an inspirational article, I can honestly say I freaked out. I know ‘why’ someone that knows me would recommended me for this opportunity, but then I asked myself the ‘how’; how can I tell a horrible story that will make people feel uncomfortable?
The why: I have led an extraordinary life. One might think hearing the word extraordinary would mean something good. However, the definition of extraordinary is in the word itself — “extra ordinary”. In my case, I have led an extra ordinary life in an incredibly sad way. Then comes the ‘how’. How do I share my incredibly tragic story in a way that can be digestible? There is no way I can start the story of why I started my business (a mental health practice I named “Vos Vita Counseling”), and how I got here, without the truly sad reason that led me down this path; the murder of my mother and attempted murder of my sister by the hands of the person that was to protect and love them: my father. My father, who ended his life by suicide after he attempted to end our family.
Although I will not share the full details on the horrors I survived through 17 years of extreme physical abuse, I will share he broke my neck. I suffered injuries requiring staples to close skull wounds. These injuries are ones that you can see, in the now, via an MRI or by looking at my face. What can’t be seen is the years of emotional abuse that kept me from telling on him, “if you ever tell anyone that I hit you, your sister will die.” I was eight. So, telling this story is the scariest thing the world to me because my physical trauma and emotional abuse still lives, in the now. By revealing this story, something I was told not to do, I truly hope to inspire and empower others who may resonate with my story.
These are just three instances, of many, I suffered through 17 years of my childhood. If you’d allow your mind to wonder what else may have happened through the rest of the 17 years, you may think you’d land on something close to the reality. However, the truth is far worse. So instead of going into further details on the 17 years of pain, I will focus on one event that changed the course of my life and led me to the woman I am today: the day I reported my father for child abuse. Unfortunately, it was also the day that ended my family.
I was 17 years old, a senior in high school. Attractive, smart, kind, a teacher’s pet, popular (both well liked and unliked) and driven. I had a high GPA, I was earning scholarships, in leadership positions at school, and a Popeyes employee “often called the Popeyes girl”. On the outside, it presented as if my life was “good”. To the point a classmate that year asked me “how does it feel to have the perfect life?” When she made that statement, I was nominated for Homecoming court. All I could think was “you don’t know.”
She didn’t know, well no one knew, that I was hiding bruises on my body. That I cut my hair short so that my father had less hair to grab when he beat my head. That I had all the items I loved broken as punishment. She didn’t know my father would resuscitate me after making me pass out by choking me — waking up on the floor while my family watched, looking scared that I may not have woken up. But I did. Every time.
Up to this point and age, getting a beating was normalized. My senior year, I decided I was going to “earn” my beatings. I maintained my good grades, because I knew that my grades were going to be how I survive, but I did “misbehave”, or act out. Unfortunately, my behavior, grown from a place of opposition to my abuse, allowed the opportunity for my father to create a narrative that I was a “bad kid”. This is a dream narrative for the abuser. Now, my father had ammo he could use so people like my family, or the community, would believe I was a bad kid in case I turned him. He could always point to my behavior and say I was “a liar and troubled”.
The older I got the more horrific the physical abuse became, and I came to anticipate it. The day the abuse became something else, I came home from work after school and went to shower. Once I was showered and dressed, my father asked me to go to the living room, where he was seated on the couch. He requested me to sit next to him as my mother cleaned the room. He was calm. I sat down in front of him, and what I did not anticipate was the long butcher knife he had laying on his side. My father pulled the knife and placed it to my stomach. And there we sat for three hours. For three hours I was tortured thinking, “do I live or die?” These were the words that kept formulating in my head as he pressed the knife into my stomach. He didn’t pierce my skin. He gently put pressure as if to say that he would, unless I agreed to do what he asked. My father did not want to pay for my college and wanted me to join the military. I cried silently as my mother cleaned the house around us, all the while telling me to “say what he wants you to say so he can let you go.” She, too, was an abused victim and coped differently than I. I chose defiance. She chose submission. I told my father I would not go to the military because I worked hard to achieve all I accomplished so I may be able to attend college.
For three hours we sat in a combat of words and minds. If I was going to die it was not going to be to let him win. He was deranged looking, with eyes bulging out of his head and still a level of rationale that did not allow him to fully stab me. After three hours of this ‘live or die’, I finally voiced my conclusion. I told my father, “If you pulled it out, you are going to have to use it.” I said this confidently, steadily and fatigued. I was ready to die. This shocked him, and he realized I had made peace with death. He lowered his knife, all the while my mom still cleaning.
As the knife lowered, I got up slowly and walked to my room. I sat on my bed processing what just occurred. I realized then he was going to end my family. I contemplated how significant my position was in the family as a protective barrier for my sister and mother. They were not strong. My mother, the living incarnate of Stockholm Syndrome, and my younger sister, struggling with juvenile diabetes and other developmental concerns. I was what kept him from beating on them. He had me. Through the years, my mother would say she had taken beatings to protect me. I never witnessed it, but I believe he must have told her the same thing he told me. If she ever told on him, he would kill the girls. I never blamed her; I saw her as a victim, like me. All these thoughts raced through my head as I sat on my bed, and then it hit me: what had to be done. With going to college, he was not only losing control of me, but he was losing his biggest outlet to his anger and violence. I needed to turn him in because once I leave, he will take it out on them.
I waited in my room and turned off the lights. I listened to the noises of the house to make absolutely sure the house was still and silent before I made any movement. It was 3 am when I decided to leave the house and walk to the Police station, miles away. I finally turned my father in for child abuse.
In the morning a police officer took me to my friend’s home. He told me I did not have any evidence of abuse on my body so there was not much they could do, but he would have my father investigated. Of all the beatings I took through the years, what caused me to break was a knife that never pierced my skin, thus leaving no mark. There was no evidence other than my word. It occurred to me this was going to be what completely destabilizes him, much like a ticking time bomb on its last tick. Now I’m really going to die. What I wasn’t expecting was that my father played this like a chess move. He went through the investigation after telling my mom and sister to negate my story of the knife incident or else we would all lose everything. My mother knew it would be the end of life if she chose to defend me.
I will never forget leaving the investigator’s office after I was interrogated and analyzed by a psychologist. There were my father and mother holding my crying sister. I walked away knowing they refuted my story and knowing he was going to maintain his position as a pillar of society. He would let the world believe I was troubled…and he did. He was so effective, that he was able to have me kicked out of Germany (where we lived) under the circumstance that I was a “threat to the community”. No one believed my story. The only plus was that it was now too risky to leave marks. So he never touched me again. No more punches or kicks. No more. Yet the “no more” also meant there was no more outlet for him. He was breaking.
Years later, I grew up, went to college, moved back in with my parents (my father stating he had changed), met my now ex-husband, married and had a child (a son). The year I married and had a child, I lost my parents through murder suicide. He finally broke. He stabbed my sister twice in the heart, stabbed my mother in the neck (after she pleaded for him to not kill my sister but to kill her instead), and then ultimately turned the knife on himself, inflicting on himself the same wounds he inflicted on them. My sister survived, but barely. I survived because I wasn’t there.
My fathers last words were “we are going to die as a family.” And we did. He did kill my family. They were gone. Even though my sister survived, that version I knew of her also died the day it all ended on July 14, 2003. Now “they” all believed me: my family and the community. Too late and at a devastating cost.
After my parents passed away, I wanted to understand the “how”. How did this man that presented to be intelligent, well educated, high ranking, well respected in the community by his peers and all manage to trick so many people? He was a medical professional. He worked Psychiatry. He was surrounded by those in the field, his peers. How did no one know he wasn’t well? How did so many adults miss a little girl’s bruises and believe a little girl lied about the bruises and black eyes? I changed my major from Premed to Psychology. I wanted to understand.
Years later, that little girl grew up to try to save lives in a different way. I became a mental health therapist, and I work really hard as a wounded healer to connect with the pain of my clients that far extend past my education and experience. I am a victim and survivor, both sides of a coin because two things can be true. In the thousands of people I have met in my 17 years in this field, only a handful know I lost my parents to murder suicide (only because they lost someone to suicide themselves).
Trauma victims/survivors are often silenced due to a world that does not understand. I have often been met with uncomfortable responses or people squirming in their seat when hearing the details of my life. I have been rejected by a person I dated because “I didn’t have parents like the Cosby’s”. My insecurities, out in the open, that I was left an orphan with no parents and felt tarnished and unwanted. Although I didn’t cause my trauma I now will carry it.
“Vos Vita Counseling” was created because there is a need for providers that can understand and empathize past their education and experience. Vos Vita means “your life”, as I now share mine publicly. I decided I was going to believe my clients because I was not believed as a teenager. Not only believe them, but as a wounded healer install hope from places of understanding very few can identify with. I am proud of the work I have done through the years, from being a director at multiple agencies, creating programs for teenagers and children, and working crisis in the community to serve the underserved. This is something I would want my clients to do: share their journey to overcome internalizing it. Vos Vita Counseling is a product of my journey, where I have come full circle from being a victim to a survivor that can help those who want to be heard and believed. Through my healing journey, I was also able to break generational trauma, specifically with my son. My son, who graduated high school with a 4.53 GPA, got accepted into an elite University. He is about to graduate from that University, and then off to grad school (to join his mother in the field of Psychology to continue the work of helping others). I have done good. I am proud of me. I hope my story can help at least one person either believe those that need to be believed or install hope in someone that needs any glimmer of hope to survive.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The challenges have been many, however I was told once to not have a “deficit mentality.” I do believe it is important to identify facts. I built a business as a single Latina woman in the south while her only son was in college. It seemed that my son being in college was the only justification in terms of time that I could find to build Vos Vita Counseling. When I sought mentorship, I requested mentorship from other single women because they face challenges that women who live in a dual income home do not. Also, being a Latina in a field that lacks Latino clinicians and serving the underserved posed its own challenges. In my experience being attractive in this field was also a challenge because unfortunately one gets judged by the outside appearance at times, in relation to intelligence. While I have been blessed to have a full practice of such beautiful diversity, it did come after facing these challenges.
We’ve been impressed with Vos Vita Counseling, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
“Vos Vita Counseling” is a mental health practice created to serve those that have a story to tell and a healing journey to begin. It is a practice I can proudly state has served ALL demographics. My clients are the most beautiful, resilient, kind individuals. They are white, black, Hispanic, middle eastern, male, female nonbinary and all sexualities. I serve all non-judgmentally and have a wonderful team at Vos Vita that share similar values in genuine care. I am a Certified Dialectical Behavioral Therapist, but use different evidence-based approaches to meet each individual’s needs. How I move in treatment is definitely driven by the mind and body connection where I give my clients tools to manage the physiological symptoms of their stress, anxiety, depression and trauma so that when we start processing trauma and begin reconstructing their thoughts, we are able to do so in a safe interconnected way, the mind and body.
I am proud that Vos Vita Counseling is a practice that all demographics have reached out to for services. With almost 20 years of experience, we offer services in English and Spanish. We accept most major insurances and have affiliation agreements with different universities to provide supervision for their interns and provide affordable care.
I would want the readers to know that 80 percent of outcomes, in terms of your healing, is based off the therapeutic relationship. No matter what type of education and experience a therapist has it really is about how you get along with them. I am down to earth, funny, engaging and most importantly I am a wounded healer. I can connect with the depths of pain that most clinicians would not be able to understand and am a true survivor. I do not speak solely from my education but from my heart and soul. These tools helped me survive and thrive, and I am a testament of that.
How do you think about luck?
Luck played a role by the people I have met along the way. I have met other non judgmental people who are loving and caring and never competed with me but wanted to help me grow and thrive. That truly is lucky!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://vosvitacounseling.com
