Gaslit, Sober, Unapologetic

Leticia Francis Author

From addiction to awakening: Jacquie’s raw journey through trauma, recovery, and rediscovering her voice beyond survival.

Some stories don’t start with rebellion—they start with inheritance.

For Jacquie Grillon, survival mode wasn’t a choice. It was a birthright.

Born into a lineage of women who were hurting, silenced, and unhealed, she entered a world where trauma wasn’t talked about—it was tolerated.
Abuse ran through her family tree like blood. Her grandfather molested both her and her mother. Her father raged. Her mother coped through denial. And little Jacquie learned early that love came with conditions, pain came in silence, and the only way to be safe was to disappear into obedience.

That’s what generational trauma looks like—an inheritance of pain disguised as normal.

By the time Jacquie reached adulthood, the roles were already carved into her bones: people-pleaser, fixer, emotional caretaker, punching bag.
She learned how to survive everyone else’s storms—but never how to weather her own.

Until one day, everything she’d built to prove her worth came crashing down.

Addiction.
Loss of custody of her son.
Shame that nearly drowned her.

But rock bottom has a way of stripping you back to truth.
And that’s where Jacquie began her three-phase journey out of survival mode: Self-Awareness, Reprogramming, and Reinvention.

Phase 1 — Self-Awareness: Naming the Wound

Survival mode teaches you to perform strength.
Healing asks you to see the wound.

For Jacquie, that moment came when she realized she was living a script that wasn’t hers—repeating her mother’s patterns, her father’s rage, her family’s silence.

Her addictions weren’t rebellion—they were anesthesia.
Her people-pleasing wasn’t kindness—it was control.
Because when you grow up gaslit and dismissed, keeping everyone happy feels safer than being seen.

She’d been told her whole life, “That never happened.”
But her body remembered.
Her body carried every scream swallowed, every truth buried, every part of her that was told to sit down and shut up.

That’s the first step of exiting survival mode—self-awareness.
It’s not just seeing the pattern. It’s admitting that you’ve been living it.

Jacquie had to face the truth: she’d spent years trying to earn her worth by saving everyone else. But awareness cracked her open—it showed her that survival isn’t the same as living.

Phase 2 — Reprogramming: The Death of the Good Girl

Healing isn’t a makeover. It’s a funeral.

For Jacquie, recovery meant burying the version of herself who believed love had to be earned.
The woman who said “yes” while bleeding inside.
The mother who carried guilt so heavy it became her identity.

Getting sober didn’t fix everything—it revealed everything.
Because once the numbing stopped, the feelings came. The rage. The grief. The helplessness.
And with it came the most dangerous question of all: Who am I if I’m not fixing everyone else?

That’s the part no one tells you about recovery—you have to relearn how to live.
How to eat, sleep, rest, breathe, be—without chaos as your companion.

Jacquie started the slow process of reprogramming her mind:

• She joined 12-step programs that taught her accountability.

• She learned how to say “no” without apology.

• She built boundaries where there used to be bruises.

• And she practiced forgiving herself—not because she excused her past, but because she finally understood it.

As she put it:

“I had to stop being who they needed me to be and start becoming who I was always meant to be.”

That’s reprogramming.
It’s not just changing your behavior—it’s reclaiming your brain from the lies trauma taught you.

Phase 3 — Reinvention: Finding Her Voice After the Silence

Reinvention doesn’t come wrapped in glitter. It comes in grief.

Jacquie’s biggest heartbreak wasn’t losing her son—it was losing control over who got to raise him.
Her father and stepmother stepped in when she fell apart. What was meant to be temporary became permanent.
And when she finally found her footing again, she was met with the four words that still sting today:
“That doesn’t work for me.”

That phrase—dismissive, controlling, silencing—became a trigger.
Because it mirrored her entire life story: Your voice doesn’t matter.

But this time, instead of fighting to be heard, Jacquie chose something revolutionary—she got quiet.

Not silent from fear. Silent from peace.
Because sometimes, healing means realizing you don’t need to win the argument—you just need to reclaim your power.

Her reinvention came when she stopped trying to be understood and started focusing on understanding herself.
She learned to release the war with her stepmother, not because it was fair, but because it was freeing.
She found compassion for her own pain and grace for the parts of herself that were still learning how to soften.

She became her own advocate. Her own parent. Her own peace.

And that’s the final phase of exiting survival mode—reinvention.
It’s not about becoming new. It’s about coming home.

The Lesson:

Jacquie’s story is proof that healing doesn’t happen by pretending the past didn’t hurt—it happens when you stop letting it define your future.

Self-awareness showed her the cage.
Reprogramming gave her the key.
Reinvention reminded her she could walk out and never go back.

She says it best:

“If you do nothing else in your life, get a solid sense of self. Don’t let the world tell you who you are.”

Because survival is inherited.
But healing?
That’s a choice.

Categories: : Podcast