About the Contributor
This story was written by Leticia R Francis, shared as part of The Impactful Voice Project™ — One Voice. Infinite Impact.™
Leticia Francis is a trauma recovery mentor, keynote speaker, and author of Survival Mode Exit Plan. Known as The Survival Mode Disruptor, she helps high-achieving women break harmful cycles and reclaim lives of truth, ease, and power.
🔸 Country: Great Britain
🔸 Connect: https://www.leticiareneefrancis.com/
KEY POINTS
- Survival mode keeps people trapped in harmful cycles by disguising fear as logic.
- Shame, pride, and unworthiness can prevent people from reaching for safety or support.
- Self-awareness is the turning point that reveals patterns and makes healing possible.
- Reprogramming limiting beliefs is essential to moving from survival to reinvention.
- Sharing lived experience helps other women recognise their own “dark apartment” moments and choose change.
Shame Kept Me Cold That Night… Survival Mode Kept Me There
I would have NEVER shared this before because I was ashamed.
That’s the truth I used to choke on.
I spent Christmas 2009 in darkness, literal darkness, with no food, no heat, no hot water, and not even a bed to lay my head on.
Rent-A-Center had cleared out my boyfriend’s place days before, and within hours the lights were cut. One minute we had a home; the next, we were sitting in a cold, empty shell of one.
And there I was… freezing my ass off because my boyfriend had snorted every dollar he touched straight up his nose.
The wild part?
I had money.
I had a home.
I had options.
But survival mode will have you abandoning yourself long before you ever leave a man.
I knew if he found out I had money, I’d be manipulated out of it.
I had an apartment with rent paid for the next seven months, but pride told me I’d rather freeze than walk back into a house where my roommate and I had fallen out.
I had family 20 minutes away having a full Christmas feast, but embarrassment told me I couldn’t show up alone and explain, again, why I was in another toxic relationship I knew damn well wasn’t for me.
He was unbothered by our circumstances. If he had a high, he had peace.
And me?
I wasn’t even sure what peace felt like. Happiness felt like a foreign language. My entire adulthood up to that moment had been survival mode dressed up as “I’m fine.”
That cold apartment was more than a circumstance.
It was a mirror.
A metaphor.
A diagnosis.
It reflected exactly where my life was: dark, empty, stripped down to the consequences of choices rooted in fear, shame, and unworthiness.
I carried so many toxic emotions back then:
𝐿𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠.
𝐵𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠.
𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡.
𝐺𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑡.
𝑆ℎ𝑎𝑚𝑒.
𝑅𝑒𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑡.
𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠.
𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑑𝑒.
Every one of them dragged me deeper into the hole I was already drowning in. Not one of them served me but all of them ran me.
And this is where survival mode comes in.
Survival mode convinces you that suffering is safer than change. It whispers lies that sound like logic:
“Don’t go home, you’ll look weak.”
“Don’t ask for help, you’ll be judged.”
“Don’t leave him, being alone is worse.”
“Don’t speak up, don’t take space, don’t disrupt the peace.”
You think you’re making choices.
Really… you’re reacting to fear.
When I look back now, I can see exactly which phase of survival mode I was sitting in that night, knees tucked to my chest, breath clouding in the cold, emotions choking me.
What could have saved me that Christmas wasn’t a turkey dinner, heat, or even a bed.
It was self-awareness, the kind that forces you to face yourself without flinching.
If I had known how to step outside of my emotions long enough to see the patterns, I would’ve realized:
- My pride wasn’t strength; it was protection.
- My loneliness wasn’t a curse; it was a signal.
- My shame wasn’t truth; it was conditioning.
- My circumstances weren’t punishment; they were a reflection of unhealed wounds running my life.
Self-awareness would have helped me see that I was repeating the same damn cycle over and over:
Toxic relationship → emotional chaos → isolating myself → sinking deeper → calling it “love.”
It wasn’t love.
It was survival disguised as loyalty.
If I had known how to challenge my own thoughts, how to reprogram the narratives that were strangling me, everything would have changed.
Survival mode had trained my brain for years:
“You don’t deserve better.”
“You’re lucky someone wants you.”
“This is all you get.”
“Don’t rock the boat. Don’t stand on your own. Don’t speak up.”
Those beliefs were running the whole show.
If I had known how to rewrite them, I would’ve gone home.
I would’ve eaten.
I would’ve asked for help.
I would’ve stopped protecting a man who couldn’t even protect himself.
Reprogramming isn’t about pretending everything is fine.
It’s about refusing to let the lie be louder than your truth.
Reinvention is what happens when you stop living as the version of yourself built for survival.
Back then, I didn’t know I was allowed to evolve.
I didn’t know I was allowed to change the script.
I didn’t know I was allowed to walk away without guilt.
The woman I was during that Christmas could not imagine the woman I am now.
But reinvention always begins in the dark.
In the cold.
In the moment where staying the same finally hurts more than changing.
People ask why I share this now.
It’s simple:
Because I am no longer ruled by the toxic emotions that kept me small, silent, and stuck.
Because I learned to reflect without shame, to feel without drowning, to leave without apologizing.
Because I stopped being the victim of my circumstances and became the author of my life.
And because there are women right now, maybe even you, sitting in your own version of that dark apartment.
Maybe your darkness looks different.
Maybe it’s a relationship.
Maybe it’s your bank account.
Maybe it’s your silence.
Maybe it’s the smile you wear so people stop asking questions.
It doesn’t matter what shape the darkness takes.
Suffering is suffering.
If you’re reading this with tears stinging your eyes because it hits too close…
I want you to hear me clearly:
𝐼 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢.
𝐼 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢.
𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒.
You are allowed to rewrite your narrative.
You are allowed to choose truth over fear.
You are allowed to break the pattern, not just for you, but for every woman who comes after you.
So here’s my invitation:
Start with self-awareness.
Name the emotions running the show. Call out the patterns. Admit what you’ve been tolerating.
Then reprogram the story.
Challenge the beliefs that aren’t yours. Question the thoughts that keep you trapped. Replace survival with possibility.
Then step into reinvention.
The you who survives can’t be the same you who thrives.
Let her go.
Choose you.
Claim more.
#SurvivalMode #TraumaRecovery #LivedExperience #SelfAwarenessJourney #WomenBreakingCycles #EmpoweredHealing #TransformYourStory #ReinventionJourney #EmotionalHealing #IVPStories
Leticia Francis is a trauma recovery mentor, keynote speaker, and author of Survival Mode Exit Plan. Known as The Survival Mode Disruptor, she helps high-achieving women break free from survival mode and reclaim lives rooted in truth, ease, and power. With lived experience and a no-fluff delivery, Leticia ignites healing, identity shifts, and unapologetic transformation.
“Survival mode convinces you that suffering is safer than change.”
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