Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / From Silence to Strength: Kalise White’s Justice-Impacted Comeback Story

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From Silence to Strength: Kalise White’s Justice-Impacted Comeback Story · Nightmare Success In and Out

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  I look at it as like more as an example and a blessing and, and
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  it helps people find a safe place.
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  It helps people feel safe. That's my whole thing.
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  And when you feel safe, you can heal.
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  I don't think none of us is completely 100% or ever be 100%
• 0:13
  healed, but I believe you can get close and that's my goal.
• 0:17
  Yeah, because you were always looking for safety.
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  Yes, a safety. I felt abandoned, you know, and,
• 0:24
  and I wanted love, you know, So when I'm talking and I'm helping
• 0:27
  people get to a safe place where they're opening up and talking
• 0:30
  about it, it helps shape your future and who you are.
• 0:33
  Like when you got to keep a lot of stuff buried, you creating a
• 0:36
  monster. What happens when your worst
• 0:40
  fear becomes your reality? Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome
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  to the Nightmare Success In and Out podcast where we explore how
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  to overcome your fears and nightmares and set yourself
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  free. We're going to be exploring this
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  topic with guys that was in Leavenworth with and others who
• 0:55
  survived their own nightmare. These stories can be inspiring,
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  sometimes sad, there's some humor, but hopefully you can
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  come away with a nugget of something that'll help you knock
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  down some of the prisons you built up in your own mind.
• 1:09
  All right, welcome back Nine more success in our listeners is
• 1:11
  where you come for what happens when your worst trip comes, your
• 1:13
  reality. How do you adapt, survive,
• 1:14
  overcome? Set yourself free folks.
• 1:17
  Don't forget, don't forget to follow, subscribe, share this
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  thing out, like it up really helps this show and I I really
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  appreciate it. So who are we talking to you
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  today on nightmare success talking to Kalise White and
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  she's got she's got a great story.
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  She's an author of two books, author of two books, not one
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  book 2 books 1 is you left me, God bless me.
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  And the other one is no longer silenced and talking about
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  silence. It's it's you know what happens
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  when your worst fear becomes your reality?
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  When the silence you've been living in becomes louder than
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  anything you've heard? For Cleese White, that silence
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  wasn't just emotional, it was survival.
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  A justice impacted woman carrying trauma, pain, and the
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  weight of decisions that changed everything.
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  This isn't just a story about what went wrong.
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  It's about what happens after the fall.
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  How do you get back up after the labels, after the judgement,
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  after the world decides who you are?
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  Because somewhere in that darkness, Kelis made a choice.
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  I'd stay silent. I'd stay broken.
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  Let's rebuild piece by piece and turn her pain into purpose.
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  Today, she's an author of voice, a force for healing, a trauma
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  advocate. The real story, it's what she
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  had to face to become that person.
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  So I can't wait to jump into all that with Kelis.
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  And she's, she's a great person. She's got a great story.
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  Before we do that, I want to recognize our show sponsor, Auto
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  Plaza Direct. You know who likes spending a
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  deserve. Autoplas Direct Telling Brent
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  from Nightmare Success sent you folks.
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  I want to share with you a powerful and moving new book you
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  won't want to miss. My name is Saffron Voices.
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  Silence stifled and taken away by author Saffron Gustafson.
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  This isn't just a story. It's a journey through
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  resilience, survival, and reclaiming your voice after
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  being silenced for far too long. Saffron's story takes you
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  inside. The hidden struggles, the pain,
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  and ultimately the triumph are refusing to be defined by
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  circumstances. As Saffron was putting the
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  finishing touches on her book, The Prison, she had just been
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  released from Federal Dublin. FCI, was permanently closed
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  because of sexual abuse of the women prisoners.
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  If you've ever wondered what it takes to rise from the darkness
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  of places, to find your truth and to speak it boldly, this
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  book will inspire you. Pick up your copy of My Name is
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  Saffron Today, available now on Amazon or wherever books are
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  sold. Trust me, you'll be moved,
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  challenged and changed by her story.
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  Kelis White, how are you? I am great, thanks for having
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  me. Well, I'm glad you made time to
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  be on. So yeah, your your story is it's
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  always interesting to see how people have points in their life
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  where they've lived through trauma and they've lived through
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  pain and they've done those things.
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  But and then there's there's those points where they they
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  make that change and that change becomes, you know, a whole new
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  person. But let let's go back a little
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  bit. Take take me back to where Kelis
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  was his little girl growing up. Mom, dad, siblings, How what was
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  life? Where were you?
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  So when I was growing up, I actually was raised by my
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  grandparents. My mother, basically, she was
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  young, she was wowed, she was in the streets.
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  So she like had me and my grandparents was like, no, you
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  got to bring her to us. I do have two other siblings, a
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  sister and a brother. Yeah.
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  Yes I do for my mother, so that are.
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  You close to that? Were you close to him growing
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  up? Yes, yeah.
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  I was close to my brother and my sister.
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  I was more closer to my brother. He is deceased at this moment.
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  He's my mother with us, but me and my sister, we even got even
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  more closer after that happened because it's just like it's just
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  me and her now. So growing up, you're with your
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  grandparents, what's school and everything like?
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  What's as far as what? What is your world like as a kid
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  growing up? So my world is like a kid
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  growing up, you know, I was mainly with them, but I kind of
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  like it was times in my life where I did end up back at my
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  mother's house and then something would happened and
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  then they would come back and give me my grandparents.
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  Like, no, we're on our way to get her.
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  So I kind of been like back and forth, like I guess like my
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  whole life is right before I became a teenager, but most of
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  it was spent with my grandparents because I don't
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  know, it's like I will be there for a little while and then
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  something always happened. Make them right back.
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  So but but the time that I was there with my mother, like she
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  always lived in like like a little apartment complex or
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  project or you know, like that kind of atmosphere where we had
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  a lot of friends. So even though when I was back
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  and forth, I had like created like a lot of friends being with
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  my mother in the complex down there and you know, all of us,
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  me, my sister, my brother, like we being known for having, you
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  know, our friends and everybody like kind of growing up
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  together. So even when I would end up back
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  at my grandparents house, I would still have my same
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  connections with my friends and stuff.
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  And I would go over my mother's sometimes.
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  It just kind of was. My whole life was like in and
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  out, in and out. Like, oh, now what's about to
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  happen now? Like I'm back here again.
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  Did that seem crazy like, you know, is, is your teenage years
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  going back and forth, was that something that you were seeing
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  with all the, your, all your friends and all the people that
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  you hung around or did it seem different to you that you were
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  kind of bouncing between 2 worlds?
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  It seemed different with me. It seemed like everybody else
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  was where they was going to be, and then my world was I'm here,
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  I'm there, I'm back over here, back over there.
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  So it seemed like I was only one that was going through that.
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  In your teenage years, what were they like?
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  So my teenage years was actually when I turned 13 years old, that
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  was the first time that I ran away.
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  So when I ran away that time, I think I was gone for like about
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  two weeks. But then my mother ended up
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  finding out where I was at and she like pulled up and like made
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  me come back go back to like my grandparents house.
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  What made you what made you think Elise to to run away?
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  Where Where were you running from?
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  The first time I ran away, it was like I was at my mother's
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  house and it was things happening in the home that I
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  didn't agree with, you know, not so much, well, my mother, but
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  not her. So when stuff like that got
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  tapping in the home, like, you know, things that I wasn't used
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  to, it made me uncomfortable. And you know, I kept calling my
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  grandmother like, hey, I don't want to be here.
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  I didn't like my mother's boyfriend at the time.
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  None of us liked him. But I was just like, I'm not
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  used to all this. Y'all need to come back and give
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  me like. And so when they didn't, I ran
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  away. Did you run to a friend friend's
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  house? Yes, so that time I ran away, I
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  ran to a friend's house and like I said, I thought I was really
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  high now, but of course when my mother pulled up I wasn't really
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  high now. So it was like 2 weeks.
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  So then I ended back up at my grandparents house and then I'm
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  just trying to then I try to come up with a plan myself,
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  something that I should have never had to do or even
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  experience as a kid, you know, like what am I going to do if I
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  have to go back over there this time?
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  My grandparents, they were really, really wonderful people.
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  They raised their kids. They did a good job, you know,
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  raising their kids. But certain people, when they
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  work reach a certain point, they get to getting sick and certain
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  things happen in the health. They tired.
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  They just want to enjoy each other.
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  And that's kind of where that was because you know, like my
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  grandpa would just be like, hey, you know, we had a point in our
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  life. I want we want to travel, we
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  want to do certain things. And I just feel like that she
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  needs to go back home with her siblings and be raised with them
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  or we can get a break. So that was the conversation
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  that I would hear. And, you know, it bothered me.
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  It bothered me a lot. So every time I would hear that
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  conversation, it left me as trying to put a plan together,
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  you know, like, how am I going to escape that?
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  You know, like a basically, like, I felt like a burden, you
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  know, and then I would think of things that did happen when I
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  was at my mother's house. And I'm just like, I don't want
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  to go back there. And it was just like, I mean,
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  what am I going to do, You know, So that last time I went back to
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  my mother's house, I just ran away and I never went back.
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  And I was 13. 13 So when you got into so you went through your
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  high school years, were you thinking Kelis that you wanted
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  to? What did you think you wanted to
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  do? I really didn't know.
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  So like when I was a little kid in elementary, I always was
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  like, I'm going to be a lawyer, I'm going to have three kids.
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  I would be married, you know, like one of those type of.
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  You had. Yeah, so I always thought that
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  and I always felt that I've always like had a voice and
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  spoke and was like bossy and stuff like that.
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  So when I actually got the high school, just dealing with all of
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  that, trying to figure it out myself, like I said something
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  that a kid shouldn't even ever even have to deal with.
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  I completely lost sight of my dream.
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  Because at this point I was trying to figure out how I was
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  not going to be a burden to my grandparents and how I didn't
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  want to go to my mother's house because I didn't want certain
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  things to happen or take place. They shouldn't.
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  So when you got into seeing what your mom was doing and you
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  didn't agree with what the kind of lifestyle she had, did that
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  make you feel different about how you were going to do things
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  with your life? At the time I think I was just
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  in survival mode. I don't even think that for all
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  I knew is just that I wanted out of there.
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  What was your next step in life? What happened?
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  My next step is I had like a boyfriend and I was like
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  sneaking and staying with him and his mother's.
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  And actually I was living like in the next parking lot from my
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  mother. She just didn't know I was that
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  close to her. I was still going to school.
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  I just didn't go outside. Certain times that I know my
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  sister and brother would be outside in case they see me.
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  And then, you know, that kind of that that dream there went away
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  really fast because, you know, he was older than me, so he felt
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  like I needed him. I don't have any money.
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  I didn't have anything. And he was doing everything,
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  supplying me with food, you know, a shelter over my head,
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  clothings. So that guy burned out and I
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  still was in a compromising position.
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  Like I was just like, God, what am I going to do?
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  Like, it's not like I can go get a job.
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  It's not like I can really be seen.
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  And you know, I have friends around theirs, I wear a hoodie
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  and stuff and I just like hooked up with some of my friends
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  around there and just started selling drugs.
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  I mean, they, I just seen what they did and I just did the same
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  thing they did and it just became normal.
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  Wow, so when you when you got into the well, the all your
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  friends are doing the same thing, selling drugs.
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  What? What age would you have been at
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  that time? I was.
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  I turned 14 shortly after. OK, so you're young.
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  Yes. So you this is kind of your
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  introduction to like that life of of being and doing and did it
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  scare you at all? It did scare me because when I
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  ran away and I was to go live with my boyfriend, I wasn't like
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  really like sexually active or anything like that.
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  I just was doing something, you know, like just hoping for the
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  best. And, you know, I had to make
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  decisions and do things that I did that I felt like I had to do
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  because I didn't have any money. I didn't have anywhere to go.
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  I didn't what was I going to do? So I feel like, OK, well, I'll
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  start having sex now. And you know, when that I feel
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  like that didn't become enough just to keep him, you know,
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  respecting me. It didn't.
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  And I just was like, I got to go.
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  It's like I went from one thing to the next one thing to the
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  next. It's.
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  Like, a lot for a kid that was that age.
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  Yes, but I like stay like heading out because, you know,
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  when you're gone for so long and your parents, well, you probably
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  don't know, but when they're looking all over for you and
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  months and months go by, people be like, you know, just let her
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  be. We can't.
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  She's going to keep leave at this point.
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  She's going to keep leaving anyway because she ain't been
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  back and it's been months. So no.
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  Yeah. So that's just what I did.
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  And, you know, I met another guy, my old, I got a my oldest
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  son. He's a grown man.
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  So I met his dad even though I was in the streets and selling
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  drugs and I kind of just slept over.
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  Like some of my cousin's house and some friends house, some of
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  my people I grew up with, I just kind of like just was, you know,
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  everywhere, like wherever I was welcomed and wherever I felt
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  safe, you know, because if I didn't feel safe, I didn't do
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  it. So, you know, everybody like
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  that was my friends and even certain family members.
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  I'd be like, don't tell my mom I'm over here.
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  You know, they would let me like sleep over there and just didn't
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  say nothing. Just, I mean, that's just the
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  way it was. But once I met my son's father,
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  I just kind of moved in with him and his mother.
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  And how old would you have been when you had your son?
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  I got pregnant with my oldest son when I was 15 and I had him
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  when I was 16. OK, so that really was the real,
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  I mean, that's real. Yes.
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  Yeah. So how did that, how did that
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  work for you? So he was older than me as well.
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  So I like just kind of like his mother didn't know how old I
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  was. Like I didn't really talk to her
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  a lot and I just kind of just was in the streets in a certain
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  time. I came in, took a shower and
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  once I got pregnant, I was tired.
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  So of course, you know, since my body was changing and my mind,
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  I'm tired, I can't hang out as long.
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  So I started coming in, you know, in with them early, taking
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  a shower, going to bed, getting proper resident, getting back up
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  and just I mean, that's what I did.
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  I really didn't communicate a lot.
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  So people really didn't know how old I was because I didn't tell
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  people my business due to my situation, because I didn't want
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  nobody to contact my family or anything like, you know, or
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  anything like that. So me and him we just kind of
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  say to ourselves. And so were you thinking, Kelis,
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  at that time when you had your son, were you thinking, OK, this
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  is going to be my guy and we're going to be together and this is
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  how I'm going to go from here? This is it.
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  I'm going to have a son. This guy's older than me.
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  He can take care of me, and this is what I'm going to do.
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  So how long did that last? I was with my son's father, my
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  oldest son for six years. So with him, a lot of the time
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  that I was in the streets, so and I was thinking I was grown,
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  you know, and then stepped into a grown person's positions.
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  Yeah, you were acting like an adult at 131415 and and so
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  you're with this guy almost like a real adult situation for six
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  years. Before my 20s, because I ended
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  up separating from him, I think I was like when I really left
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  him alone I was like 19. OK.
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  I really like left 18 1/2 nineteen when I really.
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  That's when you bolted out of there.
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  Out of that relationship, yeah. Did that feel like freedom or
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  did you feel like you were scared?
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  What was the next step? Both because number 1, I had
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  been with him for years. I didn't know anything outside
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  of him with the man, you know, I didn't never have like a father
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  figure around other than my grandpa.
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  You know, me and your grandparents can only give you
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  so much love, motherly love, fatherly love.
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  It's just not the type of love that like it's it's ideal, but
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  it's not. So when you actually in that
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  position, it only goes so far. You want the love from your
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  actual parents. And far as with a father, I
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  didn't have that at all. Like, I mean, I did, but once I
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  found out that my father wasn't my father, that deterred me, you
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  know, so. I was going to ask you police
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  because we didn't really talk about that and we talked about
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  your mom, but did you have any relationship with your dad at
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  all? Did you like, did you know where
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  he was, who he was? Yes, so like I did, but it was a
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  situation that my dad, the one who like had raised me all the
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  way until I was like 10 and kind of like he would like come and
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  get me for my grandparents, give them a break sometime.
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  I will go over in the summer. He would get me and my sister,
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  you know, I ended up finding out that he was not my dad, you
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  know? So what?
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  What would 10 years, 10 years old or however old that you were
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  at the time? How does that affect you?
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  It affected me a lot as well as because I feel like both of my
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  parents was absent. So like I did see my mother
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  because I live with her parents, of course I've seen her, but no,
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  like my mother was young, you know, and we make certain
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  mistakes and decisions just like I did, you know, when we young
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  and you really don't know the effect when you have kids that
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  have on them. So it was kind of like I was in
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  one of those situations that when I found out he wasn't my
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  dad, that kind of like traumatized me because I wasn't
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  comfortable being in his space anymore because my other
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  siblings was not the same with me anymore.
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  Like they found out that it wasn't my dad either.
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  So they would tease me. You know, kids are mean.
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  They don't really mean nothing by it.
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  So they were just like being mean.
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  Like, why are you over here? You know, You know, this ain't
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  your daddy. So once I experienced that it,
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  it like really, really did something to me like like
• 19:08
  mentally like and it made me yearn and pull more to me and
• 19:12
  because I guess by me having that absinence and then I knew
• 19:16
  who my father was because after that like so like my real
• 19:20
  grandmother always been my God grandmother.
• 19:22
  She always been my mother's godmother.
• 19:24
  So I I was around and been around my dad's family since
• 19:28
  I've been in the world. Like mom be like we have to go
• 19:30
  over my godmothers and I've heard them have certain
• 19:32
  conversations, but I don't understand it first.
• 19:35
  So my grandmother always knew that I was her granddaughter,
• 19:38
  but I I was getting confused, like I'm trying to be grown to
• 19:41
  be nosy. And it was just like, that was
• 19:44
  really my grandma. So it was just like, and I loved
• 19:47
  her so much. She's no longer with us.
• 19:49
  And I love this side of my family too.
• 19:52
  So I pulled more to that side. But my dad, I never really, I
• 19:57
  still never really got closer with him.
• 19:59
  I got closer with his sisters and his mother.
• 20:02
  And it was just like, it wasn't a connect there.
• 20:05
  Once I had to disconnect from the man from as a kid and I
• 20:09
  carry his last name as a father, you know, I'm like, that was a
• 20:14
  lot for me. So I never even when I see my
• 20:17
  real dad like. I'm not.
• 20:19
  I'm like, OK, I know he like my dad, like I have been hearing
• 20:22
  things I just didn't know. And it's like the connection.
• 20:25
  Never. I think neither one of us knew
• 20:27
  how to adapt to each other. So that gave me like a different
• 20:32
  kind of emptiness like it. Was he, was he aware police,
• 20:36
  that you thought that the other man was your dad?
• 20:41
  Yes, he was aware and I've heard conversations even before when I
• 20:46
  found out that my dad wasn't my dad, but I'm just like I know
• 20:50
  who my daddy is. Like I was just like, I would
• 20:52
  like, and I just didn't care about what they were saying
• 20:56
  because until I actually, we took a test and I got a result.
• 20:59
  And it's like, I mean, and then the kids teasing me that just, I
• 21:04
  think it like I said, it was just like a emptiness, like a
• 21:06
  void that it just like voided everything out at that moment.
• 21:11
  I'm like, OK, my Mama, I'm not, I don't have a connection with
• 21:14
  her and I'm connection with my dad.
• 21:16
  So that's where the emptiness and it made me pull toward me.
• 21:20
  And, you know, so like when I had sex, even though I don't
• 21:22
  feel like I was even ready yet, I did that as A to make sure
• 21:27
  that I was good to, I guess to make sure that the man that I
• 21:31
  trusted with my safety and my spirit at the time, that, you
• 21:36
  know, that he would accept me, you know, and that would treat
• 21:40
  me right. So even to this day in that
• 21:43
  area, I have struggled with men and the emptiness and really
• 21:47
  pulling toward the wrong man. Because when you don't have a
• 21:50
  father around, men know that because they can tell by certain
• 21:55
  things of how you are and even just being around you in your
• 21:58
  life. And they, they tend to
• 22:00
  manipulate, they mistreat you, you know, they'd be really
• 22:03
  disrespectful because, and then they want to train you how they
• 22:06
  want you to be trained, you know, So it's, it's really bad,
• 22:09
  you know, so. You're, they're going to be the
• 22:11
  man in your life. So at 19 years old when you,
• 22:13
  when you kind of broke, you've got, you've got a son who's
• 22:16
  probably like 3 or 4 years old, something like that.
• 22:21
  How? How do you get from being in a
• 22:25
  relationship, being out on your own and then a nightmare lands
• 22:30
  on you? What?
• 22:31
  How far into this does does it? Does this nightmare happen to
• 22:34
  you that you are looking at something, that you think you
• 22:39
  might go to prison? So wow, that really brought back
• 22:45
  a memory real quick. So a nightmare lands on me
• 22:48
  because once I get away from my son's father, you know, now I'm
• 22:52
  I'm in another whole nother dating pool, you know, so I'm
• 22:55
  dating guys at this point, even with my son's father leaving
• 22:58
  him, I was at a whole different status, you know, far as I have
• 23:00
  been selling drugs for some years now.
• 23:04
  So my status had changed, you know, then I got rid of somebody
• 23:08
  that was really controlling and abusive to me, you know, and
• 23:11
  really manipulating me bad was really a controller, you know.
• 23:15
  So I was free. So by me being free, you know,
• 23:18
  like I said, I'm in the dating pool, you know, I'm thinking I'm
• 23:21
  all that, you know, like I have my own money, I got my own
• 23:25
  house, I got my own cars, I have everything you know, and I'm
• 23:29
  just dating. And you know, I had and I had
• 23:33
  another boyfriend, you know that I started dating and then me and
• 23:37
  him started having problems and I got another boyfriend on him
• 23:41
  when me and him started having problems.
• 23:42
  And actually the guy that I ended up catching my case with,
• 23:45
  he was just the guy. I was just having fun.
• 23:48
  With he wasn't even in a relate. You weren't even in a
• 23:50
  relationship with him. No, no, he was just.
• 23:54
  I just was. I remember you telling me this
• 23:56
  on the phone on how that happened.
• 23:57
  It was, it was he got, he got tied up and something and you
• 24:04
  then were I think was it using your car.
• 24:07
  Yes. And so any wallet you tell it.
• 24:12
  OK, so at this time, like you know, my Co defendant, how we
• 24:17
  met, like I just started dealing with him, you know, being mad at
• 24:21
  my boyfriend and us breaking up for you know little breakups and
• 24:24
  stuff. So you know, I was dealing with
• 24:26
  him for a while because I was exhausted with the other one for
• 24:29
  a while. So you know, I let him use one
• 24:33
  of my vehicles. I had a doctor's appointment.
• 24:36
  I let him drop me off in my appointment and basically when I
• 24:38
  let him drop me off in my appointment, he went and he sold
• 24:42
  to an undercover cop. So when he did that, you know,
• 24:46
  he came back and picked me up. The helicopter was already
• 24:48
  following him. So once the helicopter was
• 24:51
  following him, I kept saying the helicopter looked really low
• 24:54
  today. And I always seen the helicopter
• 24:57
  and like you always saying it, which I did.
• 25:00
  I don't know why I always said, but one day it really was true.
• 25:03
  So he was like you always saying and I was like no, for real.
• 25:07
  So then while I was in the car with him, the guy that has set
• 25:11
  him up was one of his friends. It was one of his friends as
• 25:15
  well. So we did, he did pull over when
• 25:17
  he picked me up from the appointment and met him the guy
• 25:20
  again, but he had already, you know, sold him some drugs even
• 25:25
  when I wasn't even with him before he picked me up.
• 25:27
  So that's when the helicopter got on him.
• 25:29
  So he stopped again and they did whatever they did again.
• 25:32
  But at this time, you know, I'm like, I have been, you know,
• 25:36
  left the hospital. I have been sedated.
• 25:38
  You know, I was tired. I was just like, can you get me
• 25:40
  home? So at this time, after he met
• 25:43
  him, I'm like, so he met him and then he took me to the house.
• 25:46
  We left and I said this helicopter is it's even lower
• 25:49
  now. He like you just tripped.
• 25:51
  So we we went on to my house and once we got to my place, we got
• 25:56
  out the car and I went in the house and I was like, I need
• 26:01
  something to eat to take with my medication.
• 26:03
  So I was like, he was like, what you want to eat?
• 26:05
  I was like, I don't know. He's like, matter of fact, no,
• 26:08
  come on. Because we was inside the house
• 26:09
  at this moment. So when he was inside of my
• 26:12
  house at this time, he ended up leaving some stuff in my house
• 26:17
  as well. And I didn't leave nothing in my
• 26:19
  house. That's the crazy part.
• 26:20
  So he ended up leaving some stuff in my house as well.
• 26:23
  He was like, well come on, let me run and take you to get
• 26:24
  something to eat. Some would be gone for a little
• 26:26
  while. As we was leaving out of my
• 26:27
  place, the helicopter had came down and landed real fast and it
• 26:32
  was like about 40 vehicles that pulled up and they ran and
• 26:35
  tackled us. And that's when the nightmare
• 26:38
  begins. So then, if I remember right,
• 26:42
  Kelis you, you, they wanted you to turn on him.
• 26:47
  Yes. And you didn't?
• 26:51
  No, I did not. But he did.
• 26:53
  Yes, and. Which got you entangled in the
• 26:55
  whole mess. Right.
• 26:57
  And what? What's going through your mind?
• 27:01
  What's going through my mind is what is going on.
• 27:03
  I have never like hadn't been in trouble with no law enforcement
• 27:07
  like that. Like I had never caught a case.
• 27:10
  I ain't never been pulled over like so that was different.
• 27:13
  So at this point I'm like, what is going on?
• 27:16
  Like what did you do? Because we just, I know I hadn't
• 27:19
  did anything. I just came from the doctor's.
• 27:21
  So he like I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you.
• 27:24
  I'm like, what did you do? He like I just pulled up on such
• 27:26
  and such because they had us on the ground first.
• 27:28
  They had us laying side by side. It had us in handcuffs while
• 27:31
  they was discussing whatever was disgusting.
• 27:33
  But I didn't know what he did when he dropped me off.
• 27:35
  I just when you say you just riding around and you talking to
• 27:38
  your friends. But again, his friend is when it
• 27:40
  did this to him. So I'm like, Oh my.
• 27:43
  God and he had sold to an undercover police officers so
• 27:46
  that all that it was all wrapped up and they they had what they
• 27:49
  wanted. Yes.
• 27:50
  So his friend was undercover. So at that point then they ended
• 27:56
  up separating us and I was like what is going on?
• 28:00
  So they took me over. It's like at the end of the
• 28:04
  block and they put him at the in the block.
• 28:06
  So that was kind of weird because at first we was together
• 28:08
  for like 20 minutes just laying there face to face looking at
• 28:11
  each other and hookups. So once they did that, you know,
• 28:14
  in my paperwork, he immediately cooperate and I'm like
• 28:16
  immediately and my whole thing, I didn't know that until four
• 28:20
  months afterwards because I got indicted like 90 days later and
• 28:24
  I had a paid attorney. He got the paperwork and that's
• 28:27
  when he told me I couldn't even my lawyer was telling me that he
• 28:29
  cooperated immediately. I was like, no, he didn't.
• 28:31
  He said here's the paper. Like can you not see?
• 28:34
  I was just because I couldn't believe it.
• 28:36
  It was like even though I was looking at it, I just couldn't
• 28:39
  believe it. So again, that's when the
• 28:41
  nightmare began. That's when I got indicted and
• 28:44
  then the indictment told. He cooperated immediately and I
• 28:49
  was just like, what is the case? Because I didn't have anything.
• 28:54
  I didn't sell anything. So when they had us on the
• 28:58
  ground, it was conspiracy, yes. But see, when they had us on the
• 29:02
  ground, they asked me did I have anything in my place as well.
• 29:05
  So they called and got a search warrant and that took about two
• 29:08
  hours and then they went in and they found some stuff.
• 29:10
  So I got, you know, a charge for that, maintaining the residents
• 29:13
  and all that. So I was just like, OK, I know
• 29:16
  about that now. He really did you bad.
• 29:19
  He took you. He took your car, sold to his
• 29:22
  friend, took took stuff into his house.
• 29:26
  In my house and I had to pay for it.
• 29:28
  Yeah, yeah. So he did and he was older than
• 29:31
  me at this time. I was, I was about to be 19 I
• 29:36
  think in like 3 weeks and he was like 28.
• 29:40
  So he definitely manipulated. He definitely, but again, that's
• 29:44
  the door that's open when you don't have your parent present
• 29:47
  in your life, you know, so that he definitely did that and he
• 29:51
  told me don't listen to what nobody say.
• 29:53
  So even when I seen the paper, he had me so brainwashed and
• 29:56
  manipulated. I'm looking at it on black and
• 29:58
  white, my lawyer. Look like you don't believe it.
• 30:00
  I still couldn't believe it. So what what were you looking at
• 30:04
  for a conspiracy charges? I mean, for people who've
• 30:08
  listened to the show that we've heard, we've talked about ghost
• 30:10
  dope and all the other things that happened, you know, the
• 30:13
  when they wrap somebody up in a conspiracy or federal
• 30:15
  conspiracy, you're you're. You're.
• 30:19
  You're in the web and and there's not a whole lot that can
• 30:22
  happen except try to figure out how to get out with some type of
• 30:26
  plea. What did they come to you with?
• 30:28
  A plea? So yes, so when we were on the
• 30:31
  ground, they asked me right then and there like, hey, this is
• 30:34
  going to help you, 'cause you're going to get indicted.
• 30:37
  I'm like how they like, do do you want to cooperate?
• 30:40
  And I said no. So then when I actually got
• 30:43
  indicted, they actually had my lawyer.
• 30:46
  They even contacted my lawyer, like my lawyer had let them know
• 30:49
  when I was coming. So they actually my lawyer to
• 30:51
  try to give me, they offered me several chances, like four
• 30:54
  chances. And I just kept saying no.
• 30:56
  So every time I said no, like it seemed like every couple of
• 31:00
  months my lawyer was getting paperwork like something else
• 31:03
  saying, but basically my case, it, it was just so weird.
• 31:08
  Basically my case was saying he told the federal government that
• 31:12
  I taught him how to cook drugs. That was my basically it was
• 31:16
  like how so? Like when my lawyer had the
• 31:19
  records pulled, they seen that he caught his first case.
• 31:22
  He caught his first case. I was 10 years old.
• 31:25
  He caught his first case and he had an incident with the police,
• 31:28
  a standoff and all kinds of stuff.
• 31:29
  So it was just like, how so? But that's what my case was
• 31:33
  about, me teaching him everything he already knew and
• 31:37
  they went for it because I didn't cooperate.
• 31:39
  Did you think about going to trial?
• 31:42
  Well, yes, because the lawyers that I had at the time, they had
• 31:45
  put it in my mind and my brain that I didn't do nothing and I
• 31:48
  wasn't going to jail and I was going to get probation.
• 31:51
  So one thing that I learned is you have to have better cancel
• 31:58
  around you in your life period, because when no cancel, you're
• 32:01
  going to make the wrong decisions.
• 32:03
  My mother had never been to prison before.
• 32:05
  You know, she had never been to federal prison.
• 32:07
  She didn't have no clue. She didn't know how to guide me
• 32:09
  then I didn't have a father around.
• 32:11
  I had no type of cancel, nobody that even not saying.
• 32:15
  You're raising yourself with men, with men that were older.
• 32:18
  They were trying to manipulate you.
• 32:19
  Yeah, and that's all they did. So it's like, and then my
• 32:24
  grandparents, they went to work every day like so they don't
• 32:28
  know nothing about no system. And I was the only person like
• 32:32
  in my family for a very long time that experienced that.
• 32:34
  And I was a woman. So it just I didn't have any
• 32:38
  cancel. I didn't have good cancel.
• 32:39
  And even friends, everybody is too busy trying to manipulate to
• 32:43
  see what they can get, you know? And I'm a loyal person, and
• 32:46
  being loyal is good, but it's bad too, you know, especially.
• 32:50
  How? How did it end up?
• 32:52
  How did it end up with what happened is and the other thing
• 32:57
  I was going to ask you is how long did it took four months for
• 33:00
  them to to actually indict you? How long did the whole process
• 33:03
  last before you were looking at stepping into a prison?
• 33:07
  So I was out on pre trial like a year, maybe like a little over a
• 33:11
  year because I had never been in no trouble like this.
• 33:14
  They gave me bond, my mother, my mother came and got me out and
• 33:17
  signed her name on there for that.
• 33:19
  So she did and it's like Yep, it was a little over a year and I
• 33:25
  had certain conditions. So even though I didn't get to
• 33:28
  like like cuz when I ended up having my son, I went back to
• 33:31
  school, but I ended up like dropping out.
• 33:33
  So in the conditions of my probation, I went back and got
• 33:36
  my high school diploma. I went to AI, went to a career,
• 33:40
  business education, trying to get my real estate license while
• 33:43
  I was out on bond. I had like certain things that I
• 33:45
  did do and I feel like that, you know, even with the attorneys
• 33:51
  that I had at the time, they brainwashed me because I
• 33:56
  listened to them saying I was getting probation the whole
• 33:58
  time. So in my mind, I'm like, oh, I'm
• 34:00
  going to, I'm going to be home. I'm not, I never thought of jail
• 34:03
  at all. So I had so many people to me
• 34:07
  that manipulated me. And I feel like my attorneys
• 34:09
  that I had at the time manipulated me for the money
• 34:11
  because of what they charge for that.
• 34:13
  So when you go to trial, you know, 30-40, fifty, 1000, that's
• 34:18
  what it is to go to federal trial at the time.
• 34:20
  So this was in 2003. So, you know, they was looking
• 34:24
  at the big number, not even caring about anything.
• 34:27
  So they was happy too, because I was like, I'm not cooperating.
• 34:29
  They like, yeah, because you're not going to jail.
• 34:31
  No way. We got this.
• 34:32
  We do this, this and this, and we didn't beat this.
• 34:34
  They telling me the cases that they did take the trial and I
• 34:37
  really believed in them, you know, as a little young girl
• 34:40
  wouldn't know any different. I didn't know.
• 34:43
  So I'm like, I'm gonna get them a $30,000 and I'm going to be
• 34:47
  home. And that's what I believed in.
• 34:49
  So I went to trial for plea was never in my mind.
• 34:54
  Let's just get that clear. I was already, you know, so, so
• 34:58
  I went to trial for five days, OK, No, no, four days.
• 35:04
  I went to trial for four days because one day we took a rest
• 35:06
  and we went back the next day. So two of those days that we
• 35:10
  went to court, they did offer me a plea.
• 35:14
  But the difference was the well, the first time they offered me a
• 35:17
  plea for nine years and the second time they offered me a
• 35:19
  plea for 8:00. Then it was 5.
• 35:21
  But had I would have known what I knew today, I would have took
• 35:24
  that five years because I had the I had the the best judge in
• 35:28
  the whole wide world. He knew I was a kid.
• 35:31
  He understood my whole life. I've been manipulated my whole
• 35:35
  life with men and, you know, friendships.
• 35:37
  Like he understood that. It's like he he didn't know me,
• 35:40
  but it's like he knew me, you know, and he knew during that
• 35:44
  trial, like first of all, he was like, this is ridiculous for me
• 35:47
  to even be in here with her a trial because this is a his
• 35:51
  trial because everything that we talked about was him pulling up
• 35:55
  how much he sold to the person. I wasn't there.
• 35:58
  So that's what the trial was about was him.
• 36:01
  So what the prosecutor stood on what they kept telling like all
• 36:06
  the jurors, I had no jurors of my peers, like all the jurors
• 36:10
  completely didn't care. They didn't want to be there.
• 36:13
  They were older people. It wasn't I had nobody that
• 36:16
  could even understand me a little bit.
• 36:18
  Like I said, they wanted it to be over.
• 36:20
  They was looking at me when you looking at, you know, like a
• 36:23
  young, you know, not trying to be funny, African American
• 36:26
  female you and selling they tell my selling drugs and they like
• 36:30
  she going to keep selling drugs and it's going to kill the you
• 36:32
  know, I was already done. So you know, then like I said
• 36:37
  what he used to them like he's telling them that I taught the
• 36:41
  man how to, you know, sell drugs and they went for it.
• 36:44
  So when it was time to make a decision with me with trial, we
• 36:48
  left out. We was getting on the elevator,
• 36:50
  press the elevator button and they came back out there and ran
• 36:53
  and said no, they're ready to make a decision.
• 36:55
  Wasn't even they made a decision on my life.
• 36:57
  It didn't even take 5 minutes unfortunately.
• 37:01
  So what was the decision? The decision was I had five
• 37:05
  counts. They threw two of them out.
• 37:07
  So the other 3 conspiracy, 8 in the bed and maintaining the
• 37:10
  residence. Those 3 stuck.
• 37:12
  The conspiracy was the 13 year sentence, 10 for 8IN bed and 10
• 37:16
  for maintaining the residence. And I went to trial.
• 37:19
  So at this point, and that's why I'm saying I'm so blessed.
• 37:23
  God is so good. I had at that point I would they
• 37:29
  told me that I was looking at a lot of time.
• 37:31
  So by the 13 I was supposed to that was supposed to be
• 37:34
  consecutive. Then the other 10 years since
• 37:36
  supposed to be consecutive the other one.
• 37:38
  So you know, it's from day one of the 13 years to the end of
• 37:42
  the 13 year, the very last day that you start the whole other
• 37:44
  since. So I was like I was in like
• 37:47
  shock still like it was still like it wasn't real.
• 37:49
  I was there and mom and I'm like, no, you need to hear it,
• 37:52
  but take a plea. If they give it, take it please
• 37:54
  that my whole family was crying and they had church in the
• 37:58
  court. They had church in the court
• 38:00
  back there while they was just everything was going on.
• 38:03
  My grandma was there, my auntie's like everybody was, it
• 38:05
  was people from the streets, it was acting or his friends,
• 38:08
  people I don't even know came and I still was like, no, I'm
• 38:12
  going forward. So they had told me I had got a
• 38:16
  33 year sentence. It's what I got.
• 38:18
  And the judge, when they, the next day, they, that's when we
• 38:22
  took our break, you know, so when the judge came back to our
• 38:25
  sentence, it was me and my code off.
• 38:26
  And he had to get sentenced to just because we were code
• 38:28
  offenders, even though I went to trial and he had 25 and he got
• 38:33
  all the way down to 15. And then he got immediate
• 38:35
  release after 2 1/2 years. That's a whole other something
• 38:37
  else. So with me, you know, my judge
• 38:42
  was like, you know, what I'm looking at today is a 33 year
• 38:45
  sentence for a kid, you know, someone that don't have a clue.
• 38:49
  She ain't even begin to live life.
• 38:51
  He like, and she has a young child.
• 38:53
  And when I say that's the best, the most livable, it's like God
• 38:56
  was speaking to her. He like, I'm not saying she
• 38:59
  haven't did anything. He said I'm not saying that.
• 39:02
  She's not even saying that. And I said that too.
• 39:05
  I only think that I said that what I'm here for today is not
• 39:08
  true. I was not with him when he sold
• 39:10
  to undercover. I didn't teach him anything.
• 39:13
  So the judge listened to that and he said that in
• 39:15
  consideration and he knew that that was the truth.
• 39:17
  He like he just couldn't believe it.
• 39:18
  He was like he I'm sitting here through something that she
• 39:21
  wasn't even around for, you know.
• 39:23
  So he was just like, I came here today because I have to sentence
• 39:27
  by a certain rule. That's what the laws say, he
• 39:29
  said. But I cannot.
• 39:32
  He said, I couldn't even sleep last night because I knew what
• 39:35
  the law said, but I'm going under the guidelines today.
• 39:39
  And he said, and I don't care who likes it, my prosecutor
• 39:42
  threw the whole folder and he threw it up in the air and
• 39:44
  papers were sliding everywhere when I just said that.
• 39:46
  But even through all of all of that, even though I didn't have
• 39:50
  to do the 33 years, he put it down to the 110 year sentence
• 39:53
  where I just had to serve that. It was like I still was in
• 39:57
  shock. I was just sitting.
• 39:58
  There, it's still a long time. I was everybody in there was
• 40:02
  crying and screaming and I was just sitting there and my mom
• 40:06
  was like, are you OK? They didn't know is.
• 40:07
  It the time you're doing that, the the there's no easy, you
• 40:10
  know the the good time and everything else is still 80 /
• 40:13
  80%. But you see, like I was still
• 40:16
  sitting there like nothing had happened.
• 40:17
  It was like a you're. In shock.
• 40:20
  I was in shock. I was in shocked and I went from
• 40:23
  zero to that number just like that in seconds.
• 40:27
  And even when I went in a cell, even when I called, my mom kept
• 40:30
  saying they thought that maybe I had a, something going on with
• 40:33
  my brain, like, do you have a? Nervous breakdown paralysis.
• 40:38
  I did have 118 months later, but I didn't have one at that time.
• 40:41
  I was numb so. Yeah, well, let's take a break
• 40:45
  there because I want to talk about how you went into that
• 40:48
  sentence and your mindset and way that you survived going into
• 40:53
  federal prison. You know, we talk a lot about
• 40:55
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• 40:58
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• 41:00
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• 41:26
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• 41:29
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• 41:32
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• 42:51
  So Kelis, you get this 10 year sentence.
• 42:55
  Are you immediately remanded to custody?
• 42:59
  OK, so how long do you have to stay until you actually end up
• 43:04
  to where you're supposed to go? So I was in Leavenworth for like
• 43:12
  7 months. OK, I was in Leavenworth for I,
• 43:15
  that's where I did. My time was Leavenworth Prison.
• 43:18
  Yeah, I was in Leavenworth. I mean, I think they have, I
• 43:20
  think they have what, 5 prisons in Leavenworth?
• 43:22
  I mean, it's crazy. It's like the prison capital of
• 43:25
  the world. Yes, they have expanded.
• 43:27
  You know, back then when I went in in 2003, it wasn't much, but
• 43:30
  now they're, yeah, it's a whole new facility.
• 43:35
  I remember when I, I had to go back to a civil trial and they,
• 43:38
  you know, they don't sell you anything when they take you.
• 43:40
  And I'd been, I'd been in I think for about a year and a
• 43:44
  half and they come and put me in a van and they put me in this
• 43:46
  other, this, this guy. It's always like one of those
• 43:50
  crazy things when you're traveling and they've taken him
• 43:53
  out of the penitentiary site. So I was at the camp.
• 43:55
  He's penitentiary. We're getting in this van.
• 43:56
  He said, Oh my gosh, he said, this has been terrible.
• 43:58
  He said I wasn't even supposed to be there.
• 44:00
  And so they were going to take him over the CCA and which is
• 44:04
  the private prison. And so we get there and I so it
• 44:08
  starts like he kind of freaks me out thinking, well, if he wasn't
• 44:12
  supposed to be where he's at, they'll what makes them think
• 44:14
  that they just not going to take the two of us throw us in here.
• 44:18
  So anyway, we get, you know, they take him and and I end up,
• 44:21
  you know, taking this drive to Saint Louis and this fan, which
• 44:24
  was really weird. But so when you get to the
• 44:27
  prison where you're supposed to be, because there's where you
• 44:31
  were at to start off with, for those that don't know, being
• 44:36
  held in custody before you get to your prison is often times so
• 44:39
  much worse than the actual place that you actually end up,
• 44:43
  whether you're in county jail, whether you're in whatever
• 44:46
  federal holding. A lot of times those places, I
• 44:50
  mean, I was in the county jail and Warrenton because of this
• 44:55
  civil trial for six days and I swear, police, it felt like 6
• 44:58
  years and I'd already been in prison for a year and a half.
• 45:01
  I couldn't wait to get back to Leavenworth because I mean, it's
• 45:04
  so transitory. There's so much, you know,
• 45:07
  weirdness going on. Some people might be there for
• 45:10
  DWI, some people might be there for murder and it's all out of
• 45:14
  control. So how long did you stay?
• 45:17
  You saved that space for seven months and that federal holding.
• 45:20
  Yes and then you know as you know the Conair experience
• 45:24
  getting Oklahoma before the prison that you a.
• 45:27
  Lot of people don't people listening down the Cayman
• 45:29
  Islands might not know about that.
• 45:30
  So for those listening that don't know about Conair, there
• 45:34
  is a place in Oklahoma where you just pull up, you land and and
• 45:39
  everybody is and there's this gigantic prison on the grounds
• 45:43
  of the airport. And it's a whole nother like
• 45:46
  prison world. And they they take people in and
• 45:49
  out of there, in and out hundreds of people all day long.
• 45:51
  And some people stay there for a long time in that prison in
• 45:54
  Oklahoma. So you go there.
• 46:00
  Yes I did 3 weeks, 3 weeks. My wife picked me up to Texas.
• 46:07
  So you ended up in Texas? Yes.
• 46:09
  Yes. So, so going into all that,
• 46:13
  please could you had those months of kind of a build up and
• 46:15
  then you and then you get thrown into the the whole Oklahoma, you
• 46:20
  know, crazy transitory place of of an airport for felons.
• 46:28
  What are you thinking going to prison, federal prison?
• 46:33
  You're a young kid. What's going through your mind?
• 46:39
  At this time I did get scared because at first I was just numb
• 46:43
  but the numbness start wearing off after so long and I kept
• 46:46
  asking myself is this real? Is this real or am I going to
• 46:49
  wake up So it just start wearing off.
• 46:53
  I started, I started getting these headaches, really, really
• 46:57
  bad headaches. And I think it was just stress
• 46:59
  because it was like I was numb. So I wasn't really dealing with
• 47:04
  things like how you normally would deal with it.
• 47:06
  I kept a lot in, I didn't deal with the time.
• 47:08
  I just was numb. So when I started dealing with,
• 47:10
  I started these headaches and then I did actually end up
• 47:13
  having a nervous breakdown after being there for like 18 months.
• 47:17
  I was completely not myself. I let myself go.
• 47:21
  They kept trying to put me on medication because I was at the
• 47:23
  biggest medical facility that was for prison in Fort Worth,
• 47:26
  TX, Carswell Federal Medical Center.
• 47:29
  And they that's all they do is give people medication.
• 47:31
  Everybody zombies. Everybody zombies, Yeah.
• 47:34
  Everybody it's only 2%. That's not.
• 47:36
  And I was scared and I was like, they keep calling me like
• 47:39
  because of my sentence, they trying to put me on this
• 47:41
  medication. I need to be able to cope is
• 47:43
  what they was telling me. And I was like, no, so I just
• 47:47
  hang out to a really, really, really dark place where I just
• 47:50
  checked out. People was telling me things
• 47:52
  that I were doing. You know, I could just stop
• 47:55
  taking care of myself because I just like went in like a
• 47:57
  forensic, like a out of my body. It was like I was in an out of
• 48:01
  body experience and I didn't even know what I was doing.
• 48:05
  People were telling me like when I came back was telling me, but
• 48:09
  I just start praying. Like I just start praying to
• 48:11
  God. Like I just went, it's like I
• 48:13
  went black one day and it's just like, I just was praying to God,
• 48:17
  praying to God. And then one day I woke up and
• 48:19
  it was like I was normal again. And all these people was like,
• 48:22
  you was doing this, you was doing that.
• 48:24
  And I was like, but, and I was like, yes.
• 48:26
  And I just kept praying. And that's when I learned how to
• 48:29
  pray. That's what I learned how to
• 48:30
  fast. My family is very spiritual, but
• 48:32
  I had to go to church. But I didn't never learn
• 48:34
  anything. I went because I had to.
• 48:36
  I'm eating candy, I'm talking to cousins.
• 48:38
  So I was totally blind to the Bible.
• 48:40
  I didn't know anything. So I just got to a place where I
• 48:43
  just learned how to pray. I learned how to fast for
• 48:46
  strength. I asked God to protect me, to
• 48:48
  help me get through these days, get through the months, through
• 48:51
  the weeks, so as. You did that, please something
• 48:53
  did. Were you around somebody that
• 48:55
  was doing that or was it just something that just.
• 48:58
  Something that came to me, it was fear.
• 49:00
  You know, my family always kept money on my books.
• 49:02
  So I would call home and my mother and my grandma and
• 49:05
  everyone be like you better like I'm like, I don't know what to
• 49:08
  do. They like pray, pray, get a
• 49:09
  Bible. That's the first thing they said
• 49:11
  and that's the first thing I did.
• 49:13
  And that's the that's when I really, really leaned and pushed
• 49:16
  on God. Like I couldn't even make it
• 49:18
  without changing my mindset. I had to change my mindset tell.
• 49:22
  Me. How did that change how you did
• 49:24
  things in prison? Like what?
• 49:26
  What? How did you, how, what was your
• 49:28
  prison experience like? That gave me like like a
• 49:33
  structure, some type of structure to stay grounded to
• 49:36
  because prison, you know, it's its own playground.
• 49:39
  You can get in trouble in there, drugs in there.
• 49:42
  It's. Anything can happen.
• 49:44
  Anything. It's everything on the streets
• 49:46
  but you just in your own world. It's just your own little world
• 49:48
  and you can't go home. That's it.
• 49:52
  It's everything that you create inside of those walls.
• 49:55
  So, you know, I became a woman in there.
• 49:59
  So I grew up in there. I just, I had to teach myself
• 50:03
  how to change my mind to survive in there.
• 50:06
  That's what I did to survive without medication, to survive
• 50:10
  sometime without nobody but God. That's all I had.
• 50:13
  You know, it was times where I would PC myself because I'm
• 50:16
  like, I keep getting locked up. I keep getting locked up for
• 50:20
  this. I keep getting, I was just going
• 50:21
  through just the change and you know, like I said, I just called
• 50:25
  on the Lord. I just got on my knees one day
• 50:28
  and just was calling him loud and I was crying and I cried for
• 50:31
  my 1st 18 months every single day.
• 50:34
  I cried so much to where I didn't cry for like 4-4 years
• 50:37
  after that. I didn't have a tear.
• 50:39
  It all. Out.
• 50:40
  A tear wouldn't come out. So when you you did, I mean how
• 50:47
  out of that 10 year sentence, how much time did you end up
• 50:49
  doing? OK, so I did on my I lost all of
• 50:54
  my good time. Unfortunately, I never got to
• 50:58
  make it to camp. Soon as I was camp status, they
• 51:00
  told me I had a fight. It's like it was just like a
• 51:04
  revolving door. Somebody would say I had
• 51:06
  contraband. So I kept losing that status.
• 51:08
  I didn't think about it again. I went to the drug program like
• 51:11
  I'm gonna go home early. I got kicked out of that.
• 51:13
  I said, you know, so I ended up losing all my good time.
• 51:16
  It was like. Which is a year by the way, if
• 51:18
  you go to the RDAP program you you go through that nine month
• 51:21
  projects a year. No, yeah, and I had.
• 51:24
  To I saw people getting kicked out of that.
• 51:26
  I was one of them and I wasn't going back again after they did
• 51:29
  me like how they did me, I said. I told my son.
• 51:32
  It's a tough, it's a tough program And you know, it's,
• 51:34
  it's, it's kind of cult like. I mean, they, they've got it's,
• 51:39
  it's behavioral therapy, cognitive therapy.
• 51:43
  And there's things in there that makes sense where, where ours
• 51:48
  ran off course where I was is that if they would have taught
• 51:53
  the things that were actually in the, the manuals, it would have
• 51:58
  been good. But because they wanted to be
• 52:01
  like correctional officers and they had their chains and their
• 52:05
  keys and they wanted to set people back and they wanted to,
• 52:10
  you know, be punishment instructors instead of
• 52:14
  instructors. It would have been a decent
• 52:16
  program. So it was, it was a strange.
• 52:20
  I mean, it's a our depth can be productive and it can be
• 52:25
  unproductive. It depends on who's teaching the
• 52:27
  courses. And that is that, right?
• 52:31
  It was rough. I just couldn't get in there and
• 52:32
  do some things that I didn't even do on the streets.
• 52:35
  I just, and it was like, God, I want to go home so bad.
• 52:39
  And it was like I kept getting pulled up.
• 52:41
  You're not doing this. You're not meeting the standard
• 52:43
  to be over here. And I, it was a lot.
• 52:45
  So I was like, hey, I'm just, I'm here.
• 52:49
  Did you stay plugged in with your family?
• 52:52
  Yes, I was very, very blessed. My family came to see me all the
• 52:55
  time. I constantly got visits.
• 52:56
  I constantly. I got to see my son all the time
• 53:00
  like I. So I think that's a big deal.
• 53:02
  I mean, you know, for a lot of people that they go through
• 53:05
  their prison experience of not being connected to family.
• 53:08
  And I, you know, I was around a lot of those guys.
• 53:10
  And I think that's such a lonelier path to walk in prison.
• 53:15
  Because when you do have that prison visit, it's kind of like
• 53:18
  straddling the fence of the real world to the prison world.
• 53:21
  And you get to kind of see the real world for a while for those
• 53:24
  two or three hours and then you go suck, get sucked back into
• 53:27
  that prison environment. But to have those hours to
• 53:31
  connect and hear and talk and feel somewhat normal is, I
• 53:38
  think, good for the soul for or somebody who's doing time.
• 53:42
  Yes, a lot of times when I had my visit, like my mother will
• 53:45
  bring my grandmother sometime my auntie and they will be in there
• 53:48
  have church talk. You know, it just it just it was
• 53:52
  it was definitely an experience and it definitely was an
• 53:55
  experience. It was a not saying it like
• 53:59
  that, but I needed that. I needed that to be able to
• 54:02
  change my mind. I needed that to find when.
• 54:05
  You guys, towards the end of your sentence, did you, did you
• 54:08
  feel changed like you were? Yes, I definitely felt change,
• 54:13
  but I still wasn't all the way there.
• 54:16
  Yeah, so, so I I'm wondering like police on that when you
• 54:21
  start getting I mean, everybody, I shouldn't say everybody.
• 54:25
  I I do that all the time. I don't mean to do that.
• 54:27
  A lot of people get freaked out, you know, with the getting close
• 54:32
  to the door get, you know, your time because you you now you
• 54:34
  spent more time. That's this is more, you know,
• 54:37
  this better than, you know, being outside.
• 54:39
  So people get nervous and they start thinking, how am I going
• 54:42
  to get back in? How am I, you know, going back
• 54:44
  to society, you know, re entry and all these different things.
• 54:48
  What were you? What were your thoughts about
• 54:49
  getting out? I was numb about getting out.
• 54:53
  I have been gone so long as a kid and I think that by me
• 54:57
  becoming a woman in there, you know, I'm not only did my body
• 55:00
  change, my mind changed and I was just numb to the world.
• 55:04
  So I didn't have a feeling, I didn't have a fear.
• 55:06
  I didn't have anything. It actually when I walked out
• 55:08
  the doors, I look back like, am I really free?
• 55:10
  Like I ain't free yet. Even when I got on that
• 55:13
  airplane, my family got me a ticket, I still was like, this
• 55:17
  is a joke. It I just, it just still didn't
• 55:19
  feel real. What was re entry?
• 55:21
  What was re entry like for you? Because it's it's tough.
• 55:26
  Entry for me, I feel like a little fish in the ocean with
• 55:29
  all these promises that people didn't promise me.
• 55:32
  You know, I had never had a job before.
• 55:34
  I've never had a job. I never did a job application.
• 55:36
  I didn't have a resume. You know, I didn't know what to
• 55:39
  say to get a job. I don't know where to start.
• 55:41
  I had no starting point. I had no money no more.
• 55:44
  I spent all the money that I had and you know, different little
• 55:48
  things that I did have. I was gone.
• 55:50
  I lost everything so getting out and I don't even know how to
• 55:55
  swim now. So I felt like I was drowned.
• 55:58
  I felt like I was drowned in and people just watched me and
• 56:01
  people just told me what they wanted to tell me to pacify me
• 56:05
  at the time or it sounded good or whatever.
• 56:07
  It was totally not what people said.
• 56:10
  You know, I got out, I worked two and three jobs.
• 56:13
  I worked a $8 an hour job. I worked a $10.00 an hour job.
• 56:16
  I didn't went through about 100 temporary services, every
• 56:20
  temporary service in Missouri and Kansas.
• 56:22
  You know, I, they let me work a little 60 days and 90 days and
• 56:25
  they let me go. And it's just it, you know, I
• 56:28
  had to Google, you know, how to do a job application
• 56:31
  sufficiently, what to say to an of the person that's the hiring
• 56:35
  person. You know what I need to place on
• 56:38
  a resume. I took a resume in prison, but
• 56:40
  it's totally different from out here.
• 56:42
  So that's not true. So I was misguided by the little
• 56:45
  prison resume. They weren't thinking about
• 56:47
  that, you know, So I had to get with the program.
• 56:50
  You know, when I got out, it was Facebook.
• 56:52
  It was Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube.
• 56:56
  When I left it was nothing. So I had to teach myself what to
• 57:01
  say, what to do. I had to make my own resume.
• 57:04
  I had to create my own jobs, jobs I never even had.
• 57:08
  I had to Google what to. Even when I went to certain
• 57:12
  jobs, I still have to watch videos to get better jobs
• 57:15
  because I wasn't making no money.
• 57:17
  I was working hard, you know, it just, I had to work 2 jobs that
• 57:22
  $8 and $10 and still barely make it.
• 57:25
  But I had to make the best of it, you know, because of I was
• 57:28
  on federal probation. My probation officer is pulling
• 57:30
  up at these jobs. I'm like, hey, I'm not going to
• 57:33
  have a job at all. You know, I have to tell them
• 57:35
  one day I said listen, I got, you can just tell me to peep my
• 57:38
  head out the door and you can see that I'm here or I can tell
• 57:42
  you when I'm taking my lunch, you know, but it was really bad.
• 57:45
  So even even now, I have taught myself so much from Google,
• 57:50
  YouTube, I create businesses now and I created all my own
• 57:53
  businesses. People pay me now to create a
• 57:55
  business. So you know, I didn't know
• 57:58
  anything about business. I knew only street.
• 58:01
  So you know. You're a business owner.
• 58:03
  I mean, that's, that's a big deal.
• 58:05
  Yes, I've had a few little businesses.
• 58:07
  I've had my business venture where D good.
• 58:10
  You know I have still have my cleaning business I create.
• 58:14
  I came up with that when I was in prison.
• 58:16
  So I had the information sent in to me there.
• 58:18
  So I still I held on to that and I actually put that in motion
• 58:22
  with me saving here and there just little $8 is $10 and just
• 58:27
  saving, saving, saving. So I.
• 58:29
  Think that's impressive, though, I mean to, to create a business
• 58:32
  and have that in your mind when you're, you know, in prison and
• 58:37
  and then you're, you put that into action.
• 58:39
  I think you've had that cleaning business for a while.
• 58:43
  So how did you get into, you know, the trauma advocate and
• 58:48
  helping people, you know, heal? How how did that, how did that
• 58:54
  all start coming to you? And then you, you know you.
• 58:56
  Then you wrote the books. So what I did when I came home,
• 59:02
  even from prison, I had a few notes.
• 59:04
  So when I came home and just, you know, I just when I, when I
• 59:08
  would go to jobs, I'm like begging people for a job.
• 59:11
  Like I work, I'm a hard worker, you know, people when listening
• 59:15
  to me, I took notes. You know, I like I said, I had
• 59:18
  to teach myself what to say and build a resume videos and I was
• 59:23
  so exhausted. I just took notes on everything,
• 59:24
  even relationships, me getting out.
• 59:27
  I took notes on every single thing that took place for me,
• 59:30
  teaching myself what to say, what to do, selling, putting on
• 59:34
  there that I got experience knowing I didn't have no
• 59:36
  experience, got the experience from them when they hired me
• 59:39
  with the two weeks here, you know, just catching on.
• 59:41
  I just it was just so much and I kept saying I'm writing a book,
• 59:45
  I'm going to write a book. So I just last year, last year,
• 59:49
  my birthday, I said I made a vow to myself in God.
• 59:53
  I said, Lord, it's time for me to put this in motion.
• 59:57
  I have held on to these notes, all these different notepads.
• 1:00:00
  I have to find stickies, just everything.
• 1:00:02
  I just, I just, I'm crazy with notes and stickies and I just
• 1:00:06
  pulled them all gap of them all. And I just got the right and I
• 1:00:10
  got the right and I got the typing.
• 1:00:11
  Once I figured it out, I said no, it's better to do it on the
• 1:00:14
  computer. So I just got the combined and
• 1:00:16
  everything November. Of last year, 2020, First my
• 1:00:20
  first book, You left me, God bless me.
• 1:00:23
  I wrote my first book. It was published on November
• 1:00:26
  21st. It hit Amazon, Barnes and
• 1:00:28
  Nobles, and all the other platforms back-to-back,
• 1:00:31
  back-to-back. That was my therapy and I was
• 1:00:33
  able to release. What I did was in September of
• 1:00:37
  that year, last that year, I had came to a point where I was
• 1:00:41
  ready to release because I had joined church.
• 1:00:45
  I joined church two years ago because of a relationship I was
• 1:00:48
  in and all kind of things was happening.
• 1:00:51
  I just feel like my life wasn't moving.
• 1:00:52
  I had all these buried. I never been able to talk about
• 1:00:55
  it. So I was just ready to release.
• 1:00:58
  And even when I went to, when I joined my church that I'm with,
• 1:01:01
  it was my hospital. Like it was like a healing
• 1:01:04
  point. So last year I got to the
• 1:01:06
  healing point. I said, no, I'm ready to
• 1:01:07
  release. And as I released, I wrote.
• 1:01:09
  I wrote, I wrote my book. So then the first book, November
• 1:01:13
  21st, barely 30 days later, December 27, my second book, No
• 1:01:18
  Longer Silence. So what I did was I was like,
• 1:01:21
  you know, I don't want to put everything in this one book.
• 1:01:24
  I want to keep people. I want to keep my readers with
• 1:01:27
  me because I want to give them an experience that I wish I had.
• 1:01:31
  So that's how I came up with No longer silence because the first
• 1:01:34
  book you left me, God bless me is more for transitional when I
• 1:01:37
  start transitioning and no longer silence is me finding my
• 1:01:40
  voice and really finding my identity to who I am today.
• 1:01:43
  So no longer Silence reaches all the way back to my childhood and
• 1:01:47
  it highlights the first book you left me, God bless me.
• 1:01:50
  So like now and right now, my current that like it like
• 1:01:55
  highlights my whole life. See, the first book, it only
• 1:01:58
  highlights like when I was in prison and I got out.
• 1:02:01
  So I just went back in and dug a little deeper, dived in and from
• 1:02:06
  coming in the world to now and I'm sorry.
• 1:02:10
  I was going to ask you, how do you as far as, as, as being a
• 1:02:14
  trauma advocate and and healing, what do you, what do you do in
• 1:02:17
  that space? I write, I write and I release.
• 1:02:23
  And while I'm writing and I'm releasing, I'm not only helping
• 1:02:27
  and healing myself, I'm healing others.
• 1:02:30
  So that makes me feel good to be able to someone to call me or
• 1:02:35
  hit my line or, or, you know, contact me on my website, help
• 1:02:39
  Hill Nation for services like, hey, you know, can I get a
• 1:02:42
  one-on-one? Can you come and speak?
• 1:02:43
  Can you come and talk? And you've been doing that.
• 1:02:46
  I mean, I think it's got to be pretty cathartic.
• 1:02:49
  You know, I love it when these type of stories where somebody
• 1:02:55
  goes through a lot and and then they're able to use that
• 1:02:59
  journey, that experience to then reach out and talk to others.
• 1:03:03
  And you're talking about you were at a high school the other
• 1:03:05
  day. You know, I think for you to be
• 1:03:08
  able to go and talk to high school kids when you yourself
• 1:03:13
  were struggling as a 13141516 year old and, and being able to
• 1:03:19
  tell them that story of how you were going through and what was
• 1:03:23
  going on. And then how you kind of got
• 1:03:25
  yourself out of the, you know, that path and then the path that
• 1:03:29
  you're on. What it does to kids that are
• 1:03:32
  that age, it makes them realize, number one, those they're not
• 1:03:35
  alone. And I think a lot of times kids
• 1:03:38
  think they're alone on an island and nobody and they don't want
• 1:03:40
  to talk to their friends about it because they might think that
• 1:03:43
  they think you're weird. But when somebody like you,
• 1:03:45
  Kelis go in and and you know you've experienced it all and
• 1:03:48
  you can come back to that time period where you had real trauma
• 1:03:52
  and then share that and they can experience that.
• 1:03:57
  OK, she made it and maybe I can make it.
• 1:03:59
  And I think that's there's such a gift to give and not, you
• 1:04:04
  know, a lot of people don't, you know, a lot of people will go
• 1:04:07
  through a really bad experience and they feel, I don't know,
• 1:04:10
  shame, awkwardness, I don't know what all that stuff is, that
• 1:04:13
  stuff that runs in our head. But if you can put it in to work
• 1:04:18
  like you're doing and go out and speak about it and help people,
• 1:04:23
  what a gift that is. Yes, so like we all have like a
• 1:04:28
  part where we shame because you know, shame you don't want to
• 1:04:31
  talk about are you embarrassed the little.
• 1:04:33
  Bit embarrassment. Yes, we all make wrong
• 1:04:35
  decisions. None of us are perfect so.
• 1:04:38
  That one. Right.
• 1:04:39
  And what I love about. It a few people that thought
• 1:04:41
  they were, but I haven't met a perfect person.
• 1:04:46
  Me neither. But it's like for the teenagers,
• 1:04:49
  you know, even me going to the the museum this weekend and
• 1:04:53
  speaking at the Scholarship Things Foundation and you know
• 1:04:57
  them, them trusting me, trusting my word and wanting to hear me
• 1:05:01
  and to make a change and know that you do have a voice and
• 1:05:04
  your voice matters. Well, and, and, and it takes and
• 1:05:07
  it takes another. It's another step.
• 1:05:08
  You become an expert in a field that you experienced.
• 1:05:13
  It's better than anything that you can read in a book, even
• 1:05:15
  though you do have a book, but being able to speak to them and,
• 1:05:20
  and because trauma I, I don't know how kids get through
• 1:05:24
  teenage years now. I mean, it's like, I feel so
• 1:05:27
  like, you know, with all the social media and all the other
• 1:05:31
  things that go on, it's tough and, and they need help and, and
• 1:05:37
  I think it's so great that you're putting yourself in that
• 1:05:39
  position to be able to go do that.
• 1:05:41
  I want to ask you a question though, like going through all
• 1:05:44
  this and all the different stages you went through, because
• 1:05:46
  you've gone through a lot of different roller coaster rides.
• 1:05:49
  What What do you think's your biggest take away through all
• 1:05:51
  of? It my biggest take away is I
• 1:05:55
  should say I look at it as like more so like an example in a
• 1:06:00
  blessing and and it helps people find a safe place.
• 1:06:03
  Like it helps people feel safe. That's my whole thing.
• 1:06:06
  And when you feel safe, you can heal.
• 1:06:08
  I don't think none of us is completely 100% or ever be 100%
• 1:06:12
  healed, but I believe you can get close and that's my goal.
• 1:06:17
  Yeah, because you were always looking for safety.
• 1:06:20
  Yes, a safety. I felt abandoned, you know, and,
• 1:06:25
  and I wanted love, you know? So when I'm talking and I'm
• 1:06:28
  helping people get to a safe place where they're opening up
• 1:06:31
  and talking about it, it helps shapes your future and who you
• 1:06:34
  are. Like when you got to keep a lot
• 1:06:36
  of stuff. Barry, you creating a monster?
• 1:06:39
  And I think that's a I think that's a great take away,
• 1:06:41
  though. The, the the idea that, you
• 1:06:44
  know, finding a safe space is also having to be vulnerable,
• 1:06:47
  having to be open, have to be able to share with someone that
• 1:06:50
  I need help. And I think by you doing what
• 1:06:53
  you're doing, you're allowing people to feel that space so
• 1:06:57
  that they feel like they can find a place that's safe for
• 1:07:02
  them so that they they don't feel like they're alone and and
• 1:07:05
  maybe do something that they don't want to do just because
• 1:07:07
  everybody else is doing it. Yeah, that's good.
• 1:07:11
  How do people get a hold of you, Kelis?
• 1:07:13
  So I have my my website, which is my community, my safe place
• 1:07:19
  where I tell people they want to contact me.
• 1:07:21
  It is helphealnations.com and that's nations with an S So my
• 1:07:26
  books I like. I have my books on there if
• 1:07:30
  someone want to buy books and my books are not just regular
• 1:07:32
  books. They books with their mental
• 1:07:34
  health because I pulled the reader in with me wherever they
• 1:07:36
  was at in a life. So they're on there as well.
• 1:07:40
  I have services one-on-one services, group services, like
• 1:07:45
  anything that you can think of far as like that you need safe
• 1:07:49
  space-time. All those services on my website
• 1:07:52
  help hill nations. Love it, love it and I want to
• 1:07:56
  give a shout out to Homestead Financial Home Mortgage.
• 1:07:58
  She lets me use this studio with all the fancy lights and
• 1:08:02
  equipment and stuff. If you got home mortgage DS out
• 1:08:05
  there, Greg FDF is your guy. He knows all that stuff.
• 1:08:07
  If you're looking for another book, check mine out.
• 1:08:10
  Nightmare success, loyal to betrayal, life behind bars,
• 1:08:12
  adapting, finally breaking free and I if you got time guys, I
• 1:08:16
  know it's a hassle, but the Apple reviews and I just got a
• 1:08:20
  bunch of them lately. I so much appreciate it.
• 1:08:22
  Love that it helps the show. You want to know what my what
• 1:08:25
  I'm doing it go to brentcassidy.com.
• 1:08:27
  I spell it wrong. I spell it with a Ty, not a DY.
• 1:08:31
  And as I used to say to my people when I was writing my
• 1:08:33
  emails back and forth from level W, stay strong, I'll do the
• 1:08:36
  same. Kelis White, I wish you the best
• 1:08:39
  of luck. I think you're on the right
• 1:08:40
  track doing all the great stuff that you've got purpose doing.
• 1:08:42
  You've got the purpose rolling. Momentum's on your side.
• 1:08:46
  Right, thank you for having me. I feel special.
• 1:08:49
  Made my day today. Neighbor success.
• 1:08:52
  That it out.