Episode 55

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Published on:

19th Oct 2025

Prepared For War Yet Met With Love

Survival wasn’t a phase for Frankco, it was the air he breathed. Abusive home. Public bullying. “Pick a struggle” became “I had all of them.” He fled Bermuda, lived homeless in NYC, cycled through addiction, prison, and an overdose before clawing his way back. Today he’s nine years sober and building solutions for the island that shaped him studying how smallness, isolation, and culture complicate gang violence and collective healing. This conversation is a blueprint for moving from rage to responsibility, from secrecy to systems change, and from self-protection to purpose.

  • Why survival mode feels “normal” when it starts in childhood
  • The cost of being visibly different in a tiny place—and the empathy it can forge
  • Forgiving without forgetting (and why timing matters)
  • Why leaving home helps you heal—and why coming back finishes the job
  • How to turn lived experience into research, reform, and community spaces that actually help

🎙️ What We Talk About:

  • Survival as identity: abuse at home, danger in the streets, and the “always on” nervous system
  • Small island dynamics: proximity, gossip, church culture, “what happens in this house…” and their impact on trauma
  • Addiction & carceral cycles: coping, consequences, and the moment honesty beats denial
  • That conversation with his father: compassion without erasure; accountability without rage running the show
  • Recovery as a map: self-awareness → reprogramming → reinvention (Leticia’s 3-phase exit framework in action)
  • Returning to Bermuda: triggers as teachers; being met with unexpected respect and apology
  • From pain to policy: centering lived experience in research on gang violence and community responses

🔑 Key Takeaways:

“I forgave him—but I did not forget. Not forgetting is how we heal on purpose.”
“Leaving saved me. Coming home finished the work.”
“Anger can protect you. But if it owns you, it poisons you.”
“Your story is not a stain. It’s leverage.”


🙌 Why This Episode Matters:

High-achieving women (and allies) often carry entire communities on shoulders built in survival. Frankco’s story shows how to honor your past without being held hostage by it—and how to build spaces where vulnerability is power, not liability. If your healing needs to become policy, practice, or a platform, this one hands you language and spine.


🔗 Resources & Links:

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About the Podcast

Survival Mode Disrupted with Leticia R Francis
Disruptive Unapologetic Conversations about Survival Mode
Survival Mode Disrupted is not just a podcast. It's a rebellion.

A raw, unfiltered space where we finally stop pretending we're fine and start telling the truth—the truth about the trauma we've carried, the identities they had to wear to survive, and the radical decisions we made to break free.

Because here's the deal: survival mode isn’t just a season. It’s a damn identity. One that so many were forced to adopt just to get through life, to stay safe, to stay needed, to stay sane. But eventually, it starts costing you more than it protects. Your peace. Your purpose. Your power.

This podcast is for the disruptors—the people who were told to stay small, stay silent, stay grateful for crumbs… and said “hell no.”

Hosted by Leticia, The Survival Mode Disruptor herself—a trauma recovery mentor, speaker, and woman who has lived through the fires of abuse, betrayal, and breakdown and still chose to rise—this show dives deep into the unapologetic exits from survival mode that no one talks about.

You’ll hear from women (and a few brave men) who walked away from toxic relationships, soul-sucking careers, generational dysfunction, religious trauma, cultural expectations, and the lies they were taught to believe about themselves. Not because it was easy—but because staying would’ve killed something sacred inside of them.

These are the stories of bold pivots, quiet courage, and messy but miraculous rebirths.

Each episode is a conversation—a disruption—meant to wake something up in you. Whether it’s a guest sharing the moment they chose themselves for the first time, or Leticia dropping a truth bomb that makes you question everything you’ve normalized, this podcast is here to shake the foundation of your survival mode identity and replace it with something truer. Something freer.

We’re not here for surface-level self-care tips or fake empowerment slogans.

We’re here to talk about what it really takes to:

Reclaim your voice after being silenced.

Reinvent yourself after being broken down.

Rewrite your story when everyone else wants you to stay the same.

Release the guilt of choosing YOU.

This is for those who are done performing. Done pleasing. Done pretending.

It’s for the ones ready to exit survival mode—not slowly, not quietly, but disruptively and unapologetically.

You won’t leave this podcast the same.
You’ll cry. You’ll rage. You’ll laugh.
You’ll see yourself in every story.
And more importantly, you’ll remember who the hell you are.

Welcome to Survival Mode Disrupted.
It’s not just a podcast.
It’s a movement.
And your exit begins here.

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About your host

Profile picture for Leticia Francis

Leticia Francis

I am not here to inspire you—I am here to activate you.

As a Survivor, Keynote Speaker, and Trauma Recovery Mentor, I know what it’s like to fight battles no one sees. I also know that breaking free is possible. My work is about disrupting survival mode, exposing trauma-driven success cycles, and giving women the blueprint to reclaim their lives.

🔹 200+ podcast features & speaking engagements
🔹 Global Women of Choice Award Winner 2022
🔹 Creator of the Survival Mode Exit Plan
🔹 Host of Survival Mode Disrupted Podcast