From Grief to Grit Julie Fight for Justice Healing and Hope

From Pain to Purpose:

Julie’s Story of Loss, Resilience, and Advocacy In this deeply moving episode, Julie shares her extraordinary journey of endurance, love, and purpose. From raising a daughter with a rare genetic disorder and surviving over 40 surgeries, to losing her infant son to cancer, enduring years of abuse, and ultimately reclaiming her strength, Julie’s story is both heartbreaking and powerfully inspiring.

Today, she is the founder of the Colin James Barth Outreach, an advocate for legal reform on emotional abuse, and a published author helping other women rise from adversity. You’ll hear how Julie turned personal tragedy into a platform of healing and impact, and how her daughter Taytem, a nonverbal artist, inspires hope through her artwork.

🔗 Learn more:
• Daughter’s Art: hope4tayt.com (Proceeds support the outreach)
• Outreach Nonprofit: cjboutreach.org
• Author Website: juliebarthauthor.com
• Book: Notes From a BlackBerry on Amazon

⚠️ Content Warning: This episode includes sensitive topics such as child loss, medical trauma, abuse, and emotional distress. Listener discretion is advised. 

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/emerge-empower-podcast-tv--6068978/support.

🎙 Emerge & Empower Podcast TV – Hosted by Dr. Linda Joseph

📺 Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/@EmergeandEmpowerTV
🌐 Website: www.emergeandempowertv.com
📘 Facebook: facebook.com/dr.lindajoseph
💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drlindajoseph
📧 Guest inquiries & speaking requests: [e-mail]

⚠️Disclaimer: Viewer and listener discretion is advised. Content may include sensitive topics. Guest views are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Dr. Linda Joseph, Shemergence, or Emerge & Empower Media.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome to Emerge and Empower podcast TV, a platform where
resilience meets transformation. Here we amplify voices that have faced trials, trauma,
and adversity, stories that inspire hope, healing and empowerment. Every
episode brings raw, unfiltered conversations with individuals who have risen

(00:37):
from hardship, embracing faith, strength and purpose. Join us as
we break the silence, uplift one another, and emerge stronger together.
New episodes air Wednesdays at six pm English and.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Saturdays at six.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Pm, with select Saturdays in Creole for our Haitian audience.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another segment of Emergent
Empower with your hosts Doctor Lynn J. Now, you know
my journey is all about healing, and the healing is
to heal for real. We have too many people that
are hurting, that are not confronting or dealing with their

(01:26):
past traumas, those who have disassociated themselves totally away from
their past trauma. But each of these episode is not
only to empower you, but to encourage you on this
journey to healing so that you can truly live and
stop existing. All right, Emergent and Powers a platform where

(01:47):
individuals have gone through traumatic experience and they come on
here and share that journey with you, and many of
them have turned their pain into purpose. And on today
today is like all other episodes. The person is here
to share their past experience. So what you need to
do is go ahead and get on the front row

(02:08):
of your seats because we're gonna be on here for
this hour. Call your friend, call your girlfriend, share it,
share it, share it in your group, share it on Facebook, WhatsApp,
share it on your LinkedIn YouTube, share share, share, share,
And what you need to do is subscribe to Emerge
and Empower with Doctor Lynn Jay. Now. It is on

(02:29):
Apple and all the other audio platforms for our podcast.
All right, do you have a story to tell? I
encourage you to come onto this platform and share your
story as well. So we are going to welcome our
guests on today, and as you can see, it's a beautiful,
beautiful young woman that has come on to share her story.

(02:54):
So I'm gonna get right into her details before we
get any further, so you can this san who Julie
is on today? All right? She married her childhood sweetheart,
first kiss, etc. Verse and they ended up getting married

(03:14):
her second child, Tatum, was born with a rare genetic
condition called pre model dwarfhism, but they didn't know what
was wrong with her because there were no genetic marker
and it was twenty four years ago, which was pre
Google and pre everything we know chat GPT, so not

(03:35):
many people even knew the type of duphism existed, including
five hospitals that they sought out for help. She was
a victim of medical malpractice advert and damaged her throat. Therefore,
it took forty plus surgeries to remove a trick and
she subsequently lost lost use of a vocal chords. She

(03:59):
can't She's now twenty four and twenty four pounds and
self taught artists, so after the changes began to get
better with her. They had two more children, which is
a total of four, and when their youngest was just
six months, he was diagnosed with a stage four pancreatic cancer.

(04:22):
He was given two weeks to live, although he ended
up surviving sixteen months, most of them were pretty terrible.
He died in two thousand and nine and from there
she remarried and was in an emotionally and physically abusive
relationship for a decade. During that marriage, tight her daughter

(04:45):
with special needs, was diagnosed with a rare connective tushue
cancer and had to have her right side to also
remove and her legs crafted to fill in the scar.
The cancer was complet unrelated to the pre model Dwarfism
and with only one thirty cases in US, which is

(05:09):
ninety nine percent of our senior citizens. Because her second
husband and her shared two small children, he sued her
for custody, saying that she was on drugs, mentally, ill,
you name it, although he never spent a day with them,
not even an exaggeration, and had emptied her savings and

(05:32):
never contributed had a drug addiction. It took her two years,
but the truth finally came out, and now she has
soul custody and he does not have visitation for their safety. Now,
there's so much more to this. I'm not going to
get into this. We're just going to go right here
and just bring her on what Let us welcome Julie

(05:55):
to the said, Julie, welcome to emerge in a power
with me. Your host, doctor Linda, go ahead and let
everyone know, uh, just heare who you are. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
Hi, doctor Linda thank you. Yeah, I read you were
reading the intro. I was like and then and then.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
It was like, I gotta keep going, but I said,
hold on, let me just let her come on here
and tell So welcome to Emerging Empowered. Julie. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Introduce yourself to our audience on today.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
Sure, I am the mother of six. My last name
is Barreth, Julie Barth. I'm an author, and I'm the
founder of the Colin James Barreth Outreach, which is a
charity founded to help women lead households in times of crisis.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Wow. Wow, I guess that would be your why. We'll
get into your why later on, because as I was
reading her synopsis, it was.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
Like this chapter in the next chapter, I was like,
so what, let me just take a voice right there,
and we're just gonna have you come right on in
and you're going to just carry us through your story,
which is your life experience.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
And I want to commend you for being a strong
woman who is still standing today. And I've turned your
pain into purpose and this is one of the reasons
why you want to set today so you can take
us through your journey. So, Julie, at this time, I
am turning the mic over to you and just take
us through your experience.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Okay, So, as you said, you know, I've been through
several different different challenges in my life where you know,
sometimes I'm telling other people my story and I think, wow,
I forgot that happened. So I have a special needs daughter.
Luckily and as she made it through forty plus surgeries

(07:47):
at the start and then had another probably seven or
eight when she got cancer. So she was she still
isn't enigma. There's really no reason why she's still alive
besides the ultimate reason, which is the why of the
charity and what she does. But yeah, she was born
with a rare genetic disease called primornial Dwarfism, which is

(08:11):
a type of doorphism where she's proportionate.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
It's just that she's very, very small.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
So right from the time I got pregnant with her,
she just stopped growing. So, as you said, it was
before Google. So you know, we traveled to different hospitals
and no one seemed to know what was wrong, and
what we were really dealing with at the time was
the medical malpractice more than the genetic condition itself. So yeah,

(08:38):
I mean we were told she would never walk, she
would never talk, and she kept making each one of
her milestones.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
Yeah, yeah, So today she's, like you said, twenty four
to twenty four pounds. She's a self taught artist. She
doesn't have a voice, but she pushes air. Socially, she's,
you know, completely a twenty four year old. Her disabilities
kind of limit her from her being able to interact

(09:06):
with the world. So when I saw she started drawing
on her own, and I saw it one day and
it just, you know, took my breath away. And we
sat down and we had that conversation and decided that,
you know, the reason why she does it is because
she wants to show the world, you know, her art
and be a part of it. So we built a

(09:28):
website for her and she's been doing her art and
selling it and all the proceeds from her art go
to fund the charity which we formed.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
In link.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
We will share that link in the bio so everyone
will be able to connect there. And I mean that
story in itself, so take us through. When you realize
that something was wrong.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
Well, I had had a couple of miscarriages before her,
and it's still we're still much sure because there's no
genetic marker for this type of condition still in twenty
twenty five, so we're not really sure how it's inherited.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
But we did have two.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
Miscarriages before her, so we kind of felt when I
was pregnant with her, like right out the gate, you know,
I was very cautious, but I started leading and I thought, oh,
here we go again.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
We're going to lose her.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
So, you know, I would go in at six weeks
and they'd say, oh, congratulations, you're six weeks pregnant, and
then ten weeks, congratulations, you're six weeks. About twelve weeks,
I was like, something is not right here, right, right, right,
But we would go in and they would do right.
I mean, I probably had forty plus ultrasounds as well,
and there was never anything that they could show me
was wrong. She was perfect, she was portunate, There were

(10:44):
no you know, there's always sort of genetic markers, those.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Weren't there, right.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
They had an amniosynthesis and it came back normal, So
we just kind of crossed our fingers and hoped for
the best. But when she was full, they delivered her
about I think thirty eight weeks is when they did it,
and they weren't expecting her. They were expecting her to
be about five or six pounds and she was only three.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
So they weren't equipped to handle her, and they used
the room size innovation tube. And so that's what led
to the track and trying to figure out why she
wasn't growing, because even after she came out at her
first year of life, she was eight pounds if you
can imagine, Yeah, and her first running shoes or zero
to three months from the gap, so oh wow. Yeah,

(11:31):
we didn't actually know what she had until about she
was about three years old and we had had surgeries
to repair her throat. And there was a show on
the Discovery Show channel, and I would go out places
and public and people would say, is that your daughter
on the on the Discovery And I hadn't seen it,
Oh so yeah, And I.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
Put it on Discovery without letting.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
You know, well, she was not on it. But she
looked so much like the condition that people were like.
And I didn't know what anyone. I was like, I
don't know what you're talking about, but they all have
the same kind of they have the same look. So
I did google was around or at least in its
infancy or whatever was out there the internet. So I

(12:15):
went home, I looked it up, and sure enough, up
popped her, you know, and it was explained three years.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
And the pregnancy.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
You know, I'm reading about the pregnancies of this kind
of condition, and it all made sense, and in that
moment we discovered, you know who what was going on.
You know, we read about the prognosis of it, but
I tried not to, you know, as I always have
when it comes to Tatum or anything else. It's like,

(12:45):
you know, when you face with medical conditions, they just
kind of throw everything at you at once. You know,
this could happen, this could happen, you know, prognosis. You know,
even before we were sure she was going to make it,
because she was in the NIK, they were telling us
she was going to have special needs. And it's like, well,
what kind of special needs are we talking about? So

(13:06):
although I you know, I read up about her condition,
you know, I always say, she's got Tate syndrome. It
is what it is, you know, her life expectancy, she's
far surpassed it. Everything that they said would happened, she's
far surpassed that. So she's a miracle she is in
every since the world. And then, like as you said,

(13:26):
she ended up and when she was thirteen coming down
with a rare connective tissue cancer completely unrelated. So yeah,
she's been she's been through a lot. Yeah, and she
keeps smiling through it all. You know, she doesn't complain.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Through it through because you went through it with her, you.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
See, I did. I did. Yeah. Yeah, and you know
it's hard to know.

Speaker 4 (13:51):
Obviously it's so hard to watch her suffer, but as
a mom, to not be able to step in and
stop the suffering is torture too.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
So yeah, we've all gone No, whole family's been through
it really.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, we take on the pain, you know.

Speaker 4 (14:06):
Yeah I wish yeah, like tap out, I'll take your place. Yeah,
it doesn't work that way unfortunately.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yes, yes, yes, Well we're thankful for her life because
like I said, life is a miracle and even though
at thirteen, you know, she went and dealt with cancer
which is totally different, unrelated, but again she's here, she's fighting.
You know, she's a fighter. So she's a miracle and

(14:35):
a gift, I would say, a gift. So you went
through all of this, you went through medical malpractice. All
of these things are happening, and it takes a toll
on a relationship, It takes a toll on family and everything.
Because you mentioned you did have other children, so just
continue with your journey from here.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
Sure, when Tatum started getting better, I had always wanted
a big family. That was just always, you know, my dream.
So I thought, you know, she was getting better, and
I decided, you know, we can't focus on her for
the rest of our lives, and the best way to
move forward and make a life for all of us
was to have the family that I wanted to. So

(15:19):
we had two more children. We started rejoining life. The
trick was gone, nursing was gone, and all of a sudden,
my husband, Colin, he just stopped acting like himself. He
was crabby and he just we were just really having
a hard time. I knew that he was a trader
down at the Border Trade, so I knew his job
had become very stressful. But at a certain point he

(15:42):
was back and forth to the doctor and we were
having this huge party with like, you know, everyone from
the neighborhood, and I said, you just need to go
to the hospital figure out what's going on. And of
course I thought it was you know, they kept telling
him it was, you know, just reflux or you don't
think because we were at the at the time, thirty three,
you don't think that something horrible is going.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
To come out of it.

Speaker 4 (16:06):
But he went to the hospital and within you know,
four hours, we found out that he had a tumor
on his pankras that was in Yeah, and about two
days later we found out they gave him a life
expectancy of about two weeks. Yeah, we found it, and
they said, yeah, take him home, let him say goodbye

(16:27):
to his children. And of the four, my youngest was
six months, my oldest was ten, special needs daughter and
thankful yeah, yeah, yeah, And thankfully he did live sixteen months,
so we did have some time with him. But you know,

(16:48):
there was a shift somewhere halfway in between where it
went from a blessing to almost feeling like not so
much of a blessing. So that was that that's where
my first book came out of. I sat down and
we would go to Keemon Tuesdays, and I thought it
would be a great time to reconnect as a couple,
and he was just so sick that I started telling

(17:11):
Tatum story because there were so many ups and downs
and weird things that happened, and wow, I've never seen that.
So I wrote her story and it flowed real time
into his story, and so I would email it back
to myself and my BlackBerry, and twelve years later it
sat at my laptop and I pieced it together and
that's where the original book notes when BlackBerry came from.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Wow, I you know now that you mentioned BlackBerry. That
was my favorite phone back in the day. I don't
know why it took it away.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
I that keyboard was amazing.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
My god, you know what you could do with a BlackBerry,
you know, right, even though you have iPhones and everything
like that today, But I'm glad you had that opportunity.
That's showing that there was a tool that you can
use to journal and to do all the that. So
you have a daughter with special needs, four children, now,

(18:05):
husband that is diagnosed. It's told he's gonna live for
two weeks, but thanks be to God, he went to
sixteen months. Right, Yes, I mean you're a whalwin.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
It was like I didn't get to come up from air.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
You know, anyone who's been to a beach and knows
those tidal waves that keep coming, and you know, you
stumble back and you come.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Back and yeah, I probably don't want to come.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
I probably did that for a good ten years to
begin with before.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
So how was Uli during this time?

Speaker 4 (18:41):
You know, I'm glad I wrote a lot of it
down because the brain has this amazing way of shielding
us to get to the next day. So Julie was okay.
Julie was getting stuff done.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
It was existing and just making sure being strong for everyone.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (18:58):
Yeah, and you know I'm a I am a okay, Well,
I'm whatever I can't fix, I'm going to leave alone
and I'm going to find the things I control. And
you know, I focused on making Taitum the best she
could be.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
That was my goal.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
I almost saw her as more of a project than
a child. And then when the focus switched to Colin,
it was the same thing. Well, we got to find
somebody who's going to cure them. We gotta get them, Takimo,
we gotta you know. So I was just in fight mode,
not flight, yeah, but definitely fight. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
And it feels me you have to be in fight
because now you're fighting. You were already fighting for tait
You're fighting now for calling, you're fighting for the two
other children. There's a lot that needs to go on.
They have to go to school, there's all these things.
So you're spread then basically, yeah, spread big? Are your
first born? Truly I am not.

Speaker 4 (19:52):
I am the baby, but there's only two of us,
so I consider I don't know how old. I have
a sister, she's two years older than me.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
So yeah, because you were showing trait of a firstborn,
you know, and it also can shift. It's life causes
it to happen, but it also can shift at your
roles based on your experiences in life, and you were
taking it head on like leadership. You were taking it on,
you know, not as the baby, but as a first

(20:22):
born trait of you know what I have to do this,
I have to stand, I have to fight, you understand.
So that that that's why I asked it, because of
you know, how you handle each of those situations. So okay,
So now with Colin, how was his spirit though?

Speaker 2 (20:42):
It was at first?

Speaker 4 (20:43):
It was good, you know at first, and his mother
had a varying cancer which was genetically linked and at
one point she had Yeah, she had beat it, she
beat you know, she wasn't supposed to make it through
the initial surgery where they found it, and she ended
up living thirty years. So she was everybody's miracle patient,
and we kind of felt like we were going to
do it too.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, same thing.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
There was a bit of him that unfortunately kind of
shut the world out. He wanted to save his strength
for a time when he wanted to fight, so he's
you know, didn't really engage with us because he wanted
he felt like he was saving his energy. So we
did lose a lot of time with him, and he
was doing great for the first I would say five months.

(21:26):
You know, we almost got like a private room because
we were in a study and he was there, you know,
shining patient. We thought we were going to be able
to have surgery, inoperable surgery. You know, a lot of
the metastasize was gone, and and then you know, just
literally within a month, everything just went from really positive

(21:46):
to you know, traveled to his brain. And I would
say for the last four months of his life, he
really was not cognizant of what was going on around him,
but he just was not going you know, as a
young dad, he yeah, he was he was gonna stay
here no matter what.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
So he was a fighter.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Wow. Just the last segment, I was talking about a
lot of things that transfers in the bloodline, whether it's
physically or spiritually, and in this case for him, it
transferred for the mother to him as the son. And
these traumas, it's like sometimes you wonder, like where did

(22:28):
I get this from? Or who started this or who
opened up this particular door for the mom. They might
have not discovered it, might have been a parent even
before or but by that time, we didn't have all
this technology to know what was happening with people, you know,
way back when. And then for him now to experience that,

(22:48):
you know, and I'm sure that was a lot for
the family. The family was hopeful. You were hopeful because
his mom went through it, you know. And so you, Julie,
you have gone through a lot. You are a troop.
You know, you got your badges. You know you have
a lot of badges and strength that God has given you.
And I don't know, I have no words, and usually

(23:11):
have a lot of words, but I have no words
because there's more, you know, there's there.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
There's always hard.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
We're just talking about just this and summary, but there's
more so take us through.

Speaker 4 (23:27):
So you know, it was hard when he was We
grew up in the same town that we moved back
to and where he ended up being getting cancer.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
So we were, you know, known in the community.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
We were a big part of the community, and everyone
was so gracious and came together and did fundraisers and
really just saved us. I mean, I don't I don't
know where we would be without their help. But at
a certain point that all of that attention and care
and concern, it started to kind of feel different to me.
And it turns and when he passed, I kind of

(24:02):
felt like, you know, who was Julie. We were like
Julie Colin And without Colin, who was Julie? And everywhere
I would go, you know, people would be sad and
they would, you know, if I said my name, there
would be this look like, oh my gosh, you know,
there's that woman special needs and she's got a husband,
and you know, and I think I just couldn't sit

(24:25):
in the sadness anymore.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
I did have the four small children. I felt like
it was my obligation to move forward with life.

Speaker 4 (24:32):
But exactly, you know, I define myself as Colin's wife
with his best friend, and all of a sudden, it
was just me and I couldn't. Everyone else was breathing
him when he passed. I had been greeting him for
sixteen months. You know that he was sick because I
watched a bit of him gone every day. So just
as everyone everyone else is processing and grieving, I was like,

(24:55):
I've agreed, I need to move past.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
I need to move on.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
And then I kind of felt as if staying where
I was wasn't helping. Everywhere I looked, he was there.
Everyone I knew knew of him. So I met somebody
and I, you know, I looked at it like, oh,
this is my chance. I can just leave my life behind.
I can move away. I can stop being Julie Barth

(25:21):
and just become somebody else. So I ended up leaving
my hometown with my second husband and leaving everyone behind,
including family friends. It was almost as if I packed
a suitcase and said bye.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
Yeah, so you in a place where everybody knew you,
they knew about you. I mean, it was like it
was Julian Colin and now you don't have that, so
it's like you needed an escape.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
I did.

Speaker 4 (25:52):
I did and I thought that if I just packed
everything away, put it in a suitcase, or put it
in have been You know, all of his photographs are
live together. I just saw it, well, if I pack
it away, I don't have to acknowledge it, and I
can just be whoever I want to be.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
I can be the new Julie.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
And unfortunately, you know, you can't do that. It seemed
like a really great idea. But when you pack, your
grief comes.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
With you and all of your because that goal you do,
you do people. The key here is you have to
unpack that. You have to release that in order to
move forward, because when you don't, actually that becomes the
biggest luggage.

Speaker 4 (26:32):
Yeah yeah, And I liken it to a band playing
around me all the time, and instead I wasn't able
to focus on living because I was trying to silence
the stand or ignore it.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Really, I wasn't trying to silence that.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
I didn't want to acknowledge it, that it was playing
all the time and it wasting. So I got into
a really bad relationship with somebody who treated me horribly,
treated my children horribly. I went on to have other children,
which is there amazing, and they made everything you know, worthwhile,

(27:06):
but it was a decade of just horrible emotional abuse.
And yeah, so it took me ten years to get
out of it and wake up and come to terms
with the grief and the loss of Colin and unpack
all of the things that I've been trying so hard
to ignore.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
Wow, and that was a lot, because when you went
into that other relationship, if you was just looking for
an escape, and there might have been warning signs or
anything there, but that happened to be the ticket out.
You know, that was your way out, so you seize
that opportunity. And now that should should have been a

(27:50):
great journey and up being ten years of difficulty, and
you still was dealing with your daughter, you still have
an unpacked from the read from your husband, and now
you in this relationship and you were talking about what
happened in this particular relationship. So what was this experience

(28:11):
like now because you have two different men that you
can say, I would say is night and day. Because
Colin was your first love, first kids, first everything, and
now you're meeting this other person. And I'm sure you're like, well,
my first husband wasn't like this, So you have something
to also compare to realize what you had also, so

(28:33):
that brought a lot of pain too.

Speaker 4 (28:35):
I would say, right, you know, I think that I
didn't do that comparison instead. You know, I don't know
that I really understood what survivors guilt out. And yeah,
you know, the sixteen the last several months of Colin's life,
I had to make a lot of decisions that I

(28:55):
was not comfortable with. You know, I was the one
who made the decision to start chemo, and I was
lying to him because I necessarily had to. He didn't
have the word with all to make those decisions. So
coming out of that, I felt really horrible about myself.
I felt like, so when my second husband was horrible
to me, and you know he was, I thought I

(29:20):
deserved it, and I didn't see it as yeah, I
didn't see it as.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Something wrong with him.

Speaker 4 (29:26):
I saw it as, oh, there must be something broken
with me, and I do deserve this because I a
B or C or so I just kept trying to
fix it and fix myself because I thought if I
could just make myself whole again. Clearly, I'm broken because
you know, the first marriage had been so amazing and
strong and supportive, that I was like this, it's got

(29:48):
to be me because nothing could be this horrible.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
This is not how marriage goes, you know. And everything
that I had known wasn't what I was experiencing.

Speaker 4 (29:56):
So my brain couldn't wrap around the fact that I
could love someone who was so horrible to me unless
I deserve it. I don't know if I would have
gotten into that situation prior to marrying Colin, or if
Colin had not died, or if circumstances were different.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
I just know that different different.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Maybe maybe not. You know that that's my that's my path.
I mean, there's yeah, yeah, so, but you know again,
I feel as if I didn't make.

Speaker 4 (30:34):
The wrong decision, I made the right decision because it's
supposed to happen that way, and they're supposed to. I
was on I'm on my path and journey for a reason,
and even if things didn't happen the way I wanted
them to, they happened the way they were supposed to.
And that's just how I how I processing the ze.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
I didn't want to do that. I didn't I didn't
have fun doing it.

Speaker 4 (30:56):
But the only way that I can turn it to
purpose meaning is if I create something good that comes
out of it.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
Right, wow, wow, Julie. Like I said as I was
reading her value, I'm telling you, we're going from one
thing to the other. And so you go through ten
years of this, you have two more children, so you
still hadn't unpacked. You're walking heavy, very You're walking really heavy,

(31:33):
and so you're facing this situation. First, you're thinking you're
deserving it it, so just keep dumping, dump, dumped up,
so you're getting heavy er until finally it's like you
can't any longer. And so now it's time to release
and you have to walk away. So take us through
your journey here.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
Well, you know, for those ten years, I was a runner.
I talk about it in the first book, like that
was always nice solace. When I needed to escape, I could.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Go.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
I was in the second marriage. Things were so bad
that I about being able to get out of bed.
My muscles were so tense and just it was like
I was broken, my bones were broken. So in dealing
with that, I think, you know, it was just one
thing after another. I would love to say that I
had had enough and I called it quits, but he

(32:29):
started traveling for work, and I had really started limiting
my life with him and my life with my children.
He never really wanted much to do with me or
my children, which you know is a blessing now, but
it was a big fight back then because I was
freezing six children on my own up on a mountain
without you know, I'd moved away from family and friends,
and anyone we did meet, he would tell them.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
I was crazy. You know, she's crazy.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
She's and on top of it, you know, I'd left
my friends and my family back home, and he was
actually going back home and telling people I was crazy.
He was recording me. He would send my text messages
out to his friends and chains. He was telling people
I was a drug addict. And when push came to shove,

(33:14):
we had separated once before, and I let him back in,
and my son came to me, he's my second son,
and he said to me, Mom, I don't really understand
why do you keep letting him in back in? You
know he you know, he said, he's threatened to kill you.
He's threatened to kill me. You know, he's taken my childhood.
I've slept, you know, with one eye, opened my entire

(33:36):
life because I'm afraid of him, and it was in
that moment that if I realized, even if I didn't
love myself or care enough about me to get out, yeah,
that it was time. And that was the very last
time that I had any contact with him. He did
come for me and tried to as sue me, and

(33:58):
you know, I take it, all of my money, take
all of my everything. He didn't win, So I do
have soul custody. And the truth did come out, but
it was through year battle and it was a hard
It was a hard battle because I had to look
at what I had done too. It was you know,
relationships don't happen in a bubble and it takes two

(34:19):
and yeah, and I had to look at the crazy
things I did and the way that the thing the
choices that I made, and they weren't always great.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
So in exposing someone else, you have to expose yourself
asself and yeah, yeah, and I had to be okay
with that.

Speaker 4 (34:35):
And I also had to be okay with realizing that
a lot of the people that I knew from before,
I didn't have to explain myself to them, because you know,
there was always that part of me that wanted to
tell my side of the story. And then I just
recognized that it doesn't matter. Like the person that they
thought I was was not me. It was a version
that they had created of me. And you know, if

(34:58):
they weren't there to hear my side to the story,
than they never really were my friends to begin with.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
And that's that's a really hard thing to accept.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yes, that's in data fact.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
Yes, and that I think that's why a lot of
people stay because you think you're going to lose it all, like.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yes, stay right there. And it's true, there's a lot
of people that are in relationship staying. Oh, I'm just
saying for the kids because you're thinking that's certain security,
but then you're putting their life in JINGI they're dealing
with trauma, insecurities. I mean, there's a lot that's going on.
When the child say, you go in through all these
hurt because they ort too, you understand. So yeah, and

(35:37):
it does.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
It's a cycle, I mean.

Speaker 4 (35:39):
And when my son said that to me, I think
that broke me more than any other situation I had
ever been to because I you know, I value myself
as a mom and I you know, protecting Tatum, protecting Colin,
fighting for them, and then to recognize and really sit
with the fact that I had brought you know, a
fox into the henhouse and gave them free Rein and

(35:59):
Lemon my children's joy.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Yeah, that was a hard pill to swallow.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Wow. Wow, that is indeed a lot. So I'm going
to pull your book up here so our audience can
see the book and you can tell us what your
journaling here was. All right, We're gon go right into here,
and this is the book.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
So that is the I have a series of three
books that this one was released last April and it
was just released an audiobook. It is the journey of
Tatum and Colin and the story of their resilience. Again,
it goes through everything Tatum went through crazy situations.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
That are hard to believe, but they're all true. And
it ends with Colin's passing.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
So it really is just a testament to chronicling being
a care giver her going through all this crazy stuff
with him and with with Tatum, and hopefully the lessons
learned are that it's not easy. I tell a lot
of you know, my inside voice and things that we
all think but we don't want to say aloud because
they're ugly, and you know, but I want my hope

(37:18):
is that people will read it and see a part
of themselves. And if they're able to say, wow, she's
just being too tough on herself, then they can see
it in themselves and give themselves some grace too, right,
because you know, when you're faced with unimaginable situations, you
do the unimaginable and it's okay, and you should give
yourself the grace to understand that if it comes from

(37:39):
a place of you know, love and goodness, even if
it didn't work out the way you wanted it to,
there's no regrets to be had in it. So my
second book, the continuation, is called From Blackberries to Thorns,
and that will be out this hopefully later on this year,
and that's the second half of the story where Tatum

(37:59):
has cancer and getting out into and out of my
second relationship. And then from Blackberries to Thorn, i mean,
From Thorn's to Blossoms is my third book, and that's
going to be kind of unpacking practical advice, just kind
of talking about being a special needs parent and you know,

(38:19):
domestic violence and you know, just basically all the different
situations I've found myself in hopefully finding community and those
things so that people don't feel so alone.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Wow, So for many of you that are watching, it's
important to journal. Note that's also an escape as well,
when you take the time when you can't voice it,
write it down. Okay, write it down, you know that's
that's your place where you can share, all right. That's
also another form of sharing instead of keeping it all

(38:53):
bottled up inside. So Julie went ahead and she wrote
it down.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
You know.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
So some people have diaries, their diary as kids. I
saw so and so today, But no, this is like
real life stories beyond what we do in elementary or
junior high or high school. But journaling your life because
that's also a way that you can compile and also
write your story. Because there are a lot of people
who saying, I need to write my story. But you

(39:24):
have to face the ugly truths about yourself as well
to write the story. So you have to understand what
your role is in everything too, that your experience. And
I'm glad that Julie was open enough to say she
made a decision and the choice she made took her
into ten years you know, of suffering. But again at

(39:46):
the time, it seemed like a great idea. It seemed
like the best move for her at that time. So
there are individuals who will say, well, why did you
choose this or why did you do that? You're not
in this person's shoes. You do not know what they
had to deal with. Okay, you have to give yourself
grace as well. You have to forgive yourself as well.

(40:08):
And I'm happy to see that Julie finally got to
the point where she forgave herself and noticed, you know what,
those are alive and she's journeyed them. You know, she
studied from this and it's become three. Our life are
in chapters, you know, like in a book, and those
chapters can actually be a complete book. So Julie took
the time to do that. It's called Notes from a Blackbria.

(40:30):
I would like is it on Amazon?

Speaker 4 (40:33):
Yes, it's in any major retailer Okay that you can
buy books and the audiobook is an audible.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
You can also download the audio version.

Speaker 4 (40:42):
And my good friend from childhood is the voice actress
for it, and she's she's an amazing voice actor.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
So I enjoyed listening to the audio book.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, love it, so everyone that there you have it,
So you can also get Julie's book. All right, so
we'll send a link in the bio. Like you said,
you can get it on everywhere books are sold, all right,
you can get it on everywhere that books are sold. So, Julie,
you've gone through all of these life experiences in a
short period of time. I don't know how old you are,

(41:13):
but I would say your half of your life you
went through like the first two the first quarter of
your life. You was very tough, but you stood your
ground and what was meant to break you only you

(41:34):
got your strength from.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
It.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
Doesn't mean you didn't have those moments that you know,
you probably wanted to throw in the towel, wanted to
give up. Who don't have those moments where you just
don't want to get out of bed. I don't think
I'm gonna do anything today, you know, I just need
a moment. Did you allow yourself to have those moments?

Speaker 2 (41:54):
I don't think I did.

Speaker 4 (41:56):
You know, when you've got six little children or any
age children, it was always a point of you know,
whatever drama you're going through personally, and this was for me,
whatever I was dealing with emotionally. I felt my children
had been through enough watching Colin. They had been through

(42:17):
enough watching you know, the abuse in our A lot
of it was you know, text fighting and a lot
of emotional abuse, even though they're aware. But I every day,
I just I looked at my kids and I thought,
I it's my job. I had these children, and I'm
going to put a brave face on and I'm going
to dance. And you know, that served me well for

(42:39):
a very long time, and then it did me a
disservice because I just kept dancing and it was almost like,
don't look over there. Everything's fine. And you know, I
created this life for my kids, hopefully for good or
bad that you know, things were okay.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
I hope they.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
Always found a safe space at home. And you know,
I'm trying to unveil a little bit more to about
like that life isn't one big vacation and fun because
I did that for many years, and also letting other
people into our world because I tended to. You know,
we grew up very isolated. We lived on a mountain,

(43:15):
and then it was it still is. We're very I
hate to say clanny, but we are. We're very close
as a family, and I'm trying to, you know, teach
my children, to let people in, to accept help from others,
to stop. You know, my mother was very independent, taught
me to be that way, and thank god she did,
or I wouldn't be who I am exactly. That's what

(43:36):
is yeah, yeah, but when it becomes such, when it
becomes overpowering and too much.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
I think it was a little too much for a
while where I didn't need anyone. I was going to
do it on my own.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
And then I think when you get into that mode,
you stop listening to the people around who care for
you and are worried about you, and they're saying, you know, hey, wait,
back up a little, take a breath, and I just
I didn't want to.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
I wouldn't.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
So those are the traits that I'm trying to, you know,
maybe teach my children that it's okay to be vulnerable,
So it's okay to accept how yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
It's okay. Well it's true. At least you're you're teaching
them that now for them to realize strength is good.
But you also need to allow others to help you,
allow others in to also voice it, speak about what's hurting.
I don't know if you have done that with them,
talk about what's on your mind, what's bothering you be

(44:29):
able to share that as well, you know, because a
lot of time, a lot of times as adults, we
didn't do it as children, and as adults we just
put up this wall, right, I guess what. The wall
works both ways. People can't get in and you can't
get out.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
Yes, indeed, And that is really the foundation of the
Colin James Barth Outreach that I formed my daughter and
I did. It's really it's a charity that's based on
helping women who suddenly find themselves as head of household,
you know, because even though you have a plan for life,

(45:10):
it never goes as planned, right, And I found myself
in situations where I did have resources at one point
and then I didn't, right. And so my hope is
to you know, it's in Colin's name because he would
have wanted to be able to take.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Care of us and he wasn't there.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
Beautiful.

Speaker 4 (45:27):
So yeah, so our charity is really trying to bring
emotional abuse to light because it's not recognized his abuse
and courts, which is so wrong.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
It's also we're focused on the disparity of divorce and
its impacts on females versus males, as far as economics
and the court system's way of looking at things like
emotional abuse and custody, and you know, Guardian at Light.
I mean, I could go on and on, but I've

(46:01):
been very hopeful in talking with people who are now
coming forward that might not have been you know, people
I even know that have emailed me on the side
or messaged me and I had no idea that they
had been in abusive relationships, and you know, just giving
them that voice is hopefully we can change things when
we all start telling our ugly side that nobody that

(46:22):
we don't want people to know.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
Nobody want to tell it, but it has to be told.

Speaker 4 (46:26):
You know that it does because if you don't speak up,
it will continue and it will be Yeah, this is
a site.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
It is.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
It is.

Speaker 4 (46:33):
And I have four girls, and that you know that
was Another thing is I never wanted my girls to
be put in a position where they didn't protect themselves.
Because women are we're taught or we're conditioned to give
up everything to be sacrificial to you know, if we
want something on our own, if we put ourselves first,
and it's seen as selfish, and it shouldn't. You can't

(46:54):
protect your children if you don't protect yourself, and you
don't know that until you find until it's too late
and you haven't protected yourself, and then you have nowhere
to turn. So I'm trying to change that mindset.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
That is definitely a narrative that we need to work on,
definitely as women, because you sacrifice so much. You sacrifice
your yourself, jobs, career, you name it, you know, in
order to for things to work. And in the end,
you know, you get the short end of the stick,

(47:28):
you know, yeah at all you said you lose.

Speaker 4 (47:34):
Everything twice, you know, for different reasons, you know, And
when Colin died, I was a stay at home mom
necessarily I always have been.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
You know, I do job. I work remotely now, but
you know, you.

Speaker 4 (47:46):
Go into the workforce and you've taken years to do
the most important job that there is, raise your child.
And they're like, what kind of work experience do you have?
And you're like, I don't have any, and they it's
almost as if you've been sitting in a bubble not
learning any skills and maturing or you know, while you're
you know, you are the CEO of your home you're
doing fundraising at school, you're marketing yourself, your counselor your cook.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Your chef, your you know, your project management.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
Yes, yeah, And so our organization is trying to also
find companies that are willing to partner with us to
give gainful employment to women who do have the skills
and maybe they haven't been in the workforce, but they've
been working their butts off their entire lives. And shouldn't
start with minimum wage, yes, yeah, And you shouldn't have
to lose everything you have for someone to step in

(48:34):
and say, okay, now we'll help you, because that seems
to be the system that.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Seems to be what needs to be done in order
to get any type of help.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
Yeah, you have to like take a vow of poverty
in order to be able to survive. And we shouldn't
survive and that's where our charity hopes to change. You know,
you shouldn't have to hit rock bottom and give away
everything you own for someone to say, oh, now that
looks like you need help.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
It would be much more lucrative for everyone if we.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
Stepped in and said, all right, let's keep you where
you are, let's sustain you, let's get you a plan,
that's it, and let's get you comfortable so that your
children are taken care of.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
That's true. That's true. So Julie, I really appreciate you
for reaching out and to come on here to be
a guest. And I do believe that we will connect
together because I do have a women's organization called we
Will Women as Fine Women Always, and that is the
goal to be in the place of what you're doing

(49:30):
now today, to put environment for individuals who need to
be that change. Because we have to be to change,
someone has to start it. We need to create these
avenues opportunities for others. And as we close, what would

(49:56):
you say to that mom today that probably was going
through what you went through with your daughter or calling
or you know, because you've gone through so many experiences
in life, what would you say to a woman overall?

Speaker 4 (50:13):
I think it's just important to not become overwhelmed by
the vast amount of the challenge that you're facing. You know,
it's so easy to fall in on it and say,
oh my gosh, and look at the big picture of
the future and what's to come and you know, and
deal with the what ifs. But if you take it
one day, and you control and change what you can

(50:34):
and deal with what is. You know, you'll be amazed
at how quickly you can make a dent and you
can start and the more you accomplish things. It works,
you know, on this big thing if you just take
steps over here. So try not to get swallowed in
what people are forecasting or the worst case scenario, because
the worst case scenario is always thinking about or considering

(50:59):
the worst case scenario because you're living at them. If
you can just you know, focus your energy on taking
care of what you can and let the rest go.
And we all say that, but it's true. Find what
you can control, change the things that you can, and
make a difference every day. And if you keep knocking
away at it, one day you'll be on the other
side of it and look back and think, you know,

(51:20):
I made it. I did it, and it was hard,
but wow, I love who I am now and I'm
stronger than I've ever been and I've proven to myself
that I can do anything.

Speaker 3 (51:32):
Wow. So to each mom and men, because it goes
both ways and situations when you're facing life difficulties, the
first thing I cause is to be strong, to be there.
Don't break down, because once you break down everything else.

(51:52):
Does you know if Julie had given up the first time,
then that wouldn't be the results that is today. If
she had given up the second time, the results wouldn't
be what it is today. If she had given up
the third time, the results wouldn't be what it is today.
But also allow yourself time to grieve, allow yourself time

(52:15):
to heal. Okay, and I'll give yourself grace, all right,
give yourself grace because it's important. You're only one person,
all right, and you're originally you. There's no other person
like you. You might look the same. Some people are
twins and they're identical, but you are not the same.
You are uniquely you, and you are unique in your experiences.

(52:40):
You are unique in your pains. Yes, we all might
have similar but we are not identical in anything from
our fingerprints. We are not. That's just to show you so, Julia,
I truly want to thank you for being here on
the set on today, and I know that you won't
be a stranger because we'll come back on and talk

(53:01):
about your foundation and how you can get the word
out for more women and even in your area, and
how to get other companies that might be looking for
these type of organizations because there is money out there
and we need the money into these organizations that are

(53:22):
actually helping people and doing what they say they're doing
instead of hiding behind the camouflage just collecting money and
people are just getting richer doing other things while those
who actually need the money are not getting the fund.
So anyone on here, if you're watching on today, there
are a lot of foundations and organizations that need your help,

(53:45):
all right, that need your help. So it might be you, yes, you,
and you can help. So we want you to reach
out and email us at emerge and empower at gmail
dot com. All right, you can also reach out. I
will have all of Julie's information in the bio. If
any of you find Julie relatable, do reach out, okay,

(54:07):
so I will share how you can connect with her.
And we want to keep growing. Okay. This is a
healing space and we want you to heal for real. Julie,
I want to thank you once again for being here
an emergent a bower. But before we go, I like
to bless with a prayer, all right, So I would
like to pray for you and everyone that is on
and watching. Father, in the name of Jesus, I want

(54:29):
to thank you for this moment. Nothing in life is
by accident or chance. That me and Julie had this
opportunity to connect. It was just a matter of two
weeks ago. Heavenly fight a law that you created this
platform where I was able to meet her, and I
want to thank you for that, Father God. I thank

(54:50):
you for the strength that you have given up because
she didn't know the strength that she have and tell
that's all she had. So I want to thank you,
Oh God, for that for her, while for the foundation
that she has that is helping other women. Heavenly Father
law for betterment. It's all for betterment and for good
health and for mental health, okay, and mental stability. So

(55:12):
for the woman or the man that is watching on today,
we ask Oh God for continued healing into their lives
as well. Oh God, let us heal that our families
can be healed, that we can be the better person.
Heavenly fight a law that our families need, that our
neighborhood need, that our community need, that our city need,

(55:33):
and go all the way into the state, into this world.
But we need ourselves to be empowered and that we
have the right tools heavenly fight a load for our lives,
and that we can help others in Jesus name, I
pray Amen Amen. So thank you so much Suuly for
being here on Emergent and power On today. And we're

(55:54):
closing out everyone. Like I said, we are on here
every every Wednesday at six pm. I'm gonna put Julie's
book back up here so you can reach out. Notes
from a black berry. Okay, notes from a black berry,
and it will continue Part one, Part two. You can

(56:14):
keep an eye out for that. Everyone, keep an eye
out for it. And thank you so much, Julie. And
we're gonna close Okay everyone.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Bye bye.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Platform where resilience meets transformation. Here we amplify voices that
have faced trials, trauma, and adversity, stories that inspire hope,
healing and empowerment. Every episode brings raw, unfiltered conversations with
individuals who have risen from hardship, embracing faith, strength and purpose.

(56:45):
Join us as we break the silence, uplift one another,
and emerge stronger together. New episodes air Wednesdays at six
pm English and Saturdays at six pm, with select Saturdays
in Creole for our Haitian audience.