May 18, 2025 • 29 mins
Two years ago, 18-year-old Lisbeth Bencosme was shot four times on a sidewalk in Harlem. She was a new mom at the time, and it was her faja, a staple postpartum girdle for many Latinas, that would keep her alive until medics arrived. In this episode, we meet Lisbeth, a true badass New Yorker who takes us on her path healing from gun violence and postpartum depression, in a country where there’s little support for either.
Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dear listener, before we start, we do mention suicide in
this piece, so take care.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Okay, hold this side again. Okay, I'm going to do
the meddle now, Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Okay, this, dear listener is the sound of me getting
my eyebrows done. I know, I know you're like, what
what we do for beauty?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The thing is, this is where the story first began
with me and Lisbeth. Thank God for threatening, because that's
how I met you.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Right oky, you can bring your hand down.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I met Lisbeth about two years ago when she was
just nineteen years old. She was working as a brow
technician on the posh Upper West Side of Manhattan. And
at the time, Lisbeth, who's Dominican, was a new mom.
Her baby girl was only six months old. And I
(01:01):
remember the first time she threaded my eyebrows and that
we immediately clicked. We bonded over our love of Dominican culture.
We were talking about music, food, you know, all of it,
and well, I do love meeting young Latinas who are
tough New Yorkers, and that is Lisbeth. Hair already okay, good, yeah,
(01:25):
I get comfortable, are you okay? Yeah, Today's interview is
just for audio for radio, right, But Liz Beth has
got on a full face of makeup and all of
her bling. She says. Her outfit is her low effort
single mom. Look, it's a cozy matching sweatsuit. Oh hello,
(01:47):
you know pumpkin.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And as we're getting ready to record our conversation in
the studio, Lisbeth pulls out her phone and shows me
photos and videos of her now to an a half
year old daughter.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Oh look, this was the video of her hair.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
My god, is she adorable?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah? She called her grandpa life. But Paul, look at
my hair?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
And you know me, dear, letting know Usay, listener, you
know that I love to start conversations with people wherever
I go, and I like to get deep. So two
years ago, there I was telling my brow technician, who
I had just met, that I had come back recently
from reporting in Uvaldi, Texas, that I was feeling all
(02:35):
of this stress and pain and trauma from talking to
folks who lost loved ones in that tragic mass shooting
in Uvaldi. And when I was telling her this story,
I noticed a serious change in these bets face. And
that is the reason why she's in the studio with
me today.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Like every time, I'm just like dang, only twenty one
and I've done live and lived the life already.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Because just weeks after Lisbeth's daughter was born in twenty
twenty two, and she was in the midst of dealing
with postpartum at just eighteen years old. Right at that
time is when lis Beth gets shot on a street
in Harlem, not once, but four times. It was an
event that would change her life entirely, from her personal relationships,
(03:32):
to her relationship with therapy, to everything that she understood
about being a young mom. And like that would be
enough to have Lizbeth come on and share her story
with us. But the thing is the most unexpected part
of all of this is that Lisbeth owes her survival
in large part to a very traditional Latina postpartum staple,
(03:57):
which is la faja or a girdle from Fudromedia and PRX.
It's Latino Usa. I'm Maria in no Josa, and today
we hear about a young Latina mom's journey of healing
from gun violence and postpartum depression in a country where
(04:19):
there's little support for either, and also we'll talk all
about La Faja. Now. I had heard snippets of Lisbeth's
story during the time that I would be seeing her
to get my brows done, but this is the first
time that we're actually sitting down to talk about what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
It was like eight thirty one. I got off work.
My daughter's dad have picked me up from work, and
we have went back uptown to Harlem, where my parents were.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Lisbeth grew up on the same street as her best friend,
Angelia or Angie for short, and all of this is
happening in Harlem. Angie and Lizabeth were inseparable until Angie
moved to Virginia for college, and that's where she ended
up getting shot and killed. Angie, who was black, had
(05:13):
left the streets of Harlem, only to be killed at
a college house party in Virginia.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
My best friend passed away on September fourth of twenty
twenty two, so every fourth of the month we would
do something to honor her, whether it was lighting up candles,
releasing balloons, or just getting together. Usually it would be
on my block because me and her lived on the
(05:40):
same block.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
But this time, in November of twenty twenty two, the
outdoor memorial for Angie was moved just four blocks away
to a friend's place.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Then I see this guy come in a pink bike,
which Angie's favorite color was pink, so he just had
like spray painted it and had a picture of her
on it.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
The guy on the pink bike was a friend of Angie's,
but Lizabeth didn't recognize him, and neither did Angie's mom. Now,
at this point, we're literally just a few minutes into
our interview, But right when Lizabeth mentions this young man,
I can see her start to physically react. Right, she's
(06:20):
taking deeper breaths now, and her voice begins to waver
as she speaks. Just need a second, It's okay, babe,
take as long as you need. You want to tell
me what you're feeling right now?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Anxiety a little bit?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, yeah, because you're you're actually telling this story like
in a formal way.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
My sense is that you've been thinking about this interview
for a while. Yeah, Am I right? Yes, it's not like, oh,
it's just another day I have to go. Do you've
been anxious about this for a while? Yes, I'm so sorry.
It's okay, I asked lisbith if she wants to stop
(07:07):
or if she wants to talk about something else. But
she looks at me with this determination, right, and she says, no, no, no,
let's keep going. She wants to keep talking about that
precise moment at her best friend's memorial.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I am talking with Angie's mom and two other mutual friends.
And then next thing you know, I look across the
street and I see two guys with ski mask. But
by the time I kind of noticed it was too late.
It was like I looked and then boom, I was
(07:42):
on the floor.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
The men started shooting towards her direction. They were targeting
that young guy on the pink bike.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
At first, I was like, did I get shot? Is
that why I'm on the floor or am I just
in shock right now? And then I started feeling excruciating
pain all in my left body, and I was just like, no,
this is not a shot. My blood was like boiling inside.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Lizabeth had been shot. She had four gunshot wounds, one
in her chest, one in her back, and two in
her arm.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
We were there for about forty minutes. I'm sorry what
it took the ambulance about forty minutes to get there.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Four zero minutes.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yes, in Manhattan, So the hospital and the precinct were
one avenue away from each other and eight blocks away
from where this happened.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And when the police officers finally got there, they walked
to me, they thought I was already dead.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Oh my god. These beds didn't bleed out, and that's
mostly because of what she was wearing.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I had a faha which is a waist strainer, because
I was two months postpartum. You know, I was just
trying to help my body bounce back after having my baby.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Now, it's not an uncommon thing, especially if you're a Latina.
You know, you give birth and then you get wrapped
up almost immediately in a kind of girdle that goes
around your waist and it just kind of tightens you up.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Once I get in the ambulance, they're like ripping my
clothes apart. And then one of the emt she was
a Hispanic girl, and she sees that I have a
fah on and everybody's like, what is that, and she's like, well,
she did mention that she had a baby two months ago,
and our culture is very common for you to have
(09:53):
a faha on after you have a baby. My faja
was extremely thick, Like I paid almost one hundred dollar
for that faha in Washington Heights. It had to be
like almost this thick, about an inch, and it was
something that I didn't even know how I could last
my whole workshift with that thing on without suffocating because
(10:14):
it was tay.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
So you're smiling, no, now you're now you're smiling.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
They're like fighting with the scissor, trying to get through it,
and then they take it off and the girls like what,
Like nobody really believe what they were seeing because they
see me with four bullet holes and no blood. She
(10:40):
was like, literally like what the fuck? It's like, you
guys are not understanding right now.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Of course I knew all about these facs. I mean,
it's pretty serious stuff. And when I had my daughter,
I don't remember how, oh, but a fajha made its
way to me from my family's home in Mexico so
that I could wear it. And my mom wore her
own version of the faja and got wrapped up after
she had me and my siblings. So it's like something
(11:13):
that you don't really think about a lot. It's kind
of like, you know, the FAA's going to help you.
But never in my life could I have imagined that
a faha would end up saving someone's life like literally,
And neither did Li's bed.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
They were surprised because the girl just kept saying, if
she would have never had this fahan, she would have
bled and died because the biggest wound that I have
is right here, and it's between the front of my
chest and the back, which also is right through the
(11:48):
spleen and your lung. God forbid, I wouldn't have had
the fahan. It would have went straight from my spleen
to my lung and that's it. Yeah, I had a
fah on. But a gun is a gun. A bullet
hole is a bullet hole. It's not like I have
a what's those things with a bulletproof vest?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
When we come back these, Beth explains the daily consequences
of being a survivor of gun violence, and she takes
us on her path to find strength from the shooting.
Stay with us, Yes, Hey, we're back. So Whendy's Beth
(12:39):
was shot two years ago. She was wearing a paha
it's a girdle, and it literally saved her life.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
If I would have known that my faha would have
saved me. I wouldn't have overthought so much while I
was laying on that ground.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I mean, you would have having a different kind of conversation.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay, okay, God, I see the point now, but thank you.
You know. But no, like I was really scared, and
it wasn't even because I was scared of losing my life.
I wasn't even thinking about myself. Everyone that touched me
that night knew that I had a two month old
back home, because that's all I kept pleading, Please don't
(13:25):
let me die. My baby's waiting for me. Like she's
only two months. I haven't even experienced her that long.
And I feel like she really saved me in so
many different ways that I would have never thought where's Lea.
(13:45):
And now that it's like two years later, now I
really understand. If I would have never had her, I
would have never been wearing a f aha. If I
wouldn't had her, I don't think I would have made
it out that dark place that I was in. What
is the most beautiful girl in the world. Oh, gimme keyses,
(14:09):
gimme kisses.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
The layers of mental health struggles Lise Beth went through
after being shot. It was a lot. Not only did
she develop intense emotional trauma from the shooting, she had
post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, but she was also
a new mom coping with postpartum anxiety and depression. Even
for moms who don't struggle so much with postpartum, it's
(14:40):
still a period that's already a fragile moment in a
woman's life. And these are two issues that, frankly often
go overlooked. In the United States. There aren't many resources
or services specifically dedicated to mental health needs, no matter
if it's for new moms or survivors of gun violence,
(15:01):
and both of these issues are not easy to talk about,
so it can end up feeling very lonely.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Growing up, mental health was not something that we talked about.
It was always, Oh, what are you sad for? You
have a roof over your head, you have both of
your parents, you have food. Nothing's wrong. You shouldn't be crying.
You shouldn't be feeling like this. We grew up on survival.
We didn't grow up on love. We came from a
really really poor campo in the dominicure public where you know,
(15:38):
it was days where there was nothing.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
And that survival mindset that she learned in the dr
it stayed with her when she and her family came
to the United States when Lee's Beth was seven years old.
Then in her early teens, these Beth began struggling with anxiety.
She was just about to go into high school, the
only one of her siblings to end up doing that,
and that put a lot of pressure on her not
(16:03):
to fail, especially from her parents. She said the anxiety
attacks sometimes got so overwhelming that she'd end up blacking out,
and through it all she felt entirely misunderstood by her parents.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
They're like, we don't know what you're talking about. They
thought that it was just like, oh, you know, these
American kids, once they come here, they get so sensitive.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And that's a common feeling for a lot of immigrant families,
like even acknowledging mental health issues exist can be challenging,
let alone having a meaningful, open, calm conversation about it.
You see, many first generation kids grow up with immigrant
parents who were raised in essence hiding their emotional struggles,
(16:53):
and they want their kids to be grateful for the
opportunities that they have in the United States and to
not complain about their feelings, so it wasn't easy for
Lisbeth to talk about all of this with her family.
But then one day, when Lisbeth was seventeen, just after
she'd graduated high school, things got really bad. These Beth
(17:13):
had a severe anxiety attack at home. She was throwing up,
she couldn't stop shaking, she couldn't stop crying. And that
was when her parents finally took her seriously.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
They really were like, I'm so sorry that you've had
to deal with this, and we didn't know.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
But even after that incident, these Beth didn't get professional help.
It wasn't until her shooting about two years later that
Lisbeth finally considered therapy.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I will wake up every day at the same time,
having the same nightmare over and over again, hyperventilating, thinking
I was seeing blood on me and feeling extremely scared.
I just kept living the same snai over and over
and over and over again. I was like having voices
(18:10):
in my head and I wouldn't come out my room
because I felt like someone was after me and my baby,
to the point where I wouldn't sleep. I was scared
to like be away from her any second. I will
have the same thought every day just like I'm not
(18:31):
good enough. What am I here for? I have no family,
I have nobody. I feel so alone, nobody cares for me.
I'll be better not here. I would put a lighter
to like my leg to kind of like feel something,
to kind of bring me back. Like, girl, you kind
(18:53):
of taken it too far. It's not back. You cannot
just abandon your child and harm yourself.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
For young Latinas in the United States, struggling with mental
health is very real, and the data shows it. More
than one in four Latina teenagers has had suicidal thoughts.
And for Li's Beth, who was only nineteen at the time,
these thoughts became constant and they were weighing really heavily
(19:31):
on her. And so whenever these Beth had moments that
basically snapped her out of this hopeless void. It was
when she would think about her baby.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That was kind of like bursting the bubble, like admitting
to myself, I'm suicidal. I need you to help me.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
She had the number of a therapist office on a
post it note that she had taped on her door,
and it was there for weeks, but finally, one day,
three months after the show, shooting. Lisbeth picked up the
phone and made the call to book an appointment.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
The lady is like, the wait is not until July.
I said, ma'am, can I tell you something please? She's like, yeah,
of course. I was like, I got shot three months ago,
four times. I am gone also through a post part
of depression. I have a five month old baby, and
(20:26):
I also have extreme PTSD right now, so I would really, really,
really really appreciate you if you can help me. She's like, oh,
I'm so sorry. Let me see if I can transfer
you somewhere else. And then she transferred me to a
trauma department and they squeezed me into the list. A
(20:47):
week later, I had a therapist.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Remember when I told you about tough Latina and New Yorkers.
You see, that's what I'm talking about. But when it
came time to go to that first appointment, and she
was hesitant the thought of opening up about her struggles
to a complete stranger. I mean it terrified her until
she got to that first session and she saw the
(21:11):
man who was going to be her therapist, and it
changed everything.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
He looked just like my dad, and he had such
a like soft energy. He also grew up in Harlem,
and the little girl and me was like, you can
open up, you can tell him these things, this is
what he's here for.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
And this was life changing for at least bit. Knowing
she was brave enough to have those conversations actually made
her look forward to every therapy session every week.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
My therapist taught me about box breathing. It's like a
form of meditation. He was just like, you know, close
your eyes, relax, try to not hear any of the
outside noise, and just act like you're connecting the dots
in a box and you're breathing in and out as
(22:07):
you go. So let's say we're here.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
These bed points her index finger at an imaginary spot
in front of her.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
You'll breathe in, breathe out, and then you stay at
that point.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
She draws an imaginary line to another point horizontally.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
And then you go back again breathe in, breathe.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Out, and then another one going down, and then you
go to the other point and she completes this square
with her finger and she's taking deep breaths.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
You can do four, you can do eight, you can
do as many as you need to calm yourself and
get into more of a Okay, I'm feeling, I'm breathing,
I'm gonna be okay.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
None of this would be happening, like you would not
have found therapy that allows you to have come up
with these coping mechanisms that allow you to basically live
on a daily basis. We wouldn't be sitting in this
studio for a national audience hearing your story were it
not for the fact that you got shot. How do
(23:24):
you put that together?
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Honestly, when this first happened, I was just in such
a dark place and I was like, Wow, why would
God torture me like this? Why would you keep me here?
What am I supposed to look forward to? And now
I am like, okay, yes I got shot.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
It was therapy that helped Lisbeth finally start to move forward.
It gave her the clarity to leave a relationship that
wasn't great, and it gave her the strength to take
on being a single mom at just nineteen. Slowly, Li's
bed began to rebuild her life and her confidence.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I got an amazing promotion at my job, seeing my
daughter grow to be such a beautiful, smart little girl.
Let's count in Spanish? Oh no, yes, good job. And
(24:27):
it's like, if only I could just hug myself from
two years ago and just tell myself, girl, you don't
even know none of this is gonna matter. In two
years I would have never believed her because I'm like,
there's no way this is getting better. And it did,
(24:47):
and it got so much better because it made me
such a different person. I see life completely different, I
see motherhood completely different because I'm here because I wanted
to be the best version of myself for her.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I gotta say, like, I'm really loving this moment of
Lizbeth being in the chair in the studio and I
get a chance to see all of her strength, all
of the confidence that she's built up, even as she
takes me to the worst moment in her life. But
part of that journey for Lisad has also been learning
(25:32):
how to protect herself and how to prioritize her safety. So,
for instance, she recently moved out of Harlem and she's
now living in New Jersey. Unfortunately, the thing about PTSD
(25:53):
is that the trauma doesn't stay in the past, and
it doesn't stay in one place. It often follows you
no matter where you go. So one small trigger, whether
it's a sound or a smell, or just a feeling.
It can snap you back to that moment, to the
exact time and place of your trauma. This bed is
(26:13):
always scanning her surroundings.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
That experience has just made me be on my ten
toes about everything and just listen. You want to cut
the line, cut the line, I don't care. You want
to go ahead, go ahead, I'll give you the pass
to drive. You want my seat, take it. But it's
(26:37):
not worth getting into an argument. You don't even know
where that person's mental health is at. They're ready to
risk at all. You just don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Also, because you're not wearing the fa anymore.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
You know, It's so funny because after I had gotten shot,
I kept wearing my Fah. I got a new one
and I kept wearing it. But it wasn't in the
same attempt. It was more like, this is my bulletproof.
And you know, like my coworkers they knew about it,
and they're like, this is not funny, Like you're messed
up in the head. And I'm like, guys, laugh, laugh,
(27:12):
it's funny.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Please, that is your bullet yes, and you're proud.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, I'm like, listen, I'm very proud if it was me.
I'll swing this up baha all through because oh my God,
whoever created it, I gotta thank you too, because you
got some good stuff in there.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
This episode was produced by New Saudi. It was edited
by our managing editor. It was mixed by Leah Shaw
damar On. The Latino USA team also include Roxanna Guire,
Julia Caruso, Felicia Dominguez, Jessica Ellis, Victori Estrada, Dominique, Ineestrosa,
Renaldo Leanoz Junior, Stephanie Lebou, Andrea Lopez, Gruzsado, Luis Luna
(28:15):
Marta Martinez, Bonica Morealis, Garcia, Jjkrubin, Tasha Sandoval and Nancy Trujillo,
Venille Ramirez, Marlon Bishop, Maria Garcia and I are co
executive producers and I'm your host, Mariano Josa. Join us
again for our next episode. In the meantime, I'll see
you on social media, especially on Instagram. Iyatu savez not mayus.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Latino USA is made possible in part by La Tau Foundation,
New York Women's Foundation. The New York Women's Foundation funding
women leaders that build solutions in their communities and celebrating
thirty years of radical generosity and funding for Latino usa
is Coverage of a culture of health is made possible
(29:04):
in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation
Dear listener, before we start, we do mention suicide in
this piece, so take care.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Okay, hold this side again. Okay, I'm going to do
the meddle now, Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Okay, this, dear listener is the sound of me getting
my eyebrows done. I know, I know you're like, what
what we do for beauty?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The thing is, this is where the story first began
with me and Lisbeth. Thank God for threatening, because that's
how I met you.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Right oky, you can bring your hand down.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I met Lisbeth about two years ago when she was
just nineteen years old. She was working as a brow
technician on the posh Upper West Side of Manhattan. And
at the time, Lisbeth, who's Dominican, was a new mom.
Her baby girl was only six months old. And I
(01:01):
remember the first time she threaded my eyebrows and that
we immediately clicked. We bonded over our love of Dominican culture.
We were talking about music, food, you know, all of it,
and well, I do love meeting young Latinas who are
tough New Yorkers, and that is Lisbeth. Hair already okay, good, yeah,
(01:25):
I get comfortable, are you okay? Yeah, Today's interview is
just for audio for radio, right, But Liz Beth has
got on a full face of makeup and all of
her bling. She says. Her outfit is her low effort
single mom. Look, it's a cozy matching sweatsuit. Oh hello,
(01:47):
you know pumpkin.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And as we're getting ready to record our conversation in
the studio, Lisbeth pulls out her phone and shows me
photos and videos of her now to an a half
year old daughter.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Oh look, this was the video of her hair.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
My god, is she adorable?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah? She called her grandpa life. But Paul, look at
my hair?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
And you know me, dear, letting know Usay, listener, you
know that I love to start conversations with people wherever
I go, and I like to get deep. So two
years ago, there I was telling my brow technician, who
I had just met, that I had come back recently
from reporting in Uvaldi, Texas, that I was feeling all
(02:35):
of this stress and pain and trauma from talking to
folks who lost loved ones in that tragic mass shooting
in Uvaldi. And when I was telling her this story,
I noticed a serious change in these bets face. And
that is the reason why she's in the studio with
me today.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Like every time, I'm just like dang, only twenty one
and I've done live and lived the life already.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Because just weeks after Lisbeth's daughter was born in twenty
twenty two, and she was in the midst of dealing
with postpartum at just eighteen years old. Right at that
time is when lis Beth gets shot on a street
in Harlem, not once, but four times. It was an
event that would change her life entirely, from her personal relationships,
(03:32):
to her relationship with therapy, to everything that she understood
about being a young mom. And like that would be
enough to have Lizbeth come on and share her story
with us. But the thing is the most unexpected part
of all of this is that Lisbeth owes her survival
in large part to a very traditional Latina postpartum staple,
(03:57):
which is la faja or a girdle from Fudromedia and PRX.
It's Latino Usa. I'm Maria in no Josa, and today
we hear about a young Latina mom's journey of healing
from gun violence and postpartum depression in a country where
(04:19):
there's little support for either, and also we'll talk all
about La Faja. Now. I had heard snippets of Lisbeth's
story during the time that I would be seeing her
to get my brows done, but this is the first
time that we're actually sitting down to talk about what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
It was like eight thirty one. I got off work.
My daughter's dad have picked me up from work, and
we have went back uptown to Harlem, where my parents were.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Lisbeth grew up on the same street as her best friend,
Angelia or Angie for short, and all of this is
happening in Harlem. Angie and Lizabeth were inseparable until Angie
moved to Virginia for college, and that's where she ended
up getting shot and killed. Angie, who was black, had
(05:13):
left the streets of Harlem, only to be killed at
a college house party in Virginia.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
My best friend passed away on September fourth of twenty
twenty two, so every fourth of the month we would
do something to honor her, whether it was lighting up candles,
releasing balloons, or just getting together. Usually it would be
on my block because me and her lived on the
(05:40):
same block.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
But this time, in November of twenty twenty two, the
outdoor memorial for Angie was moved just four blocks away
to a friend's place.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Then I see this guy come in a pink bike,
which Angie's favorite color was pink, so he just had
like spray painted it and had a picture of her
on it.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
The guy on the pink bike was a friend of Angie's,
but Lizabeth didn't recognize him, and neither did Angie's mom. Now,
at this point, we're literally just a few minutes into
our interview, But right when Lizabeth mentions this young man,
I can see her start to physically react. Right, she's
(06:20):
taking deeper breaths now, and her voice begins to waver
as she speaks. Just need a second, It's okay, babe,
take as long as you need. You want to tell
me what you're feeling right now?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Anxiety a little bit?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, yeah, because you're you're actually telling this story like
in a formal way.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
My sense is that you've been thinking about this interview
for a while. Yeah, Am I right? Yes, it's not like, oh,
it's just another day I have to go. Do you've
been anxious about this for a while? Yes, I'm so sorry.
It's okay, I asked lisbith if she wants to stop
(07:07):
or if she wants to talk about something else. But
she looks at me with this determination, right, and she says, no, no, no,
let's keep going. She wants to keep talking about that
precise moment at her best friend's memorial.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I am talking with Angie's mom and two other mutual friends.
And then next thing you know, I look across the
street and I see two guys with ski mask. But
by the time I kind of noticed it was too late.
It was like I looked and then boom, I was
(07:42):
on the floor.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
The men started shooting towards her direction. They were targeting
that young guy on the pink bike.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
At first, I was like, did I get shot? Is
that why I'm on the floor or am I just
in shock right now? And then I started feeling excruciating
pain all in my left body, and I was just like, no,
this is not a shot. My blood was like boiling inside.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Lizabeth had been shot. She had four gunshot wounds, one
in her chest, one in her back, and two in
her arm.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
We were there for about forty minutes. I'm sorry what
it took the ambulance about forty minutes to get there.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Four zero minutes.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yes, in Manhattan, So the hospital and the precinct were
one avenue away from each other and eight blocks away
from where this happened.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And when the police officers finally got there, they walked
to me, they thought I was already dead.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Oh my god. These beds didn't bleed out, and that's
mostly because of what she was wearing.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I had a faha which is a waist strainer, because
I was two months postpartum. You know, I was just
trying to help my body bounce back after having my baby.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Now, it's not an uncommon thing, especially if you're a Latina.
You know, you give birth and then you get wrapped
up almost immediately in a kind of girdle that goes
around your waist and it just kind of tightens you up.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Once I get in the ambulance, they're like ripping my
clothes apart. And then one of the emt she was
a Hispanic girl, and she sees that I have a
fah on and everybody's like, what is that, and she's like, well,
she did mention that she had a baby two months ago,
and our culture is very common for you to have
(09:53):
a faha on after you have a baby. My faja
was extremely thick, Like I paid almost one hundred dollar
for that faha in Washington Heights. It had to be
like almost this thick, about an inch, and it was
something that I didn't even know how I could last
my whole workshift with that thing on without suffocating because
(10:14):
it was tay.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
So you're smiling, no, now you're now you're smiling.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
They're like fighting with the scissor, trying to get through it,
and then they take it off and the girls like what,
Like nobody really believe what they were seeing because they
see me with four bullet holes and no blood. She
(10:40):
was like, literally like what the fuck? It's like, you
guys are not understanding right now.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Of course I knew all about these facs. I mean,
it's pretty serious stuff. And when I had my daughter,
I don't remember how, oh, but a fajha made its
way to me from my family's home in Mexico so
that I could wear it. And my mom wore her
own version of the faja and got wrapped up after
she had me and my siblings. So it's like something
(11:13):
that you don't really think about a lot. It's kind
of like, you know, the FAA's going to help you.
But never in my life could I have imagined that
a faha would end up saving someone's life like literally,
And neither did Li's bed.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
They were surprised because the girl just kept saying, if
she would have never had this fahan, she would have
bled and died because the biggest wound that I have
is right here, and it's between the front of my
chest and the back, which also is right through the
(11:48):
spleen and your lung. God forbid, I wouldn't have had
the fahan. It would have went straight from my spleen
to my lung and that's it. Yeah, I had a
fah on. But a gun is a gun. A bullet
hole is a bullet hole. It's not like I have
a what's those things with a bulletproof vest?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
When we come back these, Beth explains the daily consequences
of being a survivor of gun violence, and she takes
us on her path to find strength from the shooting.
Stay with us, Yes, Hey, we're back. So Whendy's Beth
(12:39):
was shot two years ago. She was wearing a paha
it's a girdle, and it literally saved her life.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
If I would have known that my faha would have
saved me. I wouldn't have overthought so much while I
was laying on that ground.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I mean, you would have having a different kind of conversation.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay, okay, God, I see the point now, but thank you.
You know. But no, like I was really scared, and
it wasn't even because I was scared of losing my life.
I wasn't even thinking about myself. Everyone that touched me
that night knew that I had a two month old
back home, because that's all I kept pleading, Please don't
(13:25):
let me die. My baby's waiting for me. Like she's
only two months. I haven't even experienced her that long.
And I feel like she really saved me in so
many different ways that I would have never thought where's Lea.
(13:45):
And now that it's like two years later, now I
really understand. If I would have never had her, I
would have never been wearing a f aha. If I
wouldn't had her, I don't think I would have made
it out that dark place that I was in. What
is the most beautiful girl in the world. Oh, gimme keyses,
(14:09):
gimme kisses.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
The layers of mental health struggles Lise Beth went through
after being shot. It was a lot. Not only did
she develop intense emotional trauma from the shooting, she had
post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, but she was also
a new mom coping with postpartum anxiety and depression. Even
for moms who don't struggle so much with postpartum, it's
(14:40):
still a period that's already a fragile moment in a
woman's life. And these are two issues that, frankly often
go overlooked. In the United States. There aren't many resources
or services specifically dedicated to mental health needs, no matter
if it's for new moms or survivors of gun violence,
(15:01):
and both of these issues are not easy to talk about,
so it can end up feeling very lonely.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Growing up, mental health was not something that we talked about.
It was always, Oh, what are you sad for? You
have a roof over your head, you have both of
your parents, you have food. Nothing's wrong. You shouldn't be crying.
You shouldn't be feeling like this. We grew up on survival.
We didn't grow up on love. We came from a
really really poor campo in the dominicure public where you know,
(15:38):
it was days where there was nothing.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
And that survival mindset that she learned in the dr
it stayed with her when she and her family came
to the United States when Lee's Beth was seven years old.
Then in her early teens, these Beth began struggling with anxiety.
She was just about to go into high school, the
only one of her siblings to end up doing that,
and that put a lot of pressure on her not
(16:03):
to fail, especially from her parents. She said the anxiety
attacks sometimes got so overwhelming that she'd end up blacking out,
and through it all she felt entirely misunderstood by her parents.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
They're like, we don't know what you're talking about. They
thought that it was just like, oh, you know, these
American kids, once they come here, they get so sensitive.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And that's a common feeling for a lot of immigrant families,
like even acknowledging mental health issues exist can be challenging,
let alone having a meaningful, open, calm conversation about it.
You see, many first generation kids grow up with immigrant
parents who were raised in essence hiding their emotional struggles,
(16:53):
and they want their kids to be grateful for the
opportunities that they have in the United States and to
not complain about their feelings, so it wasn't easy for
Lisbeth to talk about all of this with her family.
But then one day, when Lisbeth was seventeen, just after
she'd graduated high school, things got really bad. These Beth
(17:13):
had a severe anxiety attack at home. She was throwing up,
she couldn't stop shaking, she couldn't stop crying. And that
was when her parents finally took her seriously.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
They really were like, I'm so sorry that you've had
to deal with this, and we didn't know.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
But even after that incident, these Beth didn't get professional help.
It wasn't until her shooting about two years later that
Lisbeth finally considered therapy.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I will wake up every day at the same time,
having the same nightmare over and over again, hyperventilating, thinking
I was seeing blood on me and feeling extremely scared.
I just kept living the same snai over and over
and over and over again. I was like having voices
(18:10):
in my head and I wouldn't come out my room
because I felt like someone was after me and my baby,
to the point where I wouldn't sleep. I was scared
to like be away from her any second. I will
have the same thought every day just like I'm not
(18:31):
good enough. What am I here for? I have no family,
I have nobody. I feel so alone, nobody cares for me.
I'll be better not here. I would put a lighter
to like my leg to kind of like feel something,
to kind of bring me back. Like, girl, you kind
(18:53):
of taken it too far. It's not back. You cannot
just abandon your child and harm yourself.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
For young Latinas in the United States, struggling with mental
health is very real, and the data shows it. More
than one in four Latina teenagers has had suicidal thoughts.
And for Li's Beth, who was only nineteen at the time,
these thoughts became constant and they were weighing really heavily
(19:31):
on her. And so whenever these Beth had moments that
basically snapped her out of this hopeless void. It was
when she would think about her baby.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That was kind of like bursting the bubble, like admitting
to myself, I'm suicidal. I need you to help me.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
She had the number of a therapist office on a
post it note that she had taped on her door,
and it was there for weeks, but finally, one day,
three months after the show, shooting. Lisbeth picked up the
phone and made the call to book an appointment.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
The lady is like, the wait is not until July.
I said, ma'am, can I tell you something please? She's like, yeah,
of course. I was like, I got shot three months ago,
four times. I am gone also through a post part
of depression. I have a five month old baby, and
(20:26):
I also have extreme PTSD right now, so I would really, really,
really really appreciate you if you can help me. She's like, oh,
I'm so sorry. Let me see if I can transfer
you somewhere else. And then she transferred me to a
trauma department and they squeezed me into the list. A
(20:47):
week later, I had a therapist.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Remember when I told you about tough Latina and New Yorkers.
You see, that's what I'm talking about. But when it
came time to go to that first appointment, and she
was hesitant the thought of opening up about her struggles
to a complete stranger. I mean it terrified her until
she got to that first session and she saw the
(21:11):
man who was going to be her therapist, and it
changed everything.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
He looked just like my dad, and he had such
a like soft energy. He also grew up in Harlem,
and the little girl and me was like, you can
open up, you can tell him these things, this is
what he's here for.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
And this was life changing for at least bit. Knowing
she was brave enough to have those conversations actually made
her look forward to every therapy session every week.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
My therapist taught me about box breathing. It's like a
form of meditation. He was just like, you know, close
your eyes, relax, try to not hear any of the
outside noise, and just act like you're connecting the dots
in a box and you're breathing in and out as
(22:07):
you go. So let's say we're here.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
These bed points her index finger at an imaginary spot
in front of her.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
You'll breathe in, breathe out, and then you stay at
that point.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
She draws an imaginary line to another point horizontally.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
And then you go back again breathe in, breathe.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Out, and then another one going down, and then you
go to the other point and she completes this square
with her finger and she's taking deep breaths.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
You can do four, you can do eight, you can
do as many as you need to calm yourself and
get into more of a Okay, I'm feeling, I'm breathing,
I'm gonna be okay.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
None of this would be happening, like you would not
have found therapy that allows you to have come up
with these coping mechanisms that allow you to basically live
on a daily basis. We wouldn't be sitting in this
studio for a national audience hearing your story were it
not for the fact that you got shot. How do
(23:24):
you put that together?
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Honestly, when this first happened, I was just in such
a dark place and I was like, Wow, why would
God torture me like this? Why would you keep me here?
What am I supposed to look forward to? And now
I am like, okay, yes I got shot.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
It was therapy that helped Lisbeth finally start to move forward.
It gave her the clarity to leave a relationship that
wasn't great, and it gave her the strength to take
on being a single mom at just nineteen. Slowly, Li's
bed began to rebuild her life and her confidence.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I got an amazing promotion at my job, seeing my
daughter grow to be such a beautiful, smart little girl.
Let's count in Spanish? Oh no, yes, good job. And
(24:27):
it's like, if only I could just hug myself from
two years ago and just tell myself, girl, you don't
even know none of this is gonna matter. In two
years I would have never believed her because I'm like,
there's no way this is getting better. And it did,
(24:47):
and it got so much better because it made me
such a different person. I see life completely different, I
see motherhood completely different because I'm here because I wanted
to be the best version of myself for her.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I gotta say, like, I'm really loving this moment of
Lizbeth being in the chair in the studio and I
get a chance to see all of her strength, all
of the confidence that she's built up, even as she
takes me to the worst moment in her life. But
part of that journey for Lisad has also been learning
(25:32):
how to protect herself and how to prioritize her safety. So,
for instance, she recently moved out of Harlem and she's
now living in New Jersey. Unfortunately, the thing about PTSD
(25:53):
is that the trauma doesn't stay in the past, and
it doesn't stay in one place. It often follows you
no matter where you go. So one small trigger, whether
it's a sound or a smell, or just a feeling.
It can snap you back to that moment, to the
exact time and place of your trauma. This bed is
(26:13):
always scanning her surroundings.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
That experience has just made me be on my ten
toes about everything and just listen. You want to cut
the line, cut the line, I don't care. You want
to go ahead, go ahead, I'll give you the pass
to drive. You want my seat, take it. But it's
(26:37):
not worth getting into an argument. You don't even know
where that person's mental health is at. They're ready to
risk at all. You just don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Also, because you're not wearing the fa anymore.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
You know, It's so funny because after I had gotten shot,
I kept wearing my Fah. I got a new one
and I kept wearing it. But it wasn't in the
same attempt. It was more like, this is my bulletproof.
And you know, like my coworkers they knew about it,
and they're like, this is not funny, Like you're messed
up in the head. And I'm like, guys, laugh, laugh,
(27:12):
it's funny.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Please, that is your bullet yes, and you're proud.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, I'm like, listen, I'm very proud if it was me.
I'll swing this up baha all through because oh my God,
whoever created it, I gotta thank you too, because you
got some good stuff in there.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
This episode was produced by New Saudi. It was edited
by our managing editor. It was mixed by Leah Shaw
damar On. The Latino USA team also include Roxanna Guire,
Julia Caruso, Felicia Dominguez, Jessica Ellis, Victori Estrada, Dominique, Ineestrosa,
Renaldo Leanoz Junior, Stephanie Lebou, Andrea Lopez, Gruzsado, Luis Luna
(28:15):
Marta Martinez, Bonica Morealis, Garcia, Jjkrubin, Tasha Sandoval and Nancy Trujillo,
Venille Ramirez, Marlon Bishop, Maria Garcia and I are co
executive producers and I'm your host, Mariano Josa. Join us
again for our next episode. In the meantime, I'll see
you on social media, especially on Instagram. Iyatu savez not mayus.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Latino USA is made possible in part by La Tau Foundation,
New York Women's Foundation. The New York Women's Foundation funding
women leaders that build solutions in their communities and celebrating
thirty years of radical generosity and funding for Latino usa
is Coverage of a culture of health is made possible
(29:04):
in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation
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