VOICES of Acadiana

Our Story Part 2 Roxanne: 1/8/18: My supervisor called me saying that she needed to speak with me. Apparently, my ex had called the school board stating that I was having an affair during work hours. He was going to bring phone records to prove this. What he didn’t know was that I had taken time off from work to put my plan into motion so all the phone calls were not during work time but during time documented as off time. 1/9/18: A domestic violence detective accompanied me to the school board and explained the situation to them. They fully understood and warrants were issued for defamation of character. 1/10/18: He turned himself in. 1/18/18: Bond set at $20,000 for defamation charge. No bond set for breaking protective order:-). 3/23/18: Released from jail with an ankle monitoring device. Chelsea: 4/7/18: My dad was never one to go places, especially not festivals. Yet, he was seen at the Boudin Festival. He had an ankle monitoring device. How was he allowed to go to the fest...

Our Story Part 1 Our names are Roxanne Martin and Chelsea LeBlanc and on November 29, 2017 our lives would be FOREVER changed! After months of secretly planning, I, Roxanne, was finally able to escape 30 years of domestic violence. No one knew of my plans!!! NO ONE!! No family members, friends, co-workers, not even my children knew of my plans. I knew it would come as a shock to everyone!!! You see, when you live with domestic violence you learn to pretend that things are normal. You don’t want people to know how unhappy you are and how crappy life can be. What I didn’t know when I pulled out of the driveway that morning, is that the deep psychological effects would be long-lasting for both myself and our daughter, Chelsea. And the nightmare didn’t end just because I didn’t live there any longer. Here is our story. Roxanne: I knew leaving him would put my life in danger. I knew this because I’d tried to leave numerous times over the 30 years we were together. When I would attemp...

I am strong. I am innocent. I am a survivor. I am a warrior! do·mes·tic vi·o·lence noun violent or aggressive behavior within the home, typically involving the violent abuse of a spouse or partner. My name is Chelsea and I am 26 years old. Here you will not find your typical survivor story because I am not the typical survivor of domestic violence. I am the innocent survivor. I am the daughter. I am the observer.  I recently discovered my story started long before the divorce. My hope for this story is not to upset anyone, especially my parents. My hope for this story is to help parents realize what their actions do to someone that looks up to them.      Many of my memories don’t have a time stamp on them. Some of them I can’t even guess an age. My way of coping was to push everything back and move on. Most memories feel like dreams to me. The very first memory I can recall is when my grandfather told us that we could no longer live on the family pr...