All she wanted was to get out of the relationship. Sybil White says she tried many times and many different tactics to end the relationship she was in and escape the mental abuse she was experiencing. But he just wouldn’t leave her alone. She’d just had a baby and says she was suffering from postpartum depression on top of the stress and abuse of the relationship. She still struggles to call it domestic abuse. “I was at my wit’s end. Nobody really understood because it wasn’t happening to them,” she said. “I was just trying to get away from this man. I needed him to hate me. So he would leave me alone.”
That led to a five-year sentence, of which she served three-and-a-half years in prison and one-and-a half years out. While things have not been smooth sailing since she was released, Sybil quietly celebrates February 26, 2020, as the day she says, “I’m no longer the property of the state of Missouri.”
Sybil was released from prison in June 2019. Just a few months later in October, she began having trouble breathing and ended up in the emergency room. Doctors found a mass right next to her heart and performed an emergency surgery the next day to remove it. Then, Sybil was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. So, since being released from prison, she’s not only “walked down” her parole, she’s undergone emergency open heart surgery — and completed two rounds of chemotherapy. Not only that, she says she’s been fighting to regain custody of her five children who she placed in the care of people she believed to be friends and trusted.
When you ask Sybil for the best word to describe her, she says this, “One word that I would use to define me is soldier. I go through so much every day. Not always in a bad way. But, I fight mentally. I pray a lot. I have to get things in order in my head before my world can be figured out and have peace. I’m not just living for myself or fighting for myself. I’m living and fighting for my kids, my family.”
Because of her health challenges, Sybil wasn’t — and still isn’t — able to work. She tried and was denied Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or any other Social Security benefits. That’s what brought her to Journey to New Life. Thanks to special funding made available to the city of Kansas City, Missouri, as a result of the December 2020 stimulus package, Journey to New Life received a special grant to provide emergency assistance for rent and utilities that enabled the organization to help Sybil and many others in similar situations. The mayor of Kansas City, Quinton Lucas, held a press conference outside the Journey to New Life office last month to discuss this special funding. Read the news article.
Get in contact with Journey when you get out of prison. You’re going to need a helping hand. [They] let me know that, despite my past, I’m still important to somebody.
— Sybil White
Sybil’s experience with returning to the community from prison has made her feel strongly that anyone in the same situation needs to seek help. Her original home plan involved living with family, and she admits it was “rocky.” She says she needed someone to lead her in the right direction. Journey to New Life was there. “It’s like they created this whole place for me,” she said.
So her advice to others returning to the community from prison is this, “Get in contact with Journey when you get out of prison. They literally helped me with pretty much everything and anything I could need, and if they couldn’t help me, they pointed me in the direction where I could get some help. You’re going to need a helping hand. People think when you’re released from prison, your life is going to be wonderful and full of roses, but it can be difficult because you have to continue to carry that banner — and it’s a stained banner — of I’m an ex-felon, and that’s all people see sometimes. But, when I went there, they didn’t treat me like that. It touched me because it let me know that, despite my past, I’m still important to somebody.”
While Sybil still has a long road ahead of her with her health challenges and reunification with her children, it doesn’t stop her from being productive and having dreams. Every day she checks off accomplishments on her to-do list and makes future plans for herself and her family. Her ambition is abundant. She says it’s important to her to make sure she’s not wasting time. “I need to complete something so I know I’m not wasting my time in my life,” she said. “If I can’t keep my body moving, I’m going to keep my mind moving.”
