Verlancia Tucker - BOHEMIA Cares

Taking BOHEMIA Cares To New Heights

By Monica Montgomery

Photos Provided by Randall Lee

As the world moves towards a more trauma-informed society, our eyes are being opened to the hidden wounds we unconsciously carry. Verlancia Tucker is the founder of BOHEMIA Cares, a mental health advocacy nonprofit organization in Pulaski County, Arkansas, that focuses on empowering, rebuilding, reconnecting, and strengthening the entire family. With all of the mental health and wellness gurus that have emerged since the COVID shutdown, it’s hard to know who to trust. What makes BOHEMIA Cares different is that the wisdom and knowledge Verlancia shares come from hard-won personal experience.

“What sets BOHEMIA Cares apart is how the services are presented to the black community,” Verlancia explained. “We know that there is a stigma associated with mental illness in our community. It casts a dark shadow and causes our people not to want to seek help when it’s needed.”

BOHEMIA Cares is a healing ministry that promotes self-love and spreads mental health awareness. Its mission is to inspire individuals to build strong self-esteem, become leaders, and discover untapped talents leading to a prosperous life.

To overcome the barrier of fear and shame that mental illness can impose, Verlancia has chosen to be the face of BOHEMIA Cares. “I share part of my testimony when presenting my programs because I want people to see someone who looks like them who has suffered with mental illness but has come out on the other side,” says Tucker. “The message I want to convey is that you can get your life back and live an abundant life. I am the face of restoration and renewal. God did a work within me, and I am standing as a witness to what is possible.”

As the ninth of ten children, Verlancia’s childhood was typical for a large family living on a family farm. “I’m from Moro, Arkansas, in The Delta,” she said proudly. “Our family farm sat on one hundred acres. We raised livestock and grew vegetables and things like that. My parents also worked in an auto parts factory. They worked hard because it took a lot to care for our family. My parents instilled in us the value of hard work at an early age.”

The struggles we go through as we mature during adolescence are often called growing pains. The importance of knowing the difference between growing pains and trauma is what Verlancia helps her clients understand. “BOHEMIA Cares was born out of pain,” she explained. “It was birthed out of my testimony.”

It’s common for mental illness to go untreated because of misdiagnosis or unidentified trauma. “My symptoms started around age seventeen while I was still in high school. During that time, I didn’t understand what was happening. I just knew that there were some adverse experiences that I had been exposed to,” Verlancia shares. My struggles with mental illness were devastating and at times debilitating.”

Like most of us, Verlancia’s natural coping mechanisms sustained her as she navigated the perils of high school while dealing with undiagnosed conditions. “Not understanding where my anxiety and sadness were coming from, I just pushed through the best way I knew how,” Tucker explained. “I stayed active. I was in the band because I loved music and dancing. I surrounded myself with good friends I have enjoyed calling my “sisters” for over forty-eight years. Looking back, you could say that I unknowingly engaged in self-care by focusing on what made me happy.” Verlancia finished high school in the top ten percent of her class and went on to college. But even after surrounding herself with positive things, Verlancia could only keep the issues that plagued her at bay for so long. “Like most college students, I made my share of mistakes. My parents were in their 40s when I was born, so by the time I got to college, I was pretty much self-guided,” she explains. “While in college, I became a mother. The stress of being a single parent and a full-time student while trying to work became overwhelming, and I wasn’t giving it my all. So, I left the university and went to barber college,” Verlancia said. “I had always wanted to do it and still love it, but my body was breaking down for reasons I didn’t understand. I couldn’t work in a shop because I couldn’t stand for extended periods.”

Because physical illness can trigger or compound underlying mental illness issues, Verlancia struggled as an adult with anxiety, night terrors, and depression. Verlancia believes she was here to help others despite everything she was dealing with, so she became an educator. “I loved working with my students. I was that teacher that all the kids wanted to come to,” she explained. “I loved teaching, but it became overwhelming because I had not addressed the issues that had plagued me since childhood.”

By age thirty-two, Verlancia knew she needed counseling, but still fearing the shame and stigma of mental illness, she was too embarrassed to reach out for help. While in graduate school, Verlancia experienced domestic abuse. “Trying to keep it together, I kept making bad choices. I ended up in a relationship where I was being stalked. I lived in constant fear. I wasn’t sleeping, and I didn’t know what to do. Finally, someone from my department told me to take some time off. I looked like a zombie.”

Verlancia took the advice and went to her doctor, who diagnosed her with PTSD. “I was put on antidepressants. The combination of the time off and the medicine worked… for a while. I took it until I felt better. Then I stopped. That’s where most people go wrong,” she shares.

After getting her Master’s in secondary education, Verlancia worked in a Title 1 school district located in an underserved community. In schools like those, instances of trauma are higher than most. “I loved teaching. I loved my students, and they loved me. I started mentoring young ladies because as someone who needed that outside ear growing up, I understood what those girls were going through,” Verlancia explained. “Remember, my mom was forty-one when she had me. As a result, a communication gap often left me wishing I had someone who understood me and what I was going through.”

Verlancia excelled at being the additional support some of her students needed. But the weight of their trauma started to take its toll. “I was that teacher all the students came to when they needed to talk. As they came to me with their problems and issues, my untreated trauma was triggered,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I remember a student coming to me one morning before school with a handful of Tylenol 500s and saying, ‘Ms. Tucker, I don’t want to live anymore.’ I started to see myself in them and realized that what I’d dealt with, I was dealing with, wasn’t normal. I found myself trying to save them because I couldn’t save myself.”

Verlancia started an all-girl mentorship program called Serious Young Ladies. “We mentored girls between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Our girls came from low-socioeconomic communities, so our goal was to expose them to something different. We wanted to see that life was bigger than their circumstances,” she explained. “The girls were taken shopping and to the stylist. They got their makeup done and everything that would make them feel special. We tried to pamper them a little. I guess, in a way, I was living vicariously through them. The program was what I wished I’d had when I was their age.”

At the age of thirty-six, Verlancia married, gave birth to her second son and was divorced by age thirty-seven. This caused her to plummet to the darkest place she’d ever experienced. “It was during the time of the Sandy Hook school shooting that I reached my breaking point,” she explained. “After my divorce, I was fragile, but I refused to seek treatment because I didn’t want anyone to know I was struggling. My eldest son had become the primary caregiver for my infant son and me. When I got home from work, all I wanted to do was sleep,” she confessed.

“After Sandy Hook, my anxiety went into high gear. Most schools were implementing stricter security measures, but my administrator’s solution did not put me at ease. There was a vulnerability specifically in my classroom that posed an unacceptable risk. Add the unchecked mental illness I suffered, and everything came crashing down.”

“After Sandy Hook, my anxiety went into high gear. Most schools were implementing stricter security measures, but my administrator’s solution did not put me at ease. There was a vulnerability specifically in my classroom that posed an unacceptable risk. Add the unchecked mental illness I suffered, and everything came crashing down.”

A month after the Sandy Hook school shooting, Verlancia decided to get help. It was when she realized her frustration was out of control. “When I almost went off on a student, I couldn’t ignore what was happening to me any longer. That’s when I knew I needed to step away.”

Verlancia took essential steps towards her healing. “I researched a therapist to find the right one for me. The most important thing about seeking help is being realistic about what you need,” she explained. “And even after deciding to seek treatment, I was still too ashamed to tell my students I was leaving because I didn’t want them to know why. I saw a student years later, and he remembered me, then said, ‘You had cancer, right?’”

Verlancia spent five years in therapy. “It was hard, but I did the work. I even saw a psychiatrist who prescribed medication because sometimes mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance,” she explained. “While in therapy, I rediscovered myself. I learned to love myself because, before therapy, I didn’t.”

After therapy, Verlancia tried to return to teaching but came to understand it wasn’t what God wanted for her. Then she had a dream. “I can’t remember when, but God gave me a vision. I saw myself speaking at my former church. More people were there than I could count, and I was standing in the pulpit,” Verlancia said with a laugh. “My father was a pastor, but I never saw myself that way. I knew that I was different, and I know I was anointed, but I wasn’t sure at the time what the vision meant.”

Choosing to trust God through her healing journey, she felt led to start a summer enrichment program. “It was for me to activate, and God’s timing is always perfect. Things started happening so rapidly that I knew it was nobody but God,” Verlancia says confidently. “I met a friend of a friend who lived in Warren, Arkansas. We were talking, and I shared my vision with her. She told me her pastor was interested in getting involved with programs like that, so she invited me to church. The name of the church is Union Hill Baptist Church in Warren. The first time I visited, I met Pastor Henry D. Cox. After service, we set up a meeting with Pastor Cox, state representative Jeff Wardlaw, and the Honorable Quincey Ross, tenth judicial circuit judge.”

In the meeting, Verlancia discussed her plans for the program and what she needed to get started. “We talked about location, infrastructure, and what financial support we would need. The group was excited and completely on board. They were happy someone would come to Bradley County, an underserved area, to offer enrichment services.”

A prophecy and several blessings later, BOHEMIA Cares started its first program at Union Hill MB Church. “We ran the program for three years from that location, and we still consider it our home base,” Verlancia said proudly.

As BOHEMIA Cares grew, they could create more extensive and effective programs. “In October 2019, we debuted the Self Love Conference. It was the first time I testified about my struggles with mental illness and the shame that kept me bound for years,” Verlancia shared. “I stood before over one hundred and fifty people as a living testimony of what’s possible if you trust God and do the work.”

Although Verlancia has relocated to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, she still regularly returns to Arkansas. “Warren is the program’s base, and I don’t see that changing. We have online programs and services, and I hope to partner with local schools and organizations in Dallas. After years of suffering in silence with mental health issues, I am open to allowing God to continue to use me. I want the world to know that they don’t have to continue to be tormented by mental illness. There is no shame in seeking help. I want them to know that BOHEMIA Cares.”

www.bohemiacares.com