Ten years of freedom, grief, faith, and the life that grew after
I remember the moment the way it feels now: my hands shaking as I closed each door behind me, my phone in my hand recording the place I used to call “home.” The kids were at a safe house, just in case. I was sobbing. I whispered to myself, “I am leaving my home.” Then I said aloud, and with a fierceness that surprised me, “No, I am leaving my prison.” I never looked back.
The first weeks after we left were smaller than any victory I had imagined and larger than anything I had survived. We slept in one room on three mattresses pushed together on the floor. The children didn’t want to leave my side. We took different routes to school and work because we thought he might be following us. I had nothing; no furniture, almost no possessions. Friends and family brought groceries and the little things you don’t realize you need until you don’t have them.
Still, two weeks later my kids laughed for the first time. Not the half-laugh that hides pain, but real, loud, uncontrollable laughter. They woke up to quiet instead of shouting; they came home to calm instead of chaos. That small sound was everything. It told me we had a chance to rebuild a life that belonged to us again.
What abuse looked like for us
Abuse isn’t always a broken bone. It isn’t only the nights you hide in the bathroom with your head between your knees and ask God to take you home. Ten years on, I define abuse this way: it is not being able to breathe in your own life. It is dread when you think of going home. It is giving your paycheck away and still not having money to breathe. It is being told your body and your choices belong to someone else. It is being cut off from Church, friends, family and the slow, steady wearing-down of your worth.
It’s the little things that add up: asking for pocket money and being yelled at while he buys things for himself, being expected to perform marital duties when “no” should be respected, being monitored and hemmed in until your world is smaller than the walls around you. Abuse is fear. Plain and brutal.
What getting free actually required
We did not escape with a three-act ending. We escaped with trembling faith and the generosity of friends. Therapy gave us tools, a safety plan that meant we could leave the house and not panic at every bump in the night. Work gave me something steady to put my hands to and a place where I could be more than the scared person I had been. Routine mornings, evening routines, small rhythms returned normalcy to our days. God carried me on the days I had no breath. Those were the days when survival felt like all I could do, and it was enough.
A small victory from those early weeks sits with me still: one evening the kids started to laugh together on the couch. I made coffee, and I sat there, watching them, thinking: this is heaven. This is freedom.
Five lessons ten years taught me
- Children understand more than we think. My son would bring his sister to his room in the night to protect her from yelling. They were keeping each other safe long before I knew they needed it.
- Strength is not a thunderclap… it’s showing up. Some days I couldn’t breathe. I prayed. I put one foot in front of the other because my children needed me. That is strength.
- Love should not hurt. Love is gentle, accepting, and builds you up. Learning that again through kindness, trust, and a partner who sees me changed everything.
- Abuse is many things. It is emotional, financial, spiritual, and real even when scars are not visible. Naming it is the first step to escaping it.
- God is faithful. Even when I could not hear Him, He was moving. There is beauty in the disaster, and God used the broken pieces to build something better.
The slow return to “normal”
There was no single turning point. Freedom arrived like dawn… first a sliver, then light. At first I was still looking over my shoulder in public, phone in my hand, heart racing. The slow shift happened when I sat in a restaurant and did not worry about making anyone mad. It happened when our house was loud with friends, when the kids invited people over, when we took a camping trip two years after leaving and I realized I could do it on my own. Those quiet, ordinary moments, a laughing child, a cup of coffee while they play, a prayer said aloud together told me safety was becoming our new normal.
Where we are now
Ten years in, we are stronger. We protect one another, we pray together, and God is central to our home. We look for red flags, maybe a little too quickly sometimes, but we are learning that people can deserve second chances, and we are learning mercy alongside vigilance. My children sleep in beds that are theirs; they make plans without fear; they know the difference between love and control.
To the person who is still standing in that doorway
If you’re reading this and you are where I was trembling, terrified, deciding I am writing to you as someone who sat right where you are. You are more. You are enough. You deserve happiness. No one deserves abuse. You are a child of God. The same God who made the mountains and the oceans made you on purpose. I know you are scared. But I promise you leaving is the best gift you can give yourself and your children. Your future self will thank you.
What this is and what comes next
This blog is not an ending. It is the first light of a larger story I am writing: the book that grows from the small itinerary of those early days, the therapy room, the laughter, the prayers, the nights I couldn’t breathe, and the mornings I kept getting up anyway. If I can leave you with one thing, it is this: freedom is possible, healing is possible, and you do not have to walk away alone.
– Lish xo