HOW I HEALED – “My village became part of my survival.”

“So when God finally gave me a way of escape, I realized something profound: I wasn’t leaving to begin healing.” –Briana B.

 

 

Tell us how you healed from domestic violence.

To be honest, my healing started before I ever left.

 

Throughout the entirety of that “relationship,” if you want to even call it that, God kept instructing me to write. At the time, I didn’t fully understand why. I just knew that every book, every journal, and every word I was being led to put on paper was preparing me for something I had not yet found the courage to face.

 

The first e-book I wrote was called *Handling Heartbreak*. It wasn’t written about him, but I found myself actively applying the principles in that book to what I was experiencing with him. One of the steps was simply to be honest. That step ripped the Band-Aid off my grief because I had to admit the truth: we were never actually in a romantic relationship.

 

We had been friends since I was 13. When I became pregnant with our son, I felt like I had to make the best of the cards I had been dealt. We went from friendship to a transactional relationship, to co-parenting, to eventually cohabitating. None of it was conventional, and much of our living situation was rooted in my feeling responsible for him because he had nowhere else to go. His family lived nearby but would not help him. He was homeless and didn’t have a car. I couldn’t stand the thought of someone I had known for so many years—and now shared a child with—being in that position and me doing nothing.

 

But that compassion became misplaced responsibility.

 

One of the other lessons in *Handling Heartbreak* was learning to find the openings in the relationship—the places where I was allowing something unhealthy to remain. When I looked honestly, I realized God had already told me to leave him alone years before there was ever a child involved. In 2017, I felt very clearly that if I didn’t leave that man alone, he was going to kill me. Four years later, I conceived our son.

 

Clearly, I didn’t listen.

 

My opening was believing that knowing someone for so long obligated me to take care of them. I confused history with assignment. I gave more grace than obedience. I had opportunities to leave, but pride, guilt, and misplaced responsibility kept me there. Even when my parents told me he could not live in their house—the house where we were staying—I allowed him to stay because I felt responsible for what would happen to him if I didn’t.

 

And the situation became progressively more dangerous.

 

What started as name-calling and verbal disrespect became things being thrown around the house. Eventually, it became physical attacks. Every time it happened, I knew better, but I didn’t do better.

 

Still, I kept writing.

 

God led me to write *Reigniting Your Fire*. Then came *10 Days of Tapping Into Your Power*. Finally, I wrote a journal called *Healing After Him*. The irony is that I wrote all of these before I ever left him.

 

So when God finally gave me a way of escape, I realized something profound: I wasn’t leaving to begin healing. I was leaving because I had already healed the deepest part of me. I was dealing with the aftermath of the transition—moving, anxiety, fear, rebuilding my life—but my heart had already begun to understand that I deserved peace.

 

On August 22, 2025, I had no idea my life was about to change. I was tired, but I had no intention of leaving that day. God had another plan.

 

My niece, Angel, who was living in Charlotte at the time, called me and said she needed to come to my house because she was going through something. She came with me to pick up my son, and eventually we went to pick up his father. Everything seemed relatively normal until his tone and disrespect toward me became uncomfortable enough that my niece started recording. Eventually, the situation escalated, and while she was on FaceTime with her mother, her mother asked me if he was verbally and physically abusive.

 

Through tears, I nodded yes.

 

What I didn’t know was that she had already contacted my sister, who contacted my father. Within minutes, my parents were pulling up. He had to leave.

 

That moment was terrifying. Sitting in my parents’ car, I had anxiety attacks back to back until my entire body went numb. The next day, he called me berating me. I recorded the call, hung up, and kept moving. That same day, I participated in an online panel and was initiated into my sorority. I packed what I could, and my son and I went to my parents’ house.

 

My niece stayed with me. My cousin came. My parents showed up. And that became one of the greatest lessons of my healing: I did not have to heal alone.

 

My village became part of my survival.

 

Some people stayed on the phone with me through the night because they knew I was afraid to sleep. Others helped me figure out how to budget because I was suddenly navigating life on one income. My parents went with me to court to file for a protective order. People helped me move. People checked on me. People prayed for me. People simply sat with me.

 

Everyone served a different purpose, and I am grateful for all of it.

 

Because what no one prepared me for was the anxiety that came after leaving. I was afraid he would walk into my workplace and hurt me because there was no security in my building. I was afraid he would go to my son’s daycare and take him. I was afraid I would run into him in public and be attacked. For months, I experienced anywhere from five to eight anxiety attacks a day.

 

Leaving was not the end of the story. It was the beginning of learning what safety felt like.

 

I had to learn how to trust my own decisions again. I had to learn that peace was not something I needed to apologize for. I had to learn that being compassionate did not mean abandoning myself. I had to learn that someone else’s lack of resources did not make me responsible for sacrificing my own life. And most importantly, I had to reconcile the difference between forgiveness, grace, and obedience.

 

I had given someone else so much grace that I had stopped giving myself the protection God had been asking me to choose.

 

Writing became one of the ways I found myself again. The words God had been giving me for years became a roadmap back to me. I had written about heartbreak before I fully understood mine. I had written about reigniting my fire while mine was still burning underneath the ashes. I had written about tapping into my power before I realized how much of my power I had given away. And I had written *Healing After Him* before I knew exactly what I would have to heal from.

 

Now I understand.

 

God was preparing me before I was ready to leave.

 

My healing was not one dramatic moment. It was a collection of decisions: telling the truth, accepting what I had been avoiding, allowing my village to carry me when I was too tired to carry myself, rebuilding my life, protecting my son, choosing peace, and finally choosing myself.

 

The peace I carry today cost me too much to let a misguided person destroy it.

 

I don’t tell my story because I want to be defined by what happened to me. I tell it because I know what it means to survive something you once thought you were obligated to endure. I know what it feels like to recognize that the person you kept trying to save was costing you pieces of yourself. And I know what it means to discover that sometimes God has been preparing your way out long before you recognize that you need an exit.

 

I didn’t just leave him.

 

I left the version of myself that believed loving someone required losing myself.

 

And that is where my healing truly began.

Continue the Conversation

Every story of survival and healing deserves to be met with compassion, encouragement, and respect. We invite you to join the conversation in the comments by sharing your reflections and leaving an uplifting message for our featured woman.

Let’s make this a space where women feel supported, celebrated, and reminded that sharing their stories matters.

Please keep all comments positive, respectful, and supportive of her journey.