Before We Begin
This episode includes personal trauma, abandonment wounds, domestic violence, threats, and a medically traumatic birth experience and adoption trauma. Please take care of your heart as you listen. Pause when you need to. Skip what you need to. Come back when you are ready.
Last Week
Last week, I ended part one right after I had my son, Austin. His birth, though traumatic, was transformative. My entire life as I knew it shifted. I was barely 18, recovering from major surgery, learning how to be a mother, and trying to play the role of the perfect wife.
But what I didn’t understand was sometimes you can do everything “right” and still be living inside a lie.
Not long after Austin was born, my marriage began to unravel. What I thought was stability turned out to be something else entirely. There was infidelity. There was grooming, and there were conversations I didn’t want to be having but tolerated because I was young, scared, and trying to keep my life from falling apart.
All while doing what I thought he wanted, little did I know he had other plans. Little did I know that it didn’t matter what I did. He was going to do what he was going to do.
While sitting at home one afternoon, the phone rang. When I hung up, I knew that it was over. He was already gone, and I hadn’t even a clue.
His work had called the house to let us know his work transfer had gone through, and everything was set to go.
This was news to me.
I remember cooking a nice dinner, setting the table, and sitting across from him later that evening, and asking when he planned to tell me he was leaving.
He looked at me and said, “I wasn’t.” Not that he wasn’t planning on leaving, but that he wasn’t planning on telling me.
Within the week, he was gone.
He left me with no money, no plan, no support, and an apartment that was about to be gone, too. He did not just leave a marriage. He left a teenage mother holding a baby, and a whole life, she did not know how to carry.
A Different Plan
When I moved in with my mom, everything in me started shutting down. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I just knew I was sinking.
I wasn’t eating. I was sleeping all the time. My body was failing me, and I was trying to take care of a baby while feeling like I couldn’t even take care of myself.
Eventually, my mom called my dad and said, “You have to come get her.”
And that is how Austin and I ended up in Georgia, in a house that looked big from the outside but felt empty in every way.
Insult to Injury
Around Austin’s first birthday, the man who had left and abandoned me and his son started calling. Not having any real contact with him since he left this felt like a miracle to me. (Mind you, I was a teenager) He called, apologizing, asking to come see him and me for his birthday, promising to reconcile. And I did what so many of us do when we are desperate.
I believed him. He flew in. We had Austin’s birthday, and later that night, I went to work. He stayed with Austin and my dad at the house.
And when I came home, he was asleep on the living room floor, and when I woke up the next morning?
He was gone. And so was my car.
He came with a one-way ticket and a plan. He stole the keys while I slept, dumped my belongings on the floor, and drove away.
I never saw him again. And neither did Austin. He just dove out of our lives in my car. I was devastated, and we were just another day to him.
Survival Tries to Find Love
I kept working. I tried to build something. I found a job at a law firm. I tried to become stable. I tried to become someone who could finally breathe.
And then a childhood friend reappeared with affection, attention, promises, and urgency. And I did what my nervous system had been trained to do.
I chose what everyone was pushing me towards, what I was made to believe was safe.
I moved to South Georgia. Far away. Rural. Isolated. No phone. No vehicle. No support. Just me, my toddler, and a life that got quiet in the most dangerous way.
A Fateful Night
There are moments in life when something shifts so deep inside you that you don’t fully understand it until later.
One night, as we took a drive on a dark, remote road, he pulled off under a bridge and he quietly, without looking at me, confessed that he could kill me and throw me in the river there and nobody would ever find me.
I, frozen in fear, stayed silent.
Eventually, I broke into a scared laugh and aquiet joke to break the silence. I tried to survive. We eventually pulled away and returned home, acting as if nothing ever happened.
Then came the night. His head sunk as he sat on the edge of the bed. With a different voice, he evoked pure terror. Then his gun against my forehead.
This moment still lives in my body when I think about it.
With my son not even 2 asleep in the next room, the only thing I could do was make the smallest safe move.
I told him I needed to check on Austin.
I turned my back and walked deliberately toward the door.
I did not look back. Relief overcame me as I made it to the other side of the door, where I stayed until morning.
When the sun came up, and he was asleep, I waited. I watched. I made it through the next hours like a person moving through a minefield.
The Drive Home
We were supposed to be going to Atlanta that day. When we made it to my dad’s apartment, I broke. I thought safety.
I cannot explain the relief of pulling into that driveway.
I grabbed Austin. Ran Inside. And I left everything behind.
Every sentimental item. Every piece of furniture. Everything I owned. Gone.
But we were alive.
From Trauma to Trauma
After that, my brain checked out in a lot of ways. The emotional toll was heavier than I could name at the time. And in what I call true Heather fashion, instead of slowing down to heal, I doubled down.
I became even more determined to find someone I could trust. Someone who would protect me. Someone who would make the fear stop.
That is what unresolved trauma does.
It doesn’t just hurt you.
It drives you.
The One… Or So I Thought
A little while later, I met someone who felt safe at first. He loved Austin. He helped. He showed up. He was there. Butit was not long til my world shifted again. I looked down at another positive test.
I am pregnant.
He was excited.
I was terrified.
As excited as he was for a baby, dealing with a pregnant, hormonal woman in his 20’ was not something he was excited about. By the time I was about five months along, he left. He didn’t want the reality of pregnancy. He wanted the idea of fatherhood without the weight of it.
And once again, I was pregnant, abandoned, and trying to figure out how to survive.
Choices
As the pregnancy progressed, I knew I couldn’t do it. Not with the trauma I carried. Not with the instability. Not with my limited support. Not while trying to keep Austin safe.
So I chose open adoption.
Not because I didn’t love my baby.
Because I did.
I found a couple through a connection where I worked. We got a lawyer. We built an agreement. We prepared.
And when the day came, the hospital made it harder than I ever could have imagined. I had a scheduled C-section again, and the anesthesia did not work the way it was supposed to. I faced yet another traumatic delivery, another surgery. I felt more than anyone should ever feel during surgery. I was overcome with pain, physical and emotional.
And then I was sent back to a room with a baby I was expected to care for, even though the plan was adoption, because the hospital did not want the process visible.
It was grief layered on top of pain layered on top of shame.
I remember the day I left, I had to be wheeled out holding the baby and hand him over outside, in the parking lot.
I don’t know how to explain what that does to a person.
I just know I didn’t feel human after that.
As we drove home, I stared lost out the window, wanting nothing more than to just evaporate.
Pause
This is where I stop in the episode, because this was the beginning of a long season I did not recover from for a very long time.
But I want to say this clearly.
If you have ever made a choice to survive that other people judged, you are not alone.
If you have ever felt like people would help you only if you gave up the parts of you that were inconvenient, you are not alone.
If you have ever been blamed for the ways you were trying to keep yourself alive, you are not alone.
There is a difference between consequences and compassion.
You can face reality and still deserve tenderness.
If you are in danger right now, please prioritize immediate safety and reach out to local emergency services or a trusted support resource in your area.
Key Takeaways
✨Survival is a skill, but it is not the same thing as freedo
✨Trauma often creates vows that feel protective but can later become prisons
✨The smallest safe step still counts, especially when you feel trapped
✨Being judged for your survival does not mean your survival was wrong
✨You can leave with nothing and still be choosing everything that matters
Final Thought
Thank you for staying with me through this chapter. I know it is a hard one.
But I believe there is purpose in truth, and I believe stories like this make room for other people to breathe again.
If you come back next week for part three, we’ll keep walking forward from here.
And until then, I want to remind you, no matter what you’ve been through, no matter how hard life has been, freedom is the advantage that you already own.
If today’s conversation brought up something heavy for you, and you find yourself feeling overwhelmed or unsafe, please reach out for immediate support. You can call or text 988 to connect with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. There is someone ready to listen, without judgment, at any time of day.
