The hardest part wasn’t leaving him. It was what came after – the long, disorienting process of learning how to exist in a body I had been taught to disconnect from. A body that had been touched, commanded, and criticized more often than it had been honored.

For years, my body was not mine. It was managed like a resource, treated like something to access or discipline, even behind closed doors. And because it happened in private, behind the mask of marriage, the world called it normal. I called it survival.

But surviving is not the same as living. I had to teach myself how to be safe in my own skin again. To sit with my own presence without flinching. To move without asking permission. To breathe without apology.

The return to myself has been slow and quiet. There are no before-and-after photos. No milestones to post. Just the quiet victories of feeling whole again, piece by piece, without anyone watching or taking.