Trial by Trust

Trial by Trust is a raw and unapologetic memoir that tears open the stitched-up silence around coercive control, cultural oppression, and the twisted expectations placed on women in tightly wound religious communities. From a childhood marked by violence and guilt-tripping disguised as tradition, I was groomed to serve others before ever understanding myself. I was told what to wear, who to love, how to act, and most dangerously, who I was allowed to be.

But I broke away.

This story traces my journey through stolen girlhood, forbidden love, family betrayals, religious condemnation, and domestic violence that threatened to erase me. At fifteen, I ran away with a man almost twenty years older, my sister’s husband, chasing a love that felt more real than anything I’d ever known. What followed was years of punishment, judgment, loss, and endurance. The family courts. The community whispers. The cold grip of survival.

And yet, Trial by Trust isn’t just about breaking down. It’s about the slow, fiery resurrection that comes after. It’s about what happens when a woman has nothing left to lose and decides to rise anyway. I became a mother, fought for my sanity, fought for my children, and started rebuilding my life on my own terms. This isn’t a sob story. It’s a story of reclaiming breath, voice, body, and self; piece by aching piece.

Every chapter in this memoir burns with the need for change, for freedom from systems that blame the victim, that shame female desire, that excuse male violence. I wrote this because I know I’m not alone. I wrote this for the women still in the fire, still silenced, still told to stay small.

Trial by Trust is my reckoning. It’s my roar in a world that told me to whisper.