A psychologist at Walter Reed offered Heather a blunt piece of advice: “We can’t keep you unless you want help. But if you go home — it might not be tomorrow, it might not be any time soon — he’s going to kill you, and your kids need you. Can we please help you?”

“I was [at Walter Reed] because they knew I needed to be kept safe, and had extreme trauma,” Heather explained says, adding that she spent “a few months” in trauma programs before transitioning to life on base. In January 2024, she was reunited with her children.

Her abusive husband, meanwhile, moved to Alaska while the authorities worked on a case against him. On Nov. 1, 2023, police officers arrived at her home and notified her that he had died.

Of her traumatic experience, she said: “I try to describe it to people in this way: It’s like you’re walking in the woods, and you get lost. Everyone else can see what’s happening, and they’re trying to find a route to get you out But everything looks the same and no matter where you go, you stay lost. You can’t always see stuff when it’s so close to you.”

“I’m accomplishing a lot of things that I never thought I would and I view what happened to me as part of the plan God has for me,” she added. “I survived it for a purpose. I don’t look at myself and feel sorry for myself. I look forward to waking up every day.”