Chap­ter 47 began with a sin­gle voice, trem­bling but deter­mined, echo­ing through a phone line that con­nect­ed me to a courtroom—and the rest of the world. On June 23, 2021, I final­ly had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to speak open­ly in a pub­lic hear­ing, to say what I had been silenced from say­ing for years. As I sat in my liv­ing room in Los Ange­les with Hesam hold­ing my hand, I felt the weight of the moment press down on me. I had pre­pared count­less ver­sions of what I want­ed to say, but noth­ing could ful­ly erase the fear. Still, I knew the truth had to be heard.

The fear I felt wasn’t just about pub­lic judg­ment; it came from years of hav­ing my voice used by oth­ers, some­times even against me. I wor­ried that speak­ing hon­est­ly would make peo­ple dis­miss me or call me unsta­ble. But under­neath that fear was some­thing stronger—a deep, per­sis­tent knowl­edge that I deserved free­dom. I want­ed peo­ple to under­stand what I had endured, and I hoped shar­ing my truth would make a dif­fer­ence for oth­ers, too. So I took a breath, stead­ied myself, and spoke—not for the cam­eras or head­lines, but for myself.

I told the judge that I wasn’t okay, no mat­ter how many times I’d said it before to pro­tect oth­ers or keep peace. I admit­ted I had cried dai­ly, strug­gled with depres­sion, and felt like I was drown­ing in silence. I con­fessed how I often lied to the world about being hap­py, hop­ing if I said it enough, it might become true. But hap­pi­ness can’t exist where con­trol replaces com­pas­sion. I even joked, bit­ter­ly, that maybe I should drink alco­hol after every­thing my heart had endured. And in that moment, there was no mask—just me.

My words poured out, fast and full of raw pain. I spoke of how iso­lat­ed I felt after every phone call ended—surrounded by no’s, con­stant­ly shut down, bul­lied, and left to feel invis­i­ble in a life that was still mine in name but not in real­i­ty. What I want­ed wasn’t unrea­son­able. I longed for basic human rights: to mar­ry, to have a fam­i­ly, to make my own choic­es. And after years of being mon­i­tored, manip­u­lat­ed, and mis­un­der­stood, just being heard felt like a small vic­to­ry. The judge’s response gave me a flick­er of hope. She acknowl­edged the courage it took to speak and thanked me. That small val­i­da­tion meant more than any­one could know.

For years, I had been held in place by fear, shame, and the belief that maybe I had caused this. That maybe I deserved it. That’s what emo­tion­al abuse does—it rewires how you see your­self until even free­dom feels like a dream too far away to reach. But deep down, the woman I’d always been—the one who sang with joy, who loved hard, who believed in some­thing big­ger than herself—had nev­er dis­ap­peared. She had just been buried beneath lay­ers of pain and silence. When my fam­i­ly forced me into that facil­i­ty, some­thing broke. It was more than a betrayal—it was the era­sure of my human­i­ty.

The worst part wasn’t the iso­la­tion, the rules, or the con­stant scruti­ny. It was los­ing my sense of worth. They took away my auton­o­my and replaced it with doubt. Even my faith had been shak­en. I stopped believ­ing in God because I thought if He were real, how could He allow this? But as I reached for the end of the con­ser­va­tor­ship, I found a small ember still burn­ing inside me—the belief that some­thing bet­ter was pos­si­ble. And that faith slow­ly returned.

Now, I under­stand the impor­tance of per­son­al voice—of agency. It’s not just about being free on paper; it’s about know­ing you deserve that free­dom, with­out apol­o­gy or per­mis­sion. The courage it took to speak in that court­room became a turn­ing point. It wasn’t just legal progress—it was spir­i­tu­al and emo­tion­al recla­ma­tion. I hope my sto­ry encour­ages oth­ers to ques­tion sys­tems that silence them, and to know that no mat­ter how long they’ve been unheard, their voice still holds pow­er.