When I wake up, I always thank God. I'm grateful for another day, and he's allowed me this tiny thing that we should be appreciative of. As long as you know who you are, everything else will be OK. No one else can intervene or interfere or affect you, because you control your destiny, you control your tone, you control everything in your life.

As far as I'm concerned, my life is just beginning. It's never too late to start over, so this is what I've been doing.

I love my family and I miss them very much but I'm a new person now. I know a lot of people will not agree with what I've done, but it was right for me.

I'm urging all women, I ask them the first time men hit you, please walk away. There is help out there. There are a lot of places that you can go and get help. That's the first step to your freedom and to your life is to walk away.

I realize now I didn't really want to die. I just wanted to stop the hurt and pain.

No one thought I would be successful. Everyone thought I would fail. You have no idea how much courage it took for me to do this.

There's a lesson to be learned out of everything we go through in life. I recall when I left [Jack Gordon], and my mother was so upset. "How could you allow him to beat you? You should really be upset with him." And I said, "Mother, I can't be." She goes, "Why?" I said, "Because I can't harbor hatred in my heart." I was extremely religious and extremely naïve. God took me through that for a reason, for me to learn the outcome.