My name is Eliza Pawky Aimone—and my life is a story of survival, reclamation, and unrelenting resilience.

I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains, silenced by physical, psychological, and financial abuse within my family of origin. “Homeschooled” in name only, I was kept hidden—uneducated, isolated, and controlled—while my parents, distant members of a fringe Christian cult, used faith to justify fear.

At 23, desperate to escape, I moved in with the first man who showed me attention. Within weeks, the abuse began—rape, coercion, control. We had a child in 2016. I left in 2019 after my husband threatened to kill me, believing it was the beginning of freedom.

Instead, it became a new battleground.

What began as full custody was stripped away by a legal system that fails to protect survivors. By 2021, my abuser had manipulated the courts through South Carolina’s “good old boys” network to gain primary custody. After he again threatened to kill me during a custody exchange in 2023—and criminal charges were filed—he successfully petitioned the court to reduce my parental rights even further. In 2024, my calls to our son were cut to two per week—each call less than 30 seconds, my child’s responses scripted and unchanging under his father’s watchful gaze.

From 500 miles away, he continues to abuse and control me through our child. Every phone call is a reminder that he holds my little boy hostage.

The threats have not stopped there.

My tires have been slashed and my brake lines cut. My family sends me anonymous packages addressed to my former name, filled with things from my childhood and—once—the veiled threat of a rifle scope. I’ve awoken to find my security system was hacked during the night, the cameras turned off. I’ve received chilling calls where it was obvious someone was watching me. Always just enough to terrify; never quite enough for prosecution. I live in fear of my father, my ex-husband, and their white supremacist friends.

And still, I rise.

I’ve earned my GED and Bachelor’s degrees. I’m currently pursuing a Master’s in Data Science through MIT’s online program. I’ve built a happy life with my second husband—an Army veteran and college professor—and our incredible, medically complex toddler. We share a home filled with love, laughter, healing—and three cats who cuddle me when the nightmares return.

Through it all, I remain committed to justice. I am speaking out to change how abuse is handled in family courts, starting with South Carolina and reaching outward. I raise my voice not only for myself, but for every survivor who’s been silenced, disbelieved, or left behind by the systems meant to protect them.

This is my truth. I share it because stories like mine should not be possible, but they are. And they must end.