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football team. Terrell is in eighth grade and runs
     the mile in track.
    Evenings mean cooking dinner, taking care of the dogs, helping with homework, and
     doing laundry.
    “There are some times,” she says, laughing, “I’ll look at Allen and say, ‘Is it too
     early to go to bed?’ And he’s like, ‘Honey, it’s six forty-five.’ We’re typically
     in bed by eight thirty or nine o’clock.”
    Amy’s life now is a far cry from her former life. She says the topic of those dark
     days almost never comes up. Her parents never bring it up, nor do her sons. Both boys
     declined an interview. Amy recalls a rare moment when Marcus referenced their old
     life.
    “He made a comment like, ‘You know that Terrell and I are old enough now that we will
     always protect you.’ Because at ten and seven,” she says, “they couldn’t.”
    I ask her if she ever worries about falling back into unhealthy or destructive habits.
    Keynote speaker at 2010 women’s health expo.
Fredericksburg, Virginia. (Courtesy of Amy Barnes)
    “No. I don’t use food as a coping mechanism anymore. I eat because food is what I
     need to live. Me working out and me living a healthy lifestyle is like me brushing
     my teeth,” she says. “As far as the abuse goes, I think I went through it so I can
     show other people what it is. Emotional and mental abuse is control. And when you
     think your husband or your boyfriend is being super caring or super sensitive and
     he is calling your phone—especially these young girls—they’re calling or texting you
     fifteen times a day, or they don’t want you to hang out with your friends because
     they’d rather spend time with you, and they don’t want you with your friends and family
     because they just want you all to themselves because they love you, that is the first
     telltale sign of emotional abuse. They’re tryingto control you. And from there, it escalates. So, I had to go through it to recognize
     it, so I can help and coach other people through it.”
    Amy travels for speaking engagements to encourage and enlighten women like her, who
     have survived domestic abuse.
    “I can’t speak to the victims who are buried, because they couldn’t get out of it.
     Every time I speak, it’s to the survivors, and I say, ‘I applaud you for finally taking
     the leap to get out,’ but to the victims who are still stuck and can’t find a way
     out, the thing I tell them is, ‘The unknown is scary, because when you’re in it, you
     know what to expect, and you can brace yourself for the abuse. You can make excuses
     and try to make things better. But the unknown is scary, because you don’t know what
     you’ll do financially. They have excluded you from finding a job and having financial
     stability, and isolated you from family and friends, and at this point you feel you
     have nothing in your life. The unknown is scary, because if you leave him, what the
     F are you gonna have? Nothing. No money, no friends, no family, no job, no security,
     no nothin’.’ But I tell them, ‘The unknown is scary, but being in what you are with
     him is so much F-ing scarier than the unknown.’ ”
    I ask Amy if she would have braved the unknown had it not been for a judge ordering her to better
     her life.
    “No. No, because that judge forced me to say, It is him or your children . I went through three years with this guy, back and forth with him every week, every
     month. I went through this craziness. It was the abuse, it was the honeymoon period,
     it was the abuse again, it was the honeymoon period,” she says. “I left and came back
     into that relationship over those three years so many times, and it was never bad
     enough.”
    We talk about the residue from the bad years and what remains.
    “I have a five-inch scar up the center of my stomach from where he stabbed me. I have
     scars from when he has burned me with cigarettes, from where he has cut me with a
     razor blade. The bruises have