Help Me Heal My Heart: Reclaiming Joy After Intimate Partner Violence

I never imagined my life’s story would bring me here to be in a space where I am bravely asking for help to heal what was broken by someone I loved and trusted.

My name is Nana Adjoa, and I am sharing this story with a heavy heart, hoping you will hear my voice and support my journey toward healing. For 13 years, I believed I had found a deep, romantic connection with a man, I treasured, and for which I gave so much of my Spirit. But what I didn’t know was how profoundly I was being manipulated, abused, and ultimately betrayed by him.

In 2021, my mental health was at its lowest. I was struggling daily, battling depression, and turning to alcohol and marijuana to cope. I was fragile, vulnerable, and isolated. This "lover" saw my pain but instead of helping me heal, he exploited it for his own gain.

He convinced me, in my darkest moments, to enter into sex work for his profit. He pressured me into making a webcam to use me as " promotional advertisement" and took explicit photos of me, planning to launch a website to sell me for sexual exploitation, using my body and pain to attract others. This was not what I wanted. I was not in my right mind—I was scared, confused, and clinging to any hope that he truly cared. But he didn’t.

He took me shopping where I bought lingerie, props, anything he thought would make my exploitation more appealing. He justified it as “starting a new business,” all while knowing how much I loved and trusted him.

Eventually, the shame, guilt, and sadness became too much. I reached out to my brother, confessing everything, desperate for escape. My brother offered me hope, a promise of $500, if I would just stop. I quit immediately. But as is so often the case, that promise to fell through, and I was left alone, even by my family, to deal with the pain.

Despite this trauma, I buried my memories and pain just to survive. Last summer, when this man came back in my life to me in crisis, struggling financially and unable to meet his most basic needs, I let him back in. Driven by compassion and perhaps my old hope that things could be different, I lent him $950 which he promised to pay me back.

When the repressed memories finally resurfaced, I reached out with love, asking for the $950 so I could manage my own financial hardships. He responded with cruelty. With verbally abuse attacks, and even threats to my safety through intimidation. He refused to pay back the debt, and once again, I was left abandoned, broken, and traumatized.

He is no longer in my life.

He left me.

He left me after pouring all that I could into our relationship.

He left me without an apology.

He left me without even a goodbye.

He left me after knowing how his actions devasted my self-image and self-esteem.

He left me, knowing the pain he inflicted and the scars he carved into my self-worth.

My heart still aches.

Why I’m Asking for Help

After burying my trauma just to survive, I am now fighting my way back to the light. The road is long. Every day, I wrestle with guilt, shame, and a loneliness so heavy I sometimes worry I’ll never be free of it. But deep inside, hope is returning.

The Reclaiming the Erotic Retreat offers a range of healing modalities designed to deeply support survivors of intimate partner violence in reclaiming their bodies, pleasure, and power. The retreat takes place in Costa Rica, providing a beautiful, healing environment where true transformation is possible.

Through trauma-informed movement, ritual practices, and somatic work rooted in Black Feminist wisdom, the retreat offers nervous system grounding to calm and regulate trauma responses, personalized coaching to honor each unique healing process, and sensual movement to reconnect with the body’s natural rhythms and pleasure.

There’s also ritual medicine—a mix of sacred ceremony, herbal support, and performance ritual—as an intentional path for healing and rebirth. This ritual framework creates a safe, sacred space where survivors can unlearn shame and remember their erotic power as a birthright.

To make the healing sustainable, integration coaching is offered after the retreat, so the growth and empowerment continue at home.

These combined modalities address the mind, body, and spirit—helping survivors move from surviving to truly thriving, rediscovering joy and self-love. Attending this retreat in Costa Rica would give me access to holistic, life-sustaining care that’s rarely available in traditional settings.

Your support through this GoFundMe will help cover the costs of travel, retreat fees, and integration support, so I can experience this powerful healing journey. Thank you for believing in me and being part of my path to recovery and empowerment.

Retreat Website https://www.theeroticroot.com/coaching

I am fundraising to cover:

~The full cost of enrollment in The Erotic Root retreat

~Travel and basic expenses needed to fully participate in the healing journey

I am seeking support to participate as I continue clinical therapy alongside other alternative healing modalities including Yoga, Acupuncture, Naturopathic Medicine to help further rediscover my sense of self. Your contribution is more than financial; it is a gesture that says: I believe you. You deserve joy. Your healing matters. You are not alone.

Attending this retreat means more than just learning coping skills. It’s my chance to further supported through my pain, to be held in safety as I learn to trust my body and voice again. For the first time, I truly believe I can shed my shame, breathe freely, and discover joy where there was only heartbreak.

But this chance at healing comes at a cost I simply cannot meet alone.

All told, the expense of full enrollment in The Erotic Root retreat, plus the travel and basic necessities to participate safely, is $1750 but I am financially constrained, and I need your help to grasp this hope—to finally move forward, to learn new ways to love myself, and to begin truly living again.

What Your Gift Means to Me

I am determined to reclaim my sense of worth, dignity, and well-being. Your support—whether through donations or simply sharing my story—will help me feel seen and valued again after years of silence.

When you donate, even a few dollars, or share my story, you are telling me my pain matters. You are reminding me that survivors are never alone, that there is no shame in seeking help, and that I am worthy of healing and happiness. You are helping me take one more step away from trauma and toward a future I can finally believe in.

Please, if you are able, help me cover the cost of this retreat—this sacred space where I can begin to put myself back together.

My heart is bruised, but it is not beyond repair. With your kindness, I can find my way home to myself.

With love, humility, grace and gratitude,

Nana Adjoa Achampong