When my mugshot hit the news, I found out exactly who my friends and family really were. Spoiler alert: most of them weren’t who I thought they were.
Instead of picking up the phone and asking, “DeAnna, what really happened?” they ran with whatever the news threw out. Overnight I went from being “the one who had her life together” to “DeAnna screwed up her life. DeAnna married a convict. DeAnna’s a drug addict. A dealer. We told her so.”
No one wanted the truth. They wanted gossip. And they fed on it.
The Betrayal Hits Different
I can live with strangers talking. What gutted me were the people I loved—the ones who claimed to love me.
I had a man I carried on an off-and-on affair with. A man who couldn’t come clean to save his soul, but still had the nerve to call himself my “best friend.” He was buddy-buddy with my ex-husband, even called him “family.” And then he turned around and told me I was a fool.
Why? Because I chose to marry someone incarcerated. Because according to him, “all inmates are manipulative fuck-ups.” He said he was disappointed in me. That I was “smarter than that.”
Here’s the difference between me and him: I was big enough to own my dirt, to come clean about what I did. But was he? No. He stayed hiding in the shadows, pretending to be loyal while throwing daggers at me for being honest about my choices. That’s not friendship. That’s cowardice wrapped in self-righteousness.
Family, Fear, and Fake Concern
And then there was family. People who told me to my face they were “scared” of my husband. Scared because “inmates are violent, evil.” Scared because the man I love has a record, while conveniently forgetting that plenty of “free men” sitting in their church pews on Sunday are just as violent, abusive, or broken—but that doesn’t scare them.
Then there were the ones who didn’t say a word. They just walked away. Silent. But not really silent, because they had plenty to say behind my back. They whispered. They gossiped. They built their own little narrative of my life without ever once coming to me.
The Stalkers and the Informants
Three years later, some of these same people still watch me. They stalk my every post, my every move, just so they can gossip about me. They run back to my ex-husband to play little informant, his loyal minions feeding him “updates” on me like I’m some reality show they can’t stop tuning into.
For what? What do they gain? Do they think tearing me down makes their own sins smaller? Do they think stalking my life somehow validates theirs?
Here’s the truth: if you still hate me but can’t stop watching me, you don’t hate me—you envy the fact that I had the guts to live my life out loud while you keep hiding in shadows.
The Difference Between Me and Them
The difference between me and them is simple: I can own my choices. I can admit when I’ve fallen. I can stand up and say, “Yes, I screwed up here. Yes, I’ve loved wrong. Yes, I’ve sinned. But I also chose love. I chose loyalty. I chose truth.”
They, on the other hand? They hide. They condemn. They gossip. They call themselves “good Christians” while living in a way Christ wouldn’t recognize.
John 8:7 says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” And let me tell you—those stones flew fast when my name hit the news. Not because they were sinless, but because throwing stones at me meant no one was looking at them.
My Loyalty Stands
So here I stand, three years later. Without the friends I thought I had. Without the family who promised to love me. With empty holiday tables and silent nights. But I also stand with my husband—the one who loves me unconditionally, flaws and all. The one who shows me daily what loyalty looks like. The one who owns his past and is fighting for his future.
And if that means I lost everyone else? So be it.
Because if you can’t see him for more than an inmate, you can’t see me for who I am either. And I’d rather sit at an empty table with my integrity than at a full one with people who only ever loved me halfway.
