Author Angel Smith-DeWitt Publishes Memoir on Surviving Childhood Domestic Violence

Balle Balle Radio™ Entertainment Desk

Angel Smith-DeWitt has published "Victimized as a Child – Saved by the Grace of God," a memoir drawn from her childhood in a household marked by poverty, alcoholism and violence during the 1960s, according to the announcement. The book is available through Page Publishing in bookstores and through major online retailers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play and the Apple iTunes Store.

According to the book’s own description, Smith-DeWitt set out to write something readers could use to recognize domestic violence in their own lives, not just read as a personal account. In her words, included in the book’s description, domestic violence applies to anyone living together, related by blood, or in a relationship, and "abuse has no gender or color." She writes that men are abused too but report it less often, in part because of assumptions about male strength.

The announcement describes Smith-DeWitt’s own path out of an abusive home, including time spent facing danger on the streets after she left. The book pairs that account with what the author calls practical steps: starting a journal to document abuse, packing a bag in advance, and avoiding an abuser where possible as part of planning an exit. She also writes about a pattern she identifies in child abuse cases, where an abuser isolates a mother or other female caregiver as a way of controlling the children.

"I wrote this book because recognition saves lives," Smith-DeWitt said in the announcement. "If sharing my story helps even one person understand they’re not alone, or gives them the courage to leave, then my pain has purpose. Faith carried me through the unimaginable, and I want others to know it can carry them too."

The book sits alongside a body of survivor literature and advocacy work that has long argued recognition and early intervention are what actually move people out of dangerous homes, a claim domestic violence organizations have made for decades. Smith-DeWitt’s work adds a specifically faith-centered account to that shelf, framing spiritual belief as inseparable from her own recovery.

Studio CarryOnHarry sees books like this doing real service when they move past memoir into something a reader in crisis can actually use — the journaling, the safety planning, the plain naming of what counts as abuse.

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