My Definition of Love

We’re excited to invite allies and activists to share their perspectives on our blog. This guest blog is written by Auburn Marriott, who is representing NO MORE to raise awareness about domestic and sexual violence in the Miss Michigan USA pageant this weekend, August 8th and 9th, 2025.

We invite you to vote for Auburn in the Fan Favorite and People's Choice categories. You can also follow along on Friday as Auburn takes over our social media accounts (@nomoreorg on Instagram and TikTok), sharing behind-the-scenes content as she raises awareness about the cause.

Love is a word I feared and had a warped definition of for a very long time. The idea of love being a healthy, amazing concept was unfathomable to me after leaving my abuser for the last and final time in early 2024. I write this article today, a new woman who is deep in her survivor story. My name is Auburn Marriott, and here is a glimpse into my story and my finding a definition.

I am currently Miss Ann Arbor USA 2025, on my way to compete in the Miss Michigan USA pageant. When people learn I am participating in a pageant, they always love to share their opinion. I have heard a plethora of positive and negative comments, but the one question that is always asked is “Why?” I never know how to clearly articulate my answer because there are years of trauma, tears, and pain behind the one-word question. The simple answer is I am doing this because I want to help the voiceless. I have partnered with NO MORE and the local domestic violence shelter by the University of Michigan because I want to be the loudest voice in the room. I did not have a voice for so long, and now I have the strength to be the voice for thousands. My journey to competing in Miss Michigan USA has been long and complex, but it transformed the darkest parts of my past into determination, passion, and strength.

I was with my abuser for several years at a young age, naive to the severity of the situation. In February 2024, I finally left for the last time. My mother bought me a plane ticket to fly immediately from Los Angeles to Michigan for the first time. We toured the University of Michigan the very next day. In this moment, I understood the feeling of hope. I decided then and there on that campus tour, I wanted this to be my new home. I had applied the previous December, but, like many of us Michigan students, I did not expect to get accepted. Later in March, I was sitting at my job at a law firm and received the decision letter after lunch. I called my mother, grandmother, and grandfather and opened the email in front of my boss, who filmed this momentous event in my life. I saw the confetti and the word “Congratulations,” and my life changed instantly within seconds. I saw a permanent escape, a new life, a safe life, a life void of fear and his presence.

On June 8, 2024, I had my condo packed up, graduated from community college with a scholarship and the highest academic achievement, and moved across the country to start my new life. I stepped into my mother's house, where I saw my dog, the fields and sun outside the window, and my grandmother's paintings that my mother had hung up around the house. I saw my new safe life for the first time. Love took on a different meaning to me that day because, for the longest time, love and the feeling of calm and safety did not go hand and hand. In this moment, though, I was with my mother, who loves me dearly, in the safest environment I could not have even imagined. I started to realize that day that change was possible, and the chapter of my life that I had wanted to end for so long was finally over. This transition helped me to decide that the new chapter of my life was going to be full of this new definition of love and safety.

I started school as a junior at the University of Michigan in August, and within the first week, I knew I had met my lifelong friends. Surrounding myself with such successful, amazing women inspired me to find my own passion. Being a survivor in the beginning of my healing journey, I found some days difficult to process at such a big university. Luckily for me, I was appointed to the Chair position of the Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Survivor Empowerment Committee of the Central Student Government. I was appointed to this position in October, and little did I know how much of an impact this position would have on me.

Being an executive in the Central Student Government, I was anxious because I did not want to fail. I wanted to make a significant change, and I wanted to be the loudest voice in the room, starting more of a conversation about domestic violence and sexual misconduct all over the campus. With this position, I ran a committee of five people with a wonderful Vice Chair, and we had a purpose of spreading resources, advocacy, and awareness all over campus. We hosted three events over the course of a semester and a half, as well as worked with many directors of different programs at the University of Michigan, implementing our own initiative at the end of the year.

These events included handing out sexual wellness items, such as Plan B or condoms, to hundreds of students all over campus, and partnering with different University of Michigan student-led organizations relating to domestic violence and sexual misconduct. For all these events, we fundraised for the local domestic violence shelter and passed out hundreds of domestic violence and legal resources, and free mental health help resources on and off campus.

At the end of the year, we implemented an initiative where the Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Survivor Empowerment Committee handed out boxes with domestic violence resources, sexual wellness items, and feminine and masculine hygiene items. We implemented wellness boxes in 22 different offices across the University of Michigan, placing them in spaces related to mental health, legal services, sexual misconduct support, and other essential student resources.

Holding this position meant the world to me, but one unforgettable moment made all the late nights, hard work, and extra hours feel even more worthwhile. We hosted an event on February 12th for Valentine’s Day. This was a special event for me because it marked the one-year anniversary of leaving my abuser for the last time. About an hour and a half before the event started, I received an email stating that I was accepted into the University of Oxford study abroad program, a top three university in the world. While these two events already made the day exceptionally memorable, I additionally received a Valentine’s Day note. Part of the event was writing notes to people at the domestic violence shelter, and the note read, 'From one survivor to another, thank you and happy Valentine’s Day.' When I saw it, I had to step away to collect myself. It was the first time in a long time that I genuinely felt that everything, good and bad, happens for a reason.

I write this now today as a partner with NO MORE and an upcoming senior at the University of Michigan, who is competing in the Miss Michigan USA Pageant, in less than a week. I’m only a year and a half out from leaving my abuser for the last time. If you had told me even a year ago that I’d be partnering with the very organization that helped save me, and traveling across the world to meet with their team in person, I would’ve thought you were out of your mind. That’s the beauty of healing: what once felt impossible becomes real. I share this because your dreams are not delusional, they are hope. To every survivor out there: we see you, we hear you, and we believe you. No dream is too big, and no opportunity is beyond your reach.

I’ve learned over the past year and a half that love does have a different meaning to me. Love no longer means confusing, scary, or full of fear. Love to me now is being with my best friends in the entire world at the University that has shaped who I am, being at home with my mother and my labrador, drinking coffee on the porch, or simply sitting in my kitchen at my apartment at school, staring at the sunset knowing I am safe. Love to me now means safety, stability, and happiness.

I go into the Miss Michigan USA pageant not for a crown and not for a title, but to continue the conversation. Win or lose, I will continue to try to be the loudest voice in the room, speaking up and starting the conversation for survivors who have not yet found their voice. For all the survivors out there who feel like they do not have a voice yet: we hear you, we believe you, and we see you.

Thank you for reading part of my story. Forever and always, no more silence.