Reality Winner has been called many things since the day in 2017 when she leaked a classified government document to the press. Traitor. Martyr. Criminal. Whistleblower. At 25 years old, she was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison — the longest sentence ever imposed on an American for leaking information to the media. Now, four years after her release, Winner is telling her story in her own words.

Her new memoir, I Am Not a Traitor, traces the path that brought her from her childhood in Texas to her post-9/11 decision to join the Air Force, and eventually to that pivotal choice to share evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election. For Winner, the book is a chance to move beyond the headlines and courtroom sketches. “Eight years ago, I leaked that document for the purpose of helping the American people,” she said recently. “I knowingly broke the law, but I thought I was fixing something that was broken.”

Winner grew up in a household where truth mattered. She says her father’s insistence on honesty shaped her sense of duty, and her childhood memories of 9/11 gave her a lifelong determination to protect her country. Her mother, meanwhile, joked that the “world’s biggest terrorist” once slept beneath a Pikachu bedspread — a reminder, Winner says, that she is more than the caricature painted by prosecutors.

In prison, what kept her afloat wasn’t the system — which she describes as profit-driven and dehumanizing — but the steady stream of letters and books from supporters. She also credits her determination to confront her own struggles with mental illness. “My biggest fear was not the prison itself, but my eating disorder,” she explained. “I wanted to make it out so my mom would have her daughter.”

Since her release, Winner has built a quieter, more grounded life. She is studying to become a veterinary technologist, coaches CrossFit, and cares for a small pack of dogs that seems to keep growing. Yet her past continues to define her in the public imagination, especially as plays and films inspired by her case have circulated.

With this book, she says, she finally has the chance to speak plainly. She wants readers to see not a traitor, but a woman who believed that telling the truth was an act of service. “I made it through,” Winner said. “And everything I did was for this country.”

Her memoir, I Am Not a Traitor, arrives this week, offering her account of a life that was never as simple as the headlines suggested.