A question on how to word an emotion and how one wants the message to be perceived?

In a television program I just saw an interviewer asked a woman the following:
“Are you afraid for the moment that he (the ex husband of the interviewee) comes free from jail?”
She answered:
“I don’t want to say that I am afraid because that would mean he still controls me and I don’t want that.”

I interpret that as follows: She is still afraid of him and she tries to say that she isn’t but the wording of her answer is implying that she is.
Could it be that she worded it a bit strange but in fact really be not afraid?
Now I always have (had) difficulty with sentences with double denials in it, or with (possible) double meanings, so it could be that I am totally wrong.
Or am I?
How do you read (hear) this answer?