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A woman called me crying.  It was about 4:00 in the morning.  She had enough of the mental, verbal, physical, financial, sexual,  emotional and physical abuse from her husband.  She did not know what to do, but she read my book, I Had No Choice.  She had been in denial for 25 years that she was a battered woman.  As she read chapter 6 over and over again she heard his words and saw herself.   Chapter 9 gave her courage.  By the time she finished the book, she had made and implemented major decisions resulting in major positive changes in her life.  She repeatedly thanked me for the courage to tell my story to help so many.  The book is my true story.  It was painful to live.  it was painful to write.  But it saved a life.  This lady was preparing to take her life.  She showed the courage to change her mind because of what she read in Chapter 8.   It is a blessing that I had the courage to tell women and men that all of us must save our lives.  We Have No Choice.

October is Domestic Violence Month.  A time set aside to raise awareness of this horrible problem of Domestic Abuse of all kinds. 

7% of women are physically abused. 

33% of women are mentally, verbally, emotionally and financially abused.

In the time it took to read the above 3 lines, 5 women were raped by their husband or significant other.  And those are the reported ones. 

But let me share with you a portion of MY STORY.  

I dreamed of owning a business.

I worked sometimes six and seven days a week, sacrificed buying clothes and furniture, omitted vacations and saved money.

I started a business and built it into a successful enterprise.

I made a choice to became entangled in a relationship witha person who turned out to be  the wrong  man.

For 10 years I endured every kind of battering . . . except physical abuse.   The sad part is because I never felt his foot or his fist, I did not know I was a battered woman.  It was mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, sexual, verbal.  I wanted to commit suicide but the bigger part of me wanted to live.  I spent thousands of hours and hundreds of sleepless nights and painful days wondering how I got in that mess. 

I discovered a raw painful truth.  I got in because I made a conscious choice.  

I stayed in the relationship because I made an unconscious choice to stop loving myself and start loving him more. 

I allowed the mistreatment because I believed I could do no better.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am not minimizing physical abuse.  I am not making fun of anyone’s suffering.  I am not saying the abuser is not to blame.  He or she is definitely to blame.  But they can’t do anything to us unless and until we stop loving ourselves enough to recognize that we have to stop them and get out of the living hell.  

It is believed and reported that 75% of battered women who leave their abusers end up dead.

It is PROVEN that over 90% who stay end up dead.  

It is better to try to run and increase your chances of survival than to stay and guarantee your prognosis of death.

I was scared.  I was broken in spirit.  I had no self-esteem.  I lost all my confidence.  All of the money I did not give him through his manipulation I lost trying to pay his bills instead of mine.  Yes there is a lot more to it and it is all in my book, I HAD NO CHOICE.

I bared my soul in an effort to help somebody else.  You are more valuable than anyone or anything in your life.  God (or whomever your Supreme Being Force is in your life) does not want you to be abused in any way.  I call my book truthful fiction because I told the truth about the relationship using actual events and some metaphors.  I tell the fiction part in the last half of the book because I tell my five bieggest dreams I have had since I was 8 years old.  In the book they come true.  In real life, we will wait and see.