Chapter 10: The Day I Chose Myself
For a long time, I thought strength meant staying.
Taking it.
Keeping quiet.
Trying harder.
Forgiving one more time.
Hoping tomorrow would somehow be different.
I had survived things that should have taught me differently.
I had been beaten and left behind.
I had awakened in a hospital as John Doe.
I had lost my home, my job, and nearly everything I owned.
I had slept beside a dumpster.
I had fought addiction.
I had crossed the country for another chance at life.
And yet, years later, I found myself trapped in abuse again.
That’s one of the hardest truths I’ve had to accept about my story.
Surviving something doesn’t automatically mean you understand it.
And escaping once doesn’t mean you can’t find yourself there again.
For years, I kept trying to make the marriage work.
Maybe things would calm down.
Maybe we could get past what had happened.
Maybe if I changed something about myself, things would change between us.
But eventually there comes a point when the excuses stop working.
There comes a point when you look at your life and realize:
I cannot keep doing this.
I reached that point.
Choosing Myself
I wish I could tell you there was some dramatic moment when everything suddenly became clear.
There wasn’t.
It was more like something inside me finally became tired of disappearing.
Piece by piece, abuse had taken things from me.
My confidence.
My peace.
My sense of safety.
Parts of my identity.
And somewhere underneath all of that was still the man I had spent years trying to find again.
I started asking myself a different question.
Not:
How do I save this marriage?
But:
How do I save what’s left of me?
That question changed everything.
Because for the first time, I began to understand that choosing myself wasn’t selfish.
It didn’t mean I hated her.
It didn’t mean I wanted revenge.
It didn’t mean I wanted her life destroyed.
It simply meant I finally understood that my life mattered too.
I wanted peace.
I wanted dignity.
I wanted to wake up without wondering what the next argument would bring.
I wanted to recognize the man looking back at me in the mirror.
Most of all, I wanted my life back.
So eventually, I made the decision.
Enough.
Walking Away Doesn’t Erase the Damage
Leaving an abusive relationship doesn’t magically erase what happened inside it.
You carry things with you.
Questions.
Memories.
Anger.
Fear.
Sometimes guilt.
Sometimes shame.
And sometimes you find yourself grieving something that, from the outside, people think you should simply be happy to escape.
That’s because you’re not only grieving the relationship that existed.
You’re grieving the relationship you kept hoping it would become.
I had to learn that.
I also had to learn that leaving and healing are two different things.
I had left abuse before.
This time, I needed to do something more.
I needed to understand myself.
Why had I accepted things I knew weren’t right?
Why had I stayed quiet?
Why had I spent so much of my life believing strength meant carrying everything alone?
Those answers wouldn’t come overnight.
There were still miles ahead of me.
But something had changed.
I had stopped asking permission to want a better life.
Reflection
There may be someone reading this who is standing where I once stood.
Maybe you’ve spent months or years trying to make something work.
Maybe you’ve forgiven things nobody knows about.
Maybe you’ve gotten so used to walking on eggshells that you’ve forgotten what peace feels like.
And maybe a quiet voice inside you has started saying:
I can’t live like this anymore.
I can’t tell you what decision to make.
RADV won’t make that decision for you either.
Every survivor’s circumstances are different, and leaving can sometimes be the most dangerous point in an abusive relationship. That’s why safety planning and connecting with qualified resources matter.
What we can tell you is this:
Your life matters.
Your dignity matters.
Your safety matters.
Your future matters.
And choosing to seek help is not giving up.
Sometimes it is the first mile toward getting yourself back.
That’s what RADV means when we say:
We Are the Bridge.
We’re not here to drag someone across it.
We’re not here to decide where their road should lead.
We’re here to make sure survivors know the bridge exists.
A bridge to information.
A bridge to resources.
A bridge to people who understand.
A bridge to hope.
Years before RADV had a name, I was beginning to learn the lesson that would eventually become its mission.
People don’t always need someone to rescue them.
Sometimes they need someone standing on the other side saying:
There’s still a road ahead of you.
The day I chose myself wasn’t the end of my story.
In many ways, it was the beginning.
Because once I stopped simply surviving, another question slowly began taking its place:
What am I going to do with everything I’ve survived?
I didn’t know it yet.
But that question would eventually lead me toward Riders Against Domestic Violence.
Next Saturday, we’ll continue that road.
My story. Our mission. Their hope.
— Dave “Grizzly Dave” Beatty
Founder, Riders Against Domestic Violence (RADV)