Pelzer - Help Yourself

Table of Contents

Dave Pelzer is a living testament to resilience, personal responsibility, and the triumph of the human spirit.

John Bradshaw, bestselling author of Homecoming and Family Secrets

In A Man Named Dave, Dave Pelzer has delivered the fitting conclusion to a monumental series of books about courage and triumph. In this powerful book Pelzer demonstrates, as few have, that it is in the darkest skies that the stars are best seen.

Richard Paul Evans,

New York Times bestselling author of The Christmas Box and The Locket

DAVE PELZER is the New York Times bestselling author of A Child Called It, The Lost Boy, and A Man Named Dave. He travels extensively throughout the country inspiring hope and resilience in countless people. Dave has received commendations from Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, and in 1994 was the only American recipient of The Outstanding Young Persons of the World award. He lives in Rancho Mirage, California. His Web site address is www.davepelzer.com.

ALSO BY DAVE PELZER

This book is dedicated to my lovely wife, Marsha, and my incredible son, Stephen, who both guide and inspire me in ways that only God knows.

This book is also dedicated to you, the reader, in the sincere hope that you, too, can live a more fulfilling, productive life that you truly deserve.

I wish to take a moment and give thanks to those who contributed to this endeavor. First and foremost my wifeand editor for the fourth timeMarsha, for her fine eye for the written word.

To my research assistant, Rey Thayne, for his endless hours of reverifying the reverifications and hunting down the smallest of details to help ensure the validity of the stories.

A special thank you to my personal assistant, Ray Worthington, for keeping chaos in order so as to allow me to scribe at any hour of the day, night, weekends, holidays....

To my agent, Laurie Liss, for her time and tenacity.

To the entire family of professionals at Dutton Plume, especially to Brian Tart, editor in chief, for his time, patience, and genuine friendship. Besides the editing process, its always a pleasure.

I know something about resilience. For the first twelve years of my life I was subjected to practically every form of continuous physical and psychological torture you could imagine. I should have died. After I was rescued from my alcoholic mother and was fortunate enough to be placed in the care of others, there were a few who boasted that because of my extreme situation I would end up either dead or in prisonthe odds against me were insurmountable.

I never saw it that way.

As a child, when my mother stabbed me in the chest, days later I literally crawled on my hands and knees hunting for a wet rag so I could clean my infected wound. At the time I simply applied what I had learned from a first aid class. When my mother refused to feed me for more than ten days, I survived by sneaking water. I did this by swallowing as much as I could from the silver metal ice cube trays whenever I had filled them; another trick I learned was to suck water from the water basin in the garage. I had to be careful not to turn on the faucet too fast or too slow, for fear that the water pipe might vibrate and alert Mother. When I was thrown in a bathroom with a bucketful of a deadly mixture of ammonia and Clorox that can kill a person in a matter of minutes, I had enough sense to understand that gas rises. All I had to do was stay close to the floor with a wet cloth wrapped around my mouth and nose, praying that the heating vent would come on to circulate fresh air. My relationship with my mother became one of extreme survival. All I had to do was think ahead, believe in myself, and never give up ... in order to remain alive.

If I learned anything from my unfortunate childhood it is that there is nothing that can dominate or conquer the human spirit. How can you expect to be a good parent, an astute businessperson, or achieve your greatness if you do not focus and harness your inner potential? This is the essence of the message I wish to present to you. Please understand, this book is not about child abuse. For years I have been mislabeled as that child abuse guy. I admit I have and I will continue to assist those in the child care fields of awareness and prevention, as well as doing what I can to praise those who give their all to help others in need. After what others have graciously done for me, I feel it is the least I can do. Yet, ever since I was a boy, living at times minute by minute, from the depths of my soul I believed that if I were to live, if I could overcome all that I had suffered, then anything else had to be better. In other words, I learned the value of personal responsibility, resilience, and gratitude. Only, I had to learn at a younger age than most.

When I was a child, Mother did not allow me to speak in her house. Period. So at school I would stutter or tremble so badly that kids would tease me, as if I were somehow mentally deficient. Now as an adult, I make a living speaking and I even do comedic storytelling, to the point that I have often been often dubbed the Robin Williams with Glasses. As a child, because I lived in a garage and never played sports, I had limited coordination. When I was placed in foster care, because of my lack of developmental skills I could not play a simple game of catch, let alone toss a football. Yet years later as a young adult, after a great deal of self-determination, I was fortunate enough to serve my country as an elite aircrew member, entrusted to fly highly classified missions for the United States Air Force. (Can you imagine me passing the psychological examination?) Days after I turned eighteen, I discovered my childhood case had been identified as one of the most severe instances of child abuse in the state of California. And nearly twenty years from the day that I was rescued, I was privileged enough to be selected as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Americans. Other recipients have been President John F. Kennedy, Orson Welles, Anne Bancroft, and my childhood heroes Chuck Yeager and Christopher Reeve.

Please understand, I am not revealing my former experiences to extract sympathy or mentioning my accomplishments for the purpose of feeding my ego. My lovely wife, teenage son, and my higher power keep me grounded. I only offer these examples because, if you are going to spend your precious time and hard-earned money on this book, you should at least be given the decency to know your authors qualifications.

If you want to know the truth, even with all that Ive experienced, I still have much to learn. Just like you, I am not perfect. I have problems that I have to address on a daily basismy self-esteem, being a good husband and father, issues pertaining to my health and my demanding businesswhich at times can be overwhelming. I simply try to deal with things as best I can. I am not special in any way. I do not possess some magic crystal that contains the secrets of the cosmos. The truth be told: no one has all the answers. There is no such thing as a perfect life. I am simply a regular person who wants to relate to you what I have learned and how you may apply my experiences in your professional and private life. This is my goal.