These words were eighteen-year-old Dave Pelzer's declaration of independence to his mother, representating the ultimate act of self-reliance. Dave's father never intervened as his mother abused him with shocking brutality, denying him food and clothing, torturing him in any way she could imagine. This was the woman who told her son she could kill him any time she wanted to -- and nearly did.

The more than one million readers of Pelzer's previous bestselling memoirs, A Child Called "It" and "The Lost Boy, know that he lived to tell his courageous story. But even years after he was resucued, his life remained a continual struggle. Dave felt rootless and awkward; an outcast haunted by memeories of his year as the bruised, cowering "It" locked in his mother's basement. Desperately trying to make something of his life, Dave was determined to weather every setback and gain strength from adversity.

With stunning generosity of spirit, Dave Pelzer invites listeners on his journey to discover how he turned shame into pride and rejection into acceptance -- how a lost, nameless boy finally found himself in the heart and soul of an man who is free at last.