Kerry Abbott’s story is like a lot of women’s stories when it comes to abuse. But Kerry did something really cool that I wish I’d been able to do, and something that I think made the difference for her.“I knew, at some point, I was going to be able to get out of this.”Kerry lived nearly 20 years with a man who would push her off their porch, hit her in places where the marks he left wouldn’t be seen, and leave her stranded in their rural home, which she hadn’t wanted to move into, without a car while he worked third shift, and drank work off in the mornings.It would have been so easy to give up the spirit of self-preservation that Kerry needed to harness in order to eventually leave the person who’d been abusing her for almost two decades. I know I certainly lost that sense of intrinsic value in myself after only five years together – two of those married – with my now ex-husband. And while the manner of abuse that Kerry and I experienced were different in their own subtle ways, the ma
