I am just about to finish the book “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard. I have been interested in this story since the day I heard about it. There were so many things that I found hard to believe. By hard to believe, I mean hard to wrap my head around, not that I thought Jaycee was not telling the truth by any means.
Of course we all heard about the breaking story when it was first released to the public but it wasn’t until I saw Jaycee on the Oprah show that I really got interested in reading her book. I couldn’t figure out why this 29 year old woman had not escaped when she had so many opportunities to do so. At least I saw them as opportunities but after reading her story I feel so bad for judging her actions.
She was taken when she was 11 years old and spent 18 years of her life in a shed in the back yard of Phillip and Nancy Garrido. This is a truly amazing story of an amazing woman that fought with every inch of her being to survive. She was forced to do unimaginable things that would scare an adult let alone an 11 year old little girl. She was raised with the idea that Phillip was the only one that could protect her and that she was helping other people because he could act out his sexual fantasies on her and not have to harm anyone else. He would go on “runs” for days at a time and force her to have sex with him for days. His “runs” consisted of snorting drugs so he could stay awake and perform these horrendous acts on this innocent child. There was one point that he forced her to try and have sex with his dog.
Jaycee became pregnant at the age of 14 and didn’t even know that she was pregnant until she was told by Nancy and Phillip. I assume they figured it out by the way her body was changing. She was never given any prenatal care and was never seen by a doctor. At 14 years old this little girl delivered a baby on the concrete floor of a shed. She became pregnant again, I believe, at the age of 17 but it might have been sooner than that.
When she was “found” she had not spoke her real name in over 18 years and she was scared of what life would be like without Phillip because he had always “protected” her fro the outside world.
Her book is every emotion rolled into one. I felt everything from happiness to sadness for Jaycee and her family. She was forced out of the arms of her mother and never had anyone physically by her side that truly loved her. I know her mother must have went crazy trying to find her and then to find out she wasn't very far away the whole time. It's a sad world we live in but I hope others can look at her story as I have and learn from it. Most of us complain about various things that go on in our lives but until you have lived through something like she has....I don't think we have room to complain at all!!!!!!
I've always questioned why as well, but when you see stories like this or read books like this it becomes very clear as to why they stayed where they were - fear. I'm amazed that this woman made it though given all she endured in those years. Two boys from Missouri were also in a similar situation in St. Louis some years back - 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck and 13-year-old Ben Ownby. They were both found and reunited with parents, but it took time for them to reestablish their routines with parents.
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