মঙ্গলবার, ১৫ জানুয়ারী, ২০১৩
1. Introduction
Author’s Note
This book might be confusing to some. But keep in
mind throughout
my book
that this was
a very confusing
World I lived
in. I
think to truly begin to understand what it
Was like, you would have had to be there, and since I wish
that on no
one, this book
is my attempt
to convey the
overwhelming
confusion I felt
during those years
and to
Begin to unravel the damage that was done to me and my
Family.
You might be suddenly reading about a character that
was never introduced, but that’s how it was for me. I t
didn’t
feel like a
sequence of events.
Even after I was freed,
moments are
fragmented and jumbled. With some help,
I
have come to
realize that my
perspective is unique
to
abduction. I don’t want
to lose that
voice, and therefore
I
have written this book how it came to me naturally. I ’m not
the average storyteller … I ’m me … and my experience is
very uncommon. Yes, I
jump around with tangents, but that’s
sometimes the way my mind
works. I f you
want a less
confusing story, come
back to me in
ten years from
now
when I sort it all
out!
Introduction
Let’s get one
thing straight! My name
is Jaycee Lee
Dugard. I was
kidnapped by a stranger at age eleven. For
eighteen years I was
kept in a backyard and not allowed to
say my own name. What follows will be my personal story of
how one fateful
day in June
of 1991 changed
my life
forever.
I decided to write
this book for two reasons. One reason
is that Phillip Garrido believes no one should find out what
he did to an eleven-year-old girl … me. He also believes he
is not responsible
for his actions.
I believe differently. I
believe that everyone should know exactly what he and his
wife Nancy were doing all
these years in their backyard. I
believe I shouldn’t be ashamed for what happened to me,
and I want Phillip Garrido to know
that I no
longer have to
keep his secret. And
that he is most certainly responsible
for stealing my life
and the
life I should have had with my
family.
I ’m also writing my story in the hopes that it will be of
help
to someone going through, hopefully not similar conditions,
but someone facing
a difficult situation
of their own—
whatever that may
be. It’s easy for people
to be horrified
and shocked when someone
is abducted, but what about
all the other adults and kids living in sad homes? My goal
is
to inspire people
to speak out
when they see
that
something is not quite right around them. We live in a world
where we rarely speak out and when someone does, often
nobody is there to listen. My hope is that society changes
in
regards to how we treat someone who speaks out. I know I
am not the only child to be hurt by a crazy adult. I am sure
there are still the families that look great on the outside,
but
if someone were
to delve deeper
they would discover
horrors beyond belief.
For many, it is so
much easier to
live in a
self-made
“backyard” that it can be tough and scary to venture out and
leave that comfort zone behind. I t is so worth it, though.
You
could be saving
a person or
a family who is
not able to
save themselves.
Take my case,
for example: two
Berkeley cops saw
something amiss and spoke up about it. Even if they would
have been wrong, they
still did the right
thing by speaking
up. I will forever be
grateful to them for doing the thing that I
could not do for myself.
Back then, it was a struggle to get through a day, but now
I look forward
to each day
and the next
to come. After
eighteen years of
living with tremendous
stress, cruelty,
loneliness, repetition, and boredom, each day now brings a
new challenge and learning experience to look forward to.
With my writings,
I hope to convey
that you can endure
tough situations and survive. Not just survive, but be okay
even on the inside, too. I ’m not sure how I did endure all that
I did. I ask
myself less and less every day. I
used to think
maybe the one
reading this would find
the answer for me,
but I am
beginning to think
that I have
secretly known all
along.
Ask yourself, “What would you do to survive?”
My situation was unique,
and I can’t
begin to imagine
what others are going
through in their daily
lives. You can
survive tough situations
is all I can
say. I did. History has
taught us that even when it looks like there is no hope,
hope
still lives in people’s hearts.
T . S. Eliot once wrote, “I
said to my soul be still, and wait
without hope; for hope would be hope for the wrong thing.”
My trust and
hope were indeed
put in the
wrong
person(s), but nevertheless it still lived.
I am so lucky and
blessed for all the wonderful things that
I do have. Life is
too short to think about all the things you
don’t have. I had my
girls to give me strength and my cats to
keep me warm at night and, perhaps deep inside, the dim
hope of seeing my mom again. Even if it is just one thing or
person you have to be thankful for, that is enough. Yes,
I do
believe I ’m lucky. I
could not have gotten through my ordeal
without believing that someday my life would make sense.
Life’s adventure is important. I t is important to live each
day
to its fullest, whatever life brings you.
2.The Taking
It is an
ordinary Monday morning
school day. I
have
woken up early
this morning of
June 10th, 1991.
I am
waiting for my mom to come in my room before she goes to
work to kiss me good-bye. I
made a point the night before
o remind her to kiss me good-bye.
As I lay
in bed waiting, I hear
the front door close. She
as left. She has forgotten.
I guess there
is always tonight
when she gets home from work to give her a kiss and hug.
m going to remind her that she forgot this morning, though.
ay in bed for a while until my alarm tells me it’s time to
get
p. I wait another
five minutes and then push myself out of
ed. I notice that the
ring that I had bought the day before at
he craft fair is missing. Darn! I really
wanted to wear it to
school today. I
search my bed to
no avail. I f
I waste any
more time, I
will be late
for the bus and
then Carl, my
step dad, will be mad at me and then
I would have to ask
him for a ride to school. He already thinks I mess everything
p; I don’t want to
give him another excuse not to like me.
sometimes I feel like
he is just waiting for another reason to
end me away again.
I abandon my search
and decide to wear
the ring my
mom gave me
four years ago
for my seventh
birthday,
before she met Carl.
My eleven-year-old finger
is getting
too big for it now, so I
don’t wear it often. I t is made of silver,
very tiny and
delicate, in the shape of a butterfly to match
the birthmark on my right forearm that’s almost level with
my
elbow on the inside of my arm. The ring also has a teeny
tiny diamond in the center of the butterfly. I try to slip it on,
but it feels tight on the finger I used to wear it on, so I try it
on my pinkie and it feels better. I finish dressing. I decide to
wear my pink stretch
pants and my favorite
kitty shirt. I t
looks cold outside, so I
throw on my pink windbreaker. Then
I go across the hall
to peek in to my baby
sister’s room.
Last night my mom was folding laundry in the baby’s room
and I was sort of
helping as I laid on the bed. I used the time
to try to
convince my mom how much I
needed a dog; I
guess I was
a little annoying.
Because she just
kept
repeating the word “No” over
and over again.
It’s just I
really, really want my own dog. There are puppies down the
street from us, and every chance I get I
go down there and
pet them through
the fence. I
don’t know why I can’t have
one. The other day I
had to write a paper in school about “If I
had one wish.” I wished
for my own dog. I would name
it
Buddy, and he would
follow me everywhere and do
tricks
and love me the most. I
really hope my mom will let me have
a dog one day.
I showed my eighteen-month-old sister
a new trick
last
night, too. I showed
her how to jump up and down in her crib
really high. I t made
her laugh so
hard. I love making
her
laugh. She is almost ready to start climbing out of her
crib, I
think. I peek in and
I see she is still sleeping, so I creep out
quietly.
I feel a
little queasy this
morning and briefly
consider
telling Carl, my step dad,
that I feel
sick and can’t
go to
school today but
change my mind to avoid
an argument.
The truth is I really
don’t want to stay home all day with him
anyway. I look
forward to going
to school most
days
because it gives me
time away from
all of his
criticism.
Maybe eating some
breakfast will make
my tummy feel
better. I go to the
kitchen to make my lunch and breakfast. I
decide on instant oatmeal, peaches and cream flavor. The
microwave clock reads 6:30. I know I
must start up the hill
soon in order to catch the bus. I eat my oatmeal quickly. I ’m
glad Carl isn’t in here watching me scarf down my oatmeal.
He already thinks
my table manners
are atrocious and
takes every opportunity to let me know what he thinks.
One time he didn’t like the way I was eating my dinner, so
he made me go sit in the bathroom in front of the mirror and
watch myself eat. I
don’t think I ’d ever make my kid do that if
it was me. I just
don’t understand why he doesn’t like me. I
make a PB&J for my lunch, throw in an apple and juice
box,
and check one more
time to see if Shayna
is awake yet,
but she is not, so I
must leave without telling her good-bye. I
haven’t seen
Carl all morning. I
think he must be
outside
because he is
not inside like he usually is, watching TV. I
see my cat, Monkey,
outside on the
deck. My grandma
Ninny gave him to me before we left for Tahoe. Monkey is a
black Manx, which means he has no tail. When we got him I
wanted to name him
Sapphire because he had the bluest
eyes, but Carl thought it was a stupid name and just started
to call him Monkey.
At first
it really made me mad, and I
called him Sapphire every chance I got, but as Monkey has
grown, the name Sapphire really doesn’t suit him, and now I
call him Monkey, too. It’s funny
how you can
get used to
things. Monkey mostly stays outside, but I let him in at night
and he sleeps with me. I
don’t like to leave him outside at
night because my mom’s cat Bridget was eaten by a wild
animal after we moved up here to Tahoe. I t was awful; we
had been looking for her
for days and I finally
found what
was left of her, which was nothing more than a pile of fur.
I t
was really sad. Monkey must have been separated from his
mom at a young age because he loves to nurse on my fuzzy
blanket. I think he
thinks I ’m his mom.
I go outside
on the deck
and give him
a pet hello,
he
meows for food, so
I give him a little handful of cat food.
I
have also brought
out a carrot
for Bugsy, the
black-and-
white dwarf rabbit that’s not so little. Carl had Bugsy when
I
met him a
few years ago.
I think the
cutest thing about
Bugsy is his love of grape-flavored popsicles. I t is my job
to
clean his cage,
which is not my
favorite thing to
do. He
really poops a lot. I
read in a book once that rabbits eat one
poop a night. I
t’s funny how sometimes animals do things
that don’t make sense to people, but I think they must have
a good reason for doing
it; I just can’t
figure out what that
may be.
I make my way out the
front door, down the long walkway
to the stairs.
Our house in Tahoe reminds
me of a ski
cabin. I t is
located at the
bottom of a
hill. We have lived
here since September of
last year. We
used to live
in
were living in and
my mom and Carl thought
it would be
safer if we moved to Tahoe. We live in a much smaller town
now.
I grew up in Anaheim , California
when we moved in with Carl, he convinced my mom that it
was time that I
started walking to school by myself because
I had never done it before.
I don’t think my mom
liked the
idea very much, but she couldn’t be there to drive me in the
morning because she had
to go to work early, so that
left
Carl to take me and sometimes he would and sometimes
he wouldn’t be there, so I
had to walk. They gave me a key
to the apartment
we lived
in at the time, and
that was the
first year I walked
home from school by myself.
One time as I was
walking home from
Lampson
Elementary where I
went to fourth grade, a car with a group
of guys in it started shouting at me and gesturing for me to
come over. I started
running and hid in a bush until the car
passed, then I ran
home as fast as I
could and locked the
door behind me. I was
scared to walk home after that and
did it as fast as I
could. Sometimes my mom or Carl would
pick me up from
school. I liked
those days. Tahoe
feels
nothing like Anaheim
don’t feel afraid here.
There is a
neighborhood dog named Ninja that comes
over and walks up the hill with me some mornings. I want a
dog of my own so badly, one that would walk up that hill
with
me every morning and
then be there
to greet me when I
come home from
school. Ninja the dog really prefers Carl
over me, though, and usually only waits for him and goes on
walks with him on the weekends.
This morning I was so
hoping that Ninja would come and
walk with me,
but as I
head out, there
is no sign
of her
anywhere. As I leave
the house for school, I yell to Carl
that I
am on my
way up the hill. I
don’t see him
or hear him
answer, but see that he has his van out of the garage, so he
must be working on it. I
start out on the right side of the hill
and then when it starts to curve, I switch to the other side. I
have one more week of school
left, then summer vacation
starts. I have
made plans with
my friend Shawnee
school to work
at a dude
ranch. She loves
horses and
sometimes she draws
them for me.
I love the
way she
draws horses. She has taken me on a trail ride before and I
loved it. She
is a great
rider. She used
to live with
her
mother on a ranch, but now she lives a mile away from me
in an apartment with her grandma Millie. I
am so excited
about our plans. I
want to be as good a rider as she is one
day. I still have
to work up to asking Carl and my
mom if
I
can do it. But I ’m hoping it’s something they will let me
try.
Carl is always saying I
need to have more chores and that I
need to learn more
responsibility, so what better way
for
me to learn than to get a summer job? Well, at least that’s
how I ’m going to present
it to him and see what he says.
Carl’s sister, my new aunt M, has two horses. One is a girl
and the other one is her baby foal. I love to go visit her. She
is so nice to me
compared to Carl and his mother W. M
acts like she really likes me. She lets me sit with her on
her
horse and we walk around the arena. it’s so much fun. She
also has a
really cute cocker
spaniel, which loves
to
wrestle. I like
visiting her; she seems to really like me.
When I lived
in Orange County I was
in a jazz class. I
really didn’t enjoy going
that much. I really wanted to take
ballet, but when my mom went to sign me up, the class for
ballet was full and
so we went for jazz.
I ’m really shy, and
performing in front of people is not a strong suit with me.
We moved to Tahoe
right before my final
recital. Thank
goodness. I think
I would have
messed up if
I had to
perform in front of an audience. And wearing a leotard was
not my cup of tea either.
When we moved to Tahoe after school started I joined a
Girl Scout troop. Again,
not my idea.
It’s hard to
make
friends, but some of
the girls are also in my class,
so that
makes it easier.
I just wish I
wasn’t so shy
sometimes. I
usually hang out with Shawnee
troop. But the girls
are all
nice and I
like when we make
things and sell cookies together. I am not good at going up
to strangers’ doors
and asking them
if they want
to buy
some Girl Scout cookies, but I am very good at eating Girl
Scout cookies.
My favorites are Samoas
and Thin Mints.
When it’s my turn to go up to the door and sell, I knock on
the door and let my
partner do the talking. Will
I ever get
over my shyness? We have a class field trip to a water park
coming up the last week of school. I
want to go and have
fun, but my body is changing and I ’m self-conscious. I tried
the other night to talk to my mom about shaving my armpits
and my legs. I am
embarrassed to be seen with all that hair.
But I didn’t
know how to
start that conversation. Need to
think of something soon; the trip is only a few days away.
As I am walking up
the hill to the school bus this chilly day
in June, I am
thinking how sometimes it feels like my life is
dictated by something
or someone else.
For instance,
when I play with my Barbies, I can
plan out their lives and
make them do
all the things
I want them
to do. I
feel
sometimes that this is being done to me. I feel like my life is
planned out for
me, in what way I do not know, but on this
day I feel like a
puppet on a string, and I have no idea
who’s
on the other end.
I am coming to the
part of the hill at which I have
been
taught to cross to the other side. Carl and my mom taught
me this when we moved up here and it was decided that I
would walk up to the bus stop
to catch the bus for school.
Carl said I should
cross here so that oncoming traffic could
see me and I
could see what’s coming
at me, too. As I
cross the road at
the bend, I lose my
train of thought and
start to daydream
about the summer. I
walk in the gravelly
part of the shoulder of the road. I haven’t seen any cars go
by at all this morning. There are bushes to my left. As
I am
walking, I hear a car
behind me. I look back expecting the
car to pass on the other side of the road going up, but to
my
surprise the car pulls up beside me. I was so lost in thought
that the unusual
behavior of the driver didn’t register with
me. I stop walking as
the driver rolls down his window. He
leans slightly out
of his car
and starts to
ask me for
directions. His hand
shoots out of
the window so
fast I
barely register that he has something black in his hand.
I
hear a crackling
sound and I
feel paralyzed. I
take
staggering steps back; fear erasing everything but the need
to get away. As the car door opens, I fall to the ground and
start to push back on my hands and butt toward the safety
of the bushes. Scooting as fast as I can is my only goal—to
make it to the bushes away from the man that is coming to
grab me. My
hand connects with
something hard and
sticky. What is it? I
t doesn’t matter—I must
hold on to it.
Someone is dragging me
and now I
am being lifted. My
limbs feel like they weigh a ton. I try to resist and try to push
farther into the
bushes. The paralyzing
feeling returns
accompanied by a
strange electrical current zapping
sound. I am
helpless to resist
for some reason.
I don’t
understand why
my body
is not working.
I realize I
have
peed my pants. Strangely
I do not feel embarrassed. “No,
no, no,” I
cry. My voice
sounds harsh to
my ears. The
strange man hauls me up and shoves me into the backseat
and down onto
the floorboards of
his car. My brain
feels
fuzzy. I don’t
understand what’s happening.
I want to go
home. I want to crawl
back into my bed. I want to play with
my sister. I want my mommy. I want time
to reverse itself
and give me a do-over. A blanket is
thrown on top of me
and I feel
a lot of weight
on my back. I
feel as if
I can’t
breathe. I hear
voices, but they
are muffled. The
car is
moving. I want
to get out
of the car.
I twist and
turn, but
something is pinning me down. I start to feel embarrassed
about losing control of my bladder and want to get up and
go home. I
feel like I
can’t think right.
I know what
is
happening to me is not right, but I don’t know what to do. I
feel scared and helpless. The car is moving and I feel sick. I
need to throw up, but I ’m afraid if I do I
will choke to death,
so I resist the
feeling. Something tells me they wouldn’t help
me if I
did. I am
so hot. I feel as if
my skin
is burning.
Please, please
remove this hot blanket—I can’t breathe! I
feel like yelling,
but my voice feels dry and nothing comes
out. I lose consciousness. When I wake
up, I
hear voices.
The car has
stopped. Where are we? I
hear two voices.
One is male and the other is muffled and low, but it doesn’t
sound like a man’s voice. The blanket is still covering me,
but the weight has
been taken off. I hear
a car door open
and slam shut very quickly. The blanket is finally pulled
from
my face and I can see
the person that was in the backseat
is now in the front, but I
can’t see a face; it’s not someone
big, so it
could be a woman.
I am offered
a drink by the
male that pulled me into the car. I am so hot and my mouth
is so dry. He says he got an extra straw for me, so I don’t
need to worry about
his germs. I
am so grateful
for that
drink—my mouth feels so dry like I’ve been screaming for a
long time, but I
can’t remember screaming at all. All of a
sudden I hear him
laugh. He is saying something about how
he can’t believe he got away with it. I want to tell him I want
to go home. But
I am so scared I am
afraid to make the
man angry. What should I
do? I just don’t know what to do.
I
wish I did. I ’m so
scared. I want to go to sleep and
pretend
this is not
happening. Why is this
happening? Who are
these people and what do they want with me?
Reflection
Since my return
back into the
world, I find
myself
collecting
pinecones. I ask
the people I
know now when
hey go on
trips to bring
me back a
pinecone. I have
pinecones from Lake Placid , Maine , and Oregon
therapist and I
finally solved my obsession. A pinecone was
he last thing I
touched before I was taken away
by Phillip. A
hard and sticky
pinecone was my
last grip on
freedom
before eighteen years in captivity.
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