The new baby has just turned two weeks old. I am the
mother of two healthy girls. Phillip and Nancy are letting
me
stay in the studio
room with them. Phillip says we
can be
one big family now. He says he is going to work super hard
on the printing business. He wants Nancy
CAP to be able to stay home and help with the baby and
the business. He says he will get us all the jobs we need.
My days are consumed with
the babies and Printing for
Less. Since A is three, I
am trying to get her to stop nursing.
I can’t nurse both of
them at the same time. Phillip still says
I am doing the best
thing in the world
for the girls. He has
told me all the benefits of breast-feeding. I know it’s good to
breast-feed, but a girl can only do it for so long. A will
just
have to stop.
The name S
just does not
suit the baby. We
end up
calling her G. She was born with a growth above her eye. I t
feels like a ball right at the end of her eyebrow. Phillip
has
felt it and thinks it is nothing but “a cyst.” I wish I
could have
a doctor look at it. Phillip says to continue to watch it
and if
it starts growing, then he will figure out a way to take her
to
the doctor. He says maybe one of those free clinics. Nancy
could take the baby and
it would look like a non-English-
speaking Mexican woman taking her baby in for a checkup.
Probably with no questions asked. I just hope it doesn’t get
any bigger so
she doesn’t have
to go to
the hospital. I
would want to
go, too, and I
don’t think Phillip would allow
that.
Phillip has bought a digital camera for the business. He
will be gone all day today and I want to use it to take some
photos of the
baby and A. Nancy gave
the baby a
really
cute dress. I t is pink with little flowers on it. I get her dressed
and think of the time I
was given a disposable camera for
pictures of A. Phillip said as long as I took pictures of just
the baby he would allow me to take them. Nancy
a really pretty pink
dress for the baby at her work. I t was
crocheted. I got
pictures of her walking, taking a bath, and
in her favorite
rocking chair. When
Phillip got them
developed for me, I
made a scrapbook with them. She was
about six months before
I was able to get any pictures of
her except for
one that Nancy
took when she
was one
month old. But I have
none from when she was first born. I
like having a digital camera because now I can take all the
pictures I want and
print them right here. G looks so cute as
I pose her for a few
perfect shots.
Phillip is going out every day to find us jobs. I think Nancy
will be able to quit
her job soon and spend the whole day
with me and the girls. He has set up a CB radio, which we
use to communicate
with him while he is on the
road. On
most days he leaves
at seven or eight in the morning and
doesn’t come home
until dinnertime around
five or six at
night. T o contact him on the road, he has taught us to say,
“Breaker, Breaker, Sky Walker, do you copy?” Sky Walker
is his handle. He says we can pick a handle to be called,
too, so when
he calls we
will know it
is him and
not a
stranger on the
same frequency. Nancy
Blue. She says Phillip calls her that and when they used to
go up to the
mountain to get
high they would take a
CB
radio with them and talk to all the truckers. I pick the name
Data, which is my
favorite character on Star Trek: TNG,
and A wants
to be Tinky Winky from Teletubbies. Her
favorite show. Phillip says the more time he spends out in
the field, the more jobs he can get. The CB radio lets him
be out and not worry about us at home.
I can’t wait until Nancy
really need some help with them. Phillip is gone most of the
day and doesn’t
help with them when he
is home. Yes, I
have all I
need physically for
them, but I
wish he would
spend some more time at home. I am getting overwhelmed.
A is reminding
me more and
more of my
mom.
Sometimes when I look at her all I
see is my mom. I must
put those thoughts behind me; it just makes me sad to look
at her and I don’t want
to feel that way.
I need to change
these feelings into something positive instead of negative.
Phillip has been
teaching me how to
use affirmations to
change my thinking process. I know in time it will get easier
and I won’t feel like
this every day.
Reflection
This seems like a good place to give a little update on
how my girls are faring now. I t is the first day of real
school
for them. Wow, I
can’t believe I am writing those
words. This
is something I have dreamed about for
them for so long.
I
have done my best to
educate them in the
backyard, but I
could only go so far. My education level only went to the
fifth
grade.
Phillip always believed
school was a
terrible
environment. He thought
it was so
much better to
homeschool the
kids than for
them to be in public school.
He used to say he had created the perfect environment for
raising
children. We never
had a choice
in the matter.
Phillip believed public school would expose the girls to bad
influences, like bad
language, drugs, bullies,
and all the
things he believed the kids should be sheltered from. While
I agree with
him that some
schools are not
the best
environment for growing children, I do believe in education.
I loved school.
I didn’t always
love the kids
that I went
to
school with—at times they were mean or I was just too shy
to stick up for myself—but overall my experience in school
was positive. I don’t
think Phillip enjoyed his school years
and that, combined with drug use in high school, gave him
a warped sense of what
life is like.
I believe that
in many
ways he wanted to create his own little world and for a
while
he succeeded at
the expense of
others. I was
just a
character in his
world, a world
he created for
his own
benefit.
My own education
stopped at the
fifth-grade level and
although I have kept myself reading and
learning all these
years, I still
am not a
teacher. Thank goodness
for the
internet! (I know what people are thinking, and
the answer
is yes—yes, I did
think about using the internet
to find my
mom, but Phillip told me
and convinced me that
he was
monitoring everything I
did on the internet and he would find
out each and every
thing I did on
it. He said the computer
kept a record of everything and he could see it anytime he
wanted.) I f not
for the internet,
I don’t think
I would have
been able to
educate the girls
at the level
I did. When I
proposed the idea of enacting an actual school
schedule
for them, it was
at first met with some
hesitation. Phillip
believed that within a few more years he would be able to
hire someone to educate them. The girls also had their own
issues with doing school every day; these are very strong-
willed girls. Nothing like their mom, or their “sister,” as
I was
known at the
time. They didn’t
understand why all
of a
sudden they had to
keep a schedule. They were
used to
doing pretty much anything they wanted during the day, as
long as it was in the backyard. No playmates for them. No
sleepovers. No playdates at the skating rink. Their day was
pretty much just video games and certain TV channels and
programs approved by Phillip. Anyway, I ended up winning
the school battle and before they knew it, I had them going
to school from ten a.m.
to two p.m. I
would print out their
worksheets the night before and put them in special folders
I made for
each of them.
They had four
subjects—math,
spelling/reading,
social studies, and
science. I loved
websites like
enchantedlearning.com and
www.superteacherworksheets.com, which are great for all
subjects. We had
a lot of
printers. Phillip loved
Canon
printers and the separate ink cartridges the brand made. I t
made the printing business a lot cheaper to run because he
filled his own cartridges and bought the ink in bulk. So
I had
everything I needed
to print the worksheets for the girls. We
always had leftover paper around, so that wasn’t a problem
either. I would
stay up late
and print their
worksheets at
night before I went
to bed. In the morning, I would get up
at
about nine to start my day. I would wake the girls up and tell
them to get up and get dressed for the day, then go inside
the studio building (now called the office) and make some
Hills Bros. Cappuccino,
double mocha flavor,
while I
watched the Today show.
The girls would come in and want to go up to the house
to get some breakfast. Phillip told
them they must always
call first. The girls and I
grew up knowing he was on parole
for the rape of a woman in his past. I t wasn’t something we
questioned him on.
Phillip was afraid
his parole agent
would show up unexpectedly and he didn’t want the agent
to see where the
girls came from. He was sleeping in the
house lately with
Nancy and his
mom. He didn’t
want
anybody to see the back property. I
always thought it was
so strange that not one of Phillip’s parole agents knew that
the property extended further back. I just figured they didn’t
care and thought Phillip was a totally rehabilitated
offender.
I wanted
something to change. I
wanted his parole agents
to ask questions.
I f Phillip wouldn’t
be able to
answer,
maybe something would
change. I also
feared whatever
change would come. I
didn’t have anywhere to go. I had
the
girls to take care of. But I
wanted them to have a better life. I
just couldn’t do it for myself. I needed someone to free me,
but no one did.
I , however, have mixed feelings about high school. On the
one hand, for eighteen years I had been taught that schools
are bad and kids learn bad things there and peer pressure
can ruin a
child’s life forever;
but when I
consider who I
heard all this
stuff from, a kidnapper,
rapist, pedophile,
narcissistic,
pervert, I can
only come to
one conclusion.
Maybe school isn’t so
bad after all! I don’t know what my
high school experience would have been like. Part of me
would like to go back in time and take that first step out
of
the car as
a new freshman,
and part of me
is so glad I
didn’t have to. I
look at my daughter and see what it could
have been like for me had I
not been kidnapped and taken
away from my life at the age of eleven.
Both of my girls are going to school full-time now. When
they first made this decision, I didn’t want them to see how
the idea scared me
to death. How all I could
think about
was how much school would change them and how lonely I
would be without
them and how the
thought of anything
happening to them would just kill me. But I knew saying any
of these things aloud wouldn’t help. So I
supported them.
Taking A to shadow
at different high
schools. Helping G
decide what school
and grade would be best
for her.
Taking them back-to-school shopping. And
then before I
knew it, A’s first day arrived. I t was a Tuesday. I made her a
veggie rollup. I
asked how she was feeling, and
she said
she was nervous and excited. A week before, we attended
orientation. What
an experience that was.
I felt so
out of
place, like I
didn’t belong. A nudged me
and said, “Hey,
you’re making me
nervous.” So after that
I really tried
to
seem calm and in the moment. But all I
could think about
was if this is what it would have been like for me. That day
ended up being really good for her; she was nervous about
the other kids, but after seeing that they were just as
scared
as she was, it helped her to not feel so out of place. Unlike
me. I felt very out
of place. I think part of it was being
afraid
people were thinking,
How can she be a mom? I ’m short
and have been told I
look very young for my age, and then
there’s the fact that I
gave birth to her when I was
fourteen.
Of course, people must be curious. Nobody said anything
to me, though. And I
started to relax and just enjoy being on
campus. We
listened to the principal. We watched as he
introduced his assistant and
turned just in
time to see her
pulling a finger out of her nose! That helped to relieve
some
of the tension
that I felt
just from being there. Watching A
getting her student
ID, gym locker,
and watching her
interact with the other kids was an eye-opening experience.
I realized she’s
going to be
okay. And in realizing
that, I
have gained peace of mind.
Walking the high
school grounds brought up feelings of
grief for what I had
lost. I even felt some jealousy and envy
deep down inside.
I should have
had the opportunity
to
have these experiences. But they were forcibly taken away
from me. Now I have
the opportunity to take back a piece of
my life that was taken. I
always dreamed about going back
to school. Sometimes I
even had dreams that Phillip would
let me go to school
and I
would actually dream about my
school days.
Sometimes they would be
so real my mind
sees them as actual events.
Early in my captivity I
felt so alone. I didn’t know
where I
was, so I didn’t
believe anyone could find me. I was
afraid
to try to
get away, thinking
that even if
I could, what
if
something even worse happened to me? I was so scared. I
wonder what would have happened if I was rescued in the
very beginning.
I know I ’m being
redundant and a little off topic here, but
Phillip gave me this awful image of the world. To me a large
part of the world was made up of pedophiles and rapists. I
have come to realize this is not true. There are some really
fantastic, wonderful, and helpful people out here who have
been amazing and comforting and try every day
to do the
right thing. I was
conditioned to think the outside world was
a scary place, and
the only place I was safe and my girls
were safe was to stay with their dad. He always took care
of everything. He always had an answer for everything. I f I
ever questioned him, yes, he would listen, but then he would
tell me why I was
wrong and why only his way would work.
One of the reasons
I stayed was I
wanted my kids to be
safe. The outside world was scary for me.
I was so afraid
that if I
left or tried to
leave and take them both with me, I
wouldn’t be able to protect them. I knew they were so safe
in the backyard; I
didn’t have to worry about anyone taking
them like I was
taken.
Being in the outside world at times still scares me, and
sometimes I want
to hold my kids close and never
let go.
But I know
that I am
1% of the
population. Stranger
abduction is
very rare. I
still have to remind myself of this
fact every time I
drop them off and leave. I hope
they grow
up with a greater sense of self than
I had. I was raised
to
always be polite to
my elders. In most cases this
is right,
but there are
moments in which all
of us need
to have a
backbone and feel that we have the right to say no to adults
if we believe they are doing the wrong thing. You must find
your voice and not be afraid to speak up. I gave my power
to my abductor. I was
the one to comfort him when he was
the one in the wrong. Where was my comfort? Where was
my freedom? Why
did I feel
the need to
comfort my
tormentor? Violating my body was not enough? He had to
violate my mind as
well? He had the ability
to turn every
situation to suit
his needs. What
happened to the
“bullheaded” part of me? I
knew I had to do what he told me
and not complain. My fear was doing something wrong and
Phillip getting mad
and who knows
what would have
happened then. Instinctively, I knew I
had to cooperate with
him or else.
I hated what he was
doing to me, but I felt helpless to do
anything about it. When he would cry afterward and “thank”
me for helping him with his sexual problem, I wanted to yell
and scream to
please let me go. I
didn’t want to help him
with anything. I have
come to realize that Phillip Garrido is
and was a very
selfish man. He took me away
from my
family. From a mother that I
loved with all my soul and I
still
needed desperately.
He did
disgusting things to me. He
told me all along that I
was helping him. He used to cry and
say he was sorry, after he was done with me. And I would
forgive him and say it was okay, that I was okay. I
was not
okay! That was the confusing part—he could be an animal
doing disgusting things to me one minute and then the next
crying and asking for forgiveness. I t confused the hell out
of
me. Now I
know it was
all a part
of his manipulation. A
game he has been playing all his life. When he took Katie
Callaway,
kidnapped and raped
her, he used
the same
excuses he did on me. He had a sex problem he needed
help with. He
used the same
platitudes, such as
don’t
struggle and it will be easier for you. Just let me act out
my
fantasies and everything will go good for you. Basically the
same as what I was
hearing.
Even though I
have forgiven him, it does not negate the
facts. I have learned
so many new facts about him, I ’m not
sure if I have the
right to forgive him. I will probably
struggle
with this question for the rest of my life. Yes, in his mind
he
wanted us to be a family, but when I think back I
can see we
were just pretending.
Pretending everything was
okay.
Pretending the girls didn’t need to go to school. Pretending
that is was normal for me not to be driving. Normal
not have friends. Normal
will always be
their father. Nothing can
change that. There
are so many opportunities out there for all of us now.
I can’t
wait to see what the girls do with their lives now there is
no
one to tell us we can’t climb a mountain in Istanbul
plane over the
Swiss Alps or
even just take
a walk by
ourselves down a quiet street. All this
is open to us now,
where once it was not.
I t still scares me, the fact that I can’t protect my daughters
from everything. What mother wouldn’t want to protect their
child from the dangers of the world? But I have to choose to
believe they will
both be okay and realize that sometimes
when we shelter
our children too
much, we are
really
protecting ourselves.
My mom survived
the loss of me. I
think it was a good
thing she had my
sister to keep
her busy. But she
never
gave up hope of finding me one day. I know this now. For a
long time I
chose not to think about certain things
like my
mom because it
was just
too painful. Sometimes I
would
think about
“what ifs” or remember certain times we were
together, but mostly
I just tried not
to think at all. I
used to
only allow myself to think about her on her birthday. I would
give myself permission to cry and think about her only then.
Sometimes my mind would not cooperate and wander with
thoughts of her. Did she stay in Tahoe?
Is she thinking of
me? One time I got
this strange feeling that she was gone
from the world. I
remember I felt devastated.
I had to keep
convincing myself
that it wasn’t
true and to
stop scaring
myself like that. Thank God it wasn’t true.
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