A Stolen Life - A Memoir Part 1

A stolen life : a memoir.

by Jaycee Lee Dugard.

Contents

Author's Note

Introduction

The Taking

Stolen

The Secret Backyard

Alone in a Strange Place

The First Time

First Kitty

The First "Run"

Nancy

Easter: Phillip on an Island

Christmas

Learning I Was Pregnant

Driving to a Trailer

Waiting for Baby

Taking Care of a Baby

Sarge

Second Baby

The Starting of Printing for Less

Birth of Second Baby

Raising the Girls in the Backyard

Nancy Becomes "Mom"

Pretending to Be a Family

Cats

Surviving

Discovery and Reunion

Firsts for Me

Milestones

The Difficult Parts of Life

Finding Old Friends

Therapeutic Healing

Meeting with Nancy

Therapeutic Healing with a Twist

Acknowledgments

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. It 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. If you want a less confusing story, come back to me in ten years from now when I sort it all out!

Jacyee Lee Dugard, age eleven

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.