Jaycee Lee Dugard describes how she survived Garrido torture

CBS ^ | July 11, 2011 | Edecio Martinez

[scorpa]

In her first television interview, an emotional Jaycee Lee Dugard talked about why she was speaking out about the pain and determination she felt as she was held captive for nearly two decades by convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido.

"Why not look at it? You know, stare it down until it can't scare you anymore," she told ABC News' Diane Sawyer. "I didn't want there to be any more secrets...I hadn't done anything wrong. It wasn't something I did that caused this to happen. And I feel that by putting it all out there, it's very freeing."

Dugard was clear and composed throughout her interview on Sawyer's show "Primetime" that aired Sunday night, but grew emotional when she talked about seeing the first of two girls fathered by Phillip Garrido.

When Sawyer asked how old she was at the time of the birth in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Antioch she said "14."

"It was very painful," said Dugard as tears welled in her eyes. "She came out and then I saw her. She was beautiful. I felt like I wasn't alone anymore. I had somebody who was mine."

Dugard appeared younger than her 31 years as she talked to Sawyer on a couch and on a porch at her California home. The blond hair she had in now-familiar photographs from her childhood is now reddish-brown, and she wore a red sweater and a necklace with a pinecone charm on it, representing the last thing she touched before her 18-year captivity.

"It's a symbol of hope and new beginnings and that there is life after something tragic," Dugard said about her necklace.

The interview came on the eve of Dugard's memoir about her time in captivity, "A Stolen Life," which will be released Tuesday.

[scorpa]

This young woman is incredible. She went through 18 years of unimaginable horror, and she somehow remains so positive and full of love and life. She could have given up and forever saw herself as a victim, but she chose to be a survivor. God bless her!

[copaliscrossing]

I watched the show last night and I am amazed at how composed she is after all this. The mom on the other hand still has A LOT of bitterness built up but I can’t blame her at all. I’m glad Kaycee is taking her therapy seriously and protecting her daughters from all this. She is a strong young women and I wish her the best in the days and years to come.

I really wish someone other than Diane Sawyer had done this interview. That woman is like fingernails on a chalkboard. She has to be the worst interviewer in the history of TV.

[copaliscrossing]

OOOPS... Kaycee = Jaycee. Fingers ahead of brain!!!! LOL!

[NCC-1701]

Indeed she is. It’s incredible that she came through her ordeal the way she did. Sure she’s undergoing therapy but she is so positive and strong. It was amazing to hear how she survived those 18 stolen years. Her mother is just as strong but in different way. God bless them.

I do hope that Phillip Garrido and his wife has a very enjoayble time in their respective prisons. I hope that they are made to realize that what they did was wrong and that their friends in the joint makes it very clear that they understand that. They need to be reminded EVERY SINGLE DAY they are in prison. Abuse a child and you’re dead meat inside. Your buddies will take care of you in their way. Remember Jeffrey Dhammer?

[brytlea]

I agree, she seems amazingly well adjusted. I wish her nothing but the best of life, and her children as well. I would be interested in her story, I hope it makes her a boatload of money and that she can find something positive to do with her life (I don’t at all doubt that she can, she just seems amazingly resilient). And what a beautiful person she is inside and outside.
I hope her kids are also well adjusted and healthy too. A horrible story with a happy ending.

[I cannot think of a name]

“I do hope that Phillip Garrido and his wife has a very enjoayble time in their respective prisons.”

Prisons? We have a HUGE budget deficit. A national lottery, involving a pair of needle nose pliers and Phillip Garrido strapped to a chair in a sound proof room. Winner gets 30 minutes, runner-up gets 15, third place gets 5.

We'd have a big dent in the deficit in no time.

[copaliscrossing]

I do hope that Phillip Garrido and his wife has a very enjoayble time in their respective prisons. I hope that they are made to realize that what they did was wrong and that their friends in the joint makes it very clear that they understand that. They need to be reminded EVERY SINGLE DAY they are in prison. Abuse a child and you’re dead meat inside. Your buddies will take care of you in their way. Remember Jeffrey Dhammer?

YES! There seems to be a "code" on the "inside" in which those that have harmed a child are treated harshly.... to say the least. I guess in a kind of warped way, you have to like that.

[AUJenn]

I was STUNNED at how ‘normal’ she seemed. Well-spoken, she sounded very educated and intelligent. Amazingly forgiving and calm. I have no idea how one would get through that ordeal without literally losing their mind.

So shocking and appalling that law enforcement visited that house 60 times and never saw her.

Did I hear it correctly that the state of CA awarded the family $20 million?

[pepperdog]

I heard that also, but 20 mil in CA before State and Fed taxes probably equals 10K or some such. It should be tax free and those DPS employees who so neglected their duties should be fired, but I bet they are still drawing their wages.

[Talisker]

I was STUNNED at how ‘normal’ she seemed. Well-spoken, she sounded very educated and intelligent. Amazingly forgiving and calm. I have no idea how one would get through that ordeal without literally losing their mind.

Two thoughts.

First, it is possible you didn't see her at all - that nobody has seen her in a very long time, because she snapped under the strain and became psychotic. So it's all a "survival" act, whether in captivity or on television to her, and she'll never get out of that surivival mode.

Second, if my first thought is NOT true, then you are seeing EXACTLY how someone would HAVE to be if they were going to come out of such hell sane. Think it through - facing difficulties, psychologically and emotionally "processing" them, is usually optional in life, because the things that happen to people are not, usually, all that traumatic. The pissing and moaning is huge, but the ACTUAL trauma is usually not. So most people "play" at facing things, deep down inside.

But when things ARE really bad - really, really bad, insane bad, killing bad, with nowhere to turn, then you do it right, or you die. Die through physical death, die through insanity, it doesn't matter - you get it right, or you die. And if you have to endure such a status of trauma reality processing for a prolonged period of time, it changes you. It becomes a spiritual exercise on the level that renunciates and even some saints go through. And you are NOT the same person when the testing ends - you have literally been purified by fire, when personal honesty, between you and yourself and God, was the ONLY thing that saved you, for a LONG time.

Such people become immensely spiritually strong - far beyond the understanding of what passes for normal on this Earth, and far beyond any "churchism." They're the Real Deal.

[supremedoctrine]

I didn’t see the interview but I cringed when I heard Diane Sawyer would be doing it, as she is the ICKIEST, fake wet-eyed interviewer around, and has been for years.
I still remember her ridiculous interview with Marge Schott over her presumably ‘racist’ comments: Diane was near tears as she tried to save Schott from her deepseated racism, as the question of Schott’s biases come up——Diane asked “Will you TRY to change?????? Will you at least TRRRRYYYYYY????”
God it was an awful moment.
Sawyer seems to be the go-to gal for interviews of this kind, which are designed to be a feather in HER OWN cap, if no one else’s.

[geologist]

She is lovely, sweet, kind and seemingly withour rancor.

She is correct ... none of it was her doing. Somehow she was able or adapt and teach her children. A miracle before us.

Amazing! God was with her.

[Talisker]

I didn’t see the interview but I cringed when I heard Diane Sawyer would be doing it, as she is the ICKIEST, fake wet-eyed interviewer around, and has been for years.

They probably chose her to trivialize the legitimacy of the sanity and moral courage of Jaycee. Slime-by-scripted-association is one of the MSM's little tricks that liberals are too stupid to recognize, while conservatives can't believe anyone would be fooled by such a cheap and shameful trick.

[bigbob]

Have to agree, just an amazing person.

[supremedoctrine]

extraordinarily well-put.
But would you place, say, John McCain in the same formula?

[a fool in paradise]

The wife is the one who selected the girl and did the kidnapping yet she only got charged with 10% of the time her husband got.

[Sybeck1]

Hopefully both of these wretches will get shanked out in general population someday. You do not collect people!!!

[davius]

Prisoners retain all of the basic instincts that impel everyone else. They want to provide for their families yet they cannot provide. They want to protect their loved ones yet they are unable to protect them. They know better than most, the kind of monsters that can hide behind a human face. The visceral disgust that the average person feels toward Garrido is amplified a hundredfold in the impotent echo chamber of a cell. Garrido and his ilk represent the worst fears of the inmate population with regard to their families. That is why child molesters and rapists are hated and targeted in the prison population. There isn't anything noble about it. Many of those who take the most aggressive stance are one opportunity away from being the same creature themselves yet they lack the insight to detect that no “normal” person would feel comfortable in leaving them alone with their wife or child. Regardless, they have their instincts and those instincts are frustrated and denied them. When faced with a personification of their fears; like Garrido, the population slavers to strike their personal blow to extinguish the anxieties that consume them. Of course, the authorities recognize this and will take measures to protect his well-being because that is their job. But institutional memories are incredibly porous, personnel change, and it is the nature of inmates to work towards more; not less, freedom. In a correctional setting there are only two states of time. There is Right Now and there is Not Right Now. When Right Now arrives for Garrido, there will be an inmate who sleeps better that night. Not because he has removed a burden from society but because he believes he has sent a message to all the other monsters to leave his family off their list of prowls.

[Elendur]

“YES! There seems to be a “code” on the “inside” in which those that have harmed a child are treated harshly....”
///
and davius explains it extremely well.
i’ve often seen this idea of “prison justice” expressed here.

but i’m ASHAMED that we need to rely on criminals,
to illegally give the punishment that is so richly deserved.

...”I cannot think of a name” is closer to how it should be!

if society cannot have the courage to punish those, who victimize the most vulnerable and innocent members of that society, that is beyond shameful.