A stolen life written by Jaycee Dugard

In the summer of June of 1991, I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother that loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.
For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.

On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim, I simply survived an intolerable situation. A Stolen Life is my story—in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it.

I just finished reading this book. I didn’t expect many things from it. It is amazing how people get through this and still keep their smiles. She taught me a lot of things. I deeply recommend it. There are a lot of parts that make you think twice. I’m going to type a paragraph that I loved:

Choices are what make us free. But with that freedom comes great responsibility that we are often too afraid to deal with. We all have the ability to make choices in our personal lives. I find myself getting lazy and complacent at times. Why is this? At times, it’s easier to wait for someone else to take the trash out or tell myself not to stop to give that homeless man some money because he scares me. We all are in the same boat. We make choices, decisions, and plans every day of our lives. Do we ever take a moment to catch our breath and remember why we do the things we do?

Regarding to these moms, couples and families we are helping, I would tell them that despite the decision they make, we’ll unconditionally be with them. For instance, we are at the abortion clinic and we see a car driving out. What should we do? Let them go because they just did it? NO! They made that choice, but we need to be there, we need to pray for them, we need to offer our help. If we do it once, maybe there won’t be a second time.