Pictured above is the hidden warren of sheds and makeshift tents in the backyard of Phillip and Nancy Garrido, who 18 years ago, abducted Jaycee Lee Dugard. By now all of us know most of the sickening details:
- Jaycee was kept in almost complete isolation in these sheds and tents, one entirely soundproofed and locked.
- She was living under another name, "Allissa".
- She had two daughters, 11 and 15, allegedly the result of rapes by Phillip Garrido, the registered sex offender now charged with kidnapping and holding her.
- A parole officer visited the home several times and never noticed that a woman and two children were being held captive in the backyard.
Why didn't Jaycee ever try to escape? Jerseysista forwarded a couple of articles that provide some clues. Benedict Carey writes in "For Longtime Captives, a Complex Road Home":
. . . perpetrators work hard to win the trust of their victims. "It's a common element," Dr. Wolfe [professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Toronto] said. "The child is frightened, and the perpetrator works to gain or regain the child's confidence, to come across as a really good person: 'I'm not going to hurt you, everything's going to be O.K.' and so on.
"So the child never knows when to fight or run," he continued. "Do I wait and it'll get worse? Or do I believe him and I won't be hurt?"
Humans are wired to form social bonds, and such scraps of kindness can deepen even a relationship built on manipulation and abuse.
In "Bonding with a Captor: Why Jaycee Dugard Didn't Flee," Clara Moskowitz links Jaycee to Stockholm syndrome, where a kidnap victim develops sympathy toward her or his kidnapper:
Many people like to think they would be more objective in such a situation, and would have tried harder than Dugard to escape, but those kind of accusations are part of a persistent problem of blaming the victim, said New York trauma psychologist and author Elizabeth Carll. In truth, Stockholm syndrome appears to be relatively common among the few cases of long-term kidnapping that have been publicized.
"Whenever an abuser shows acts of kindness toward you, it shows you some hope that you will survive," Carll told LiveScience. "That combined with the terror of what could happen sets the stage for wanting to please the abductor, and eventually feeling positive toward the abuser as a way of coping."
Although most of us have never experienced the persistent horror that Jaycee experienced, we all tend to orient our thinking to what makes sense. For example, you may not like your new cell phone, but you paid big bucks for it, therefore you adapt your thinking and convince yourself it's great. Or, you're stuck in a dead-end relationship, but you don't want to be alone. You alter your thinking to become less conflicted. To cope. "At least I won't be alone when I grow old," you tell yourself.
What ways have you lost your objectivity to the point of losing, for a time, even your soul?
I know, we tend to zoom from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other in the sassosphere.
First, thanks to Jersey who helped me think through this post. I had been wanting to post something about it ever since Jaycee was freed, but couldn't quite pinpoint why her story hooked me so.
Second, you don't have to comment specifically about how you've reoriented your thinking in certain situations. This story contains many baffling details. Comment on whatever it brought up/brings up for you.
Last, the post is called, "Lost Souls" because Jaycee isn't the only lost soul in this story.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 06:11 AM
A New York Times article reported that Phillip Garrido was struggling with some sort of mental illness toward the end. Also that he wanted to reveal his ghosts and that's why he was openly handing out religious brochures in public with Jaycee's daughters.
Religion can make one a bit nutty, particularly in re-orienting your thinking. For me, one specific example is how I submerged (for decades) my sexuality because Christians around me -- full of kindness and generosity -- were telling me that acting on it was a profound sin. So I altered my thinking, even ignored my soul, to the point of sending money to Anita Bryant's campaign in Florida. I also remember standing up once at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC (THE church for evangelicals) and sharing how I was fighting the "demon of homosexuality" that Satan had put in my life. Applause, applause and a Lawd-Almighty laying on of hands followed.
Why did I drink that kool-aid? Because it appeared as kindness. But it was not unconditional love. It was an abduction of my soul. Believe this way. Behave this way. Or go to hell. We'll still love you, and we sure will pray for you. But never expect us to be proud of you.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 07:05 AM
"Religion can make one a bit nutty . . . ." What a flair for understatement you have, Flann. Having just visited the 500-foot-tall cross and the praying hands, I feel confident that "a bit nutty" is an understatement.
History also shows that captives will do anything to remain alive including work for their torturers like Jews who worked as kapos in the concentration camps or children who protect abusive parents. No niceness need be involved to make the victims work for the perps.
My guess is that Phillip Garrido and his wife struggled with mental illness all of their lives or Jaycee wouldn't have been taken prisoner in the first place. As to any of us experiencing the "persistent horror" that Jaycee did, I would have to disagree in a way. I think that many of us experienced a much lower level of persistent horror in our lives as children and I base that on knowing many of the stories, but some of us still defend our parents for what they did to demean and damage us. In some ways we are "Stockholm syndrome" cases in more subtle ways.
Off to breakfast. Sass in later.
Posted by: half-a-sista | September 03, 2009 at 08:01 AM
I agree with you, half-a, that many of us are "'Stockholm syndrome' cases in more subtle ways."
During August's Open Mic last Friday, Carolyn posted a potent comment about her mother's addiction. Talking about it later, she called it "madness" to have to witness/experience an obviously stricken parent (mentally, physically, etc.) or be in the middle of a shocking family confrontation and moments later, pretend like nothing is wrong. Or more than a year later, pretend like nothing happened. Or to be the only person in the room and/or family unit who is willing to name truth when he/she sees it. And to have everyone else look at you like YOU are the crazy one. So you shut up. Fly right. Talk about the weather. Or pets. Or the toilet paper sale at Wal-Mart.
All madness. All abductions of the soul. Sometimes by our own hands.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 08:18 AM
To be fair to religions -- some can re-orient your thinking so you become less destructive, i.e., if I had never become a follower of the teachings of Christ, I would have committed suicide. How grateful I am that my thinking was altered regarding the worth of my life.
Eastern religions, especially, have helped millions to live more peaceful, focused lives.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 08:22 AM
What ways have you lost your objectivity to the point of losing, for a time, even your soul?
That is a good question and we need to look at ourselves in the mirror. We all have sold our soul in one fashion or another and then rage to get it back. This poor girl was brutalized by Garrido and we all know he should be eliminated from the universe.
But will we? Is he mentally ill? We will most likely NOT take the step needed and a little more of our collective soul will be gone.
I have always been astounded by things that intelligent folks will do to gain acceptance or avoid conflict. Maybe its just a matter of self esteem or fear. Beats me. All I know, is my soul is best off when I speak my mind and walk my talk.
Posted by: nowayasista | September 03, 2009 at 09:03 AM
I hear your soul, noway. Thanks for speaking your mind.
If I read your correctly, you're saying that by not executing Garrido forthwith and attempting to rationalize his brutalization of Jaycee by calling it "mental illness", we are losing our collective soul. I get that. Doesn't it alarm you that there are scores of Garridos in our neighborhoods? That is one thing that really creeped me out about this story. How no one knew what was going on. Or pretended not to know.
All to say, for every Garrido we execute, there are hundreds more continuing to brutalize -- in overt and subtle ways.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 09:26 AM
The thing that has most bothered me is the example Garrido sets of a repeat offender that was not (I think can not) be rehabilitated. I may be liberal about many things, but I think once someone commits such acts repeatedly (murder or rape, regardless of the age of the victim) they scarcely deserve our pity. At best, lock them up and throw away the key. When I am particularly pissed, I'll go for the solitary room and 15 minutes with the victim's family for revenge. They certainly do NOT deserve parole. We clearly see the failures of that "system". And I also am convinced that Garrido started his law-breaking well before Jaycee, likely before he was even 18.
It is beyond frustrating, enraging, gut-wrenching to consider that our society gives perpetrators like this second, third, however many chances to hurt our children and our families.
Posted by: Chrysosistah | September 03, 2009 at 09:32 AM
I feel compelled to add - I think there is a world of difference between what Garrido (and those of his ilk) do/did, and the childhood traumas we have experienced. I know those traumas are real, substantive and did damage, esp. if our parents were really checked out. But I worry that drawing parallels somehow diminishes the horror Jaycee and her children have lived for years...
Posted by: Chrysosistah | September 03, 2009 at 09:45 AM
I would not worry about diminishing Jaycee's horror by drawing parallels, Chryso. I don't believe we are doing that at all and would add that thinking that might be a subtle way of denying childhood trauma -- however minor one might think it is.
What may seem minor abuse or neglect to us may in fact, have altered someone's life in a major way. How many artists or writers don't exist because a parent or guardian or teacher told them early on that they were no good with a paintbrush or a pen? It's another, more subtle way to hide someone in a warren of mental and spiritual sheds and tents.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 10:52 AM
The justice system is broken, but what are we doing to make it better, correct the problems? Nothing that I know of. The people followed the judge's decision and released him after he served time. I'm sure they had rules that they followed in determining whether or not he was eligible for parole. At his trial on the earlier charge of rape, he told his lawyer that he had found religion and changed as a result. Too many people believe that religion can change someone into someone wonderful. It doesn't usually work that way.
I think that repeat offenders should be murdered after their third offense. The only exceptions would be speeding. Third time, you're dead. That would change behaviors for most people. Most people won't go for that though. They have placed their faith in a legal system that is seriously flawed.
Also, considering the number of sex offenders in America who have done everything from raping children to an 18 year old having sex with a 17-year-old, don't be so quick to dump sex offenders into a giant category.
We have made assumptions that Jaycee and her children lived in a horrible situation. Granted, it started out that way, but people report that Jaycee (Allissa) worked in her "father's" business, answered phones, took orders, dealt with problems, etc. . . . "a very professional woman." We don't know if the children were mistreated, but they went to a birthday party right before their father was arrested and, though odd, seemed to enjoy themselves. I want to hear from Jaycee and her girls.
We have so many sexual abusers because our country has such a f**ked up attitude about sex. We use it to sell everything from underarm deodorant to diapers, but can't see it, talk about it, or teach kids about it without starting trouble.
Posted by: half-a-sista | September 03, 2009 at 12:08 PM
I heard several interesting and strange details on the news this morning about this case.
The first "known" rape he committed was with a 14-year old girl. He was 21. She didn't want to press charges.
He wouldn't have been released "under today's laws," whatever that means.
Jaycee taught her girls to read and write, plus they had access to the internet.
When he served time in jail, that meant the wife had to take care of the girls and obviously agreed to keep this awful secret.
This guy is a repeat offender. Rehabilitation appears to be something that would never happen for him. Why let him out? But as half-a mentions there are now "sex offenders" that are labeled such for having sex with their willing, underage girlfriends, so you can't throw everyone into a single category.
Something's wrong with this guy. Is he mentally ill? I don't know, but he needs to be kept out of society. His wife boggles my mind even more.
Posted by: Matissta | September 03, 2009 at 12:55 PM
Did some reading on the wife, Nancy. She was raised a Jehovah's Witness and probably met Philip when she went to Leavenworth to visit a relative who was also a prisoner. She married the imprisoned Philip in 1988. When Philip was released he took her home to Calfornia to care for his demented mother.
He spent 38 days in jail for a parole violation and Nancy had to watch the children (although her lawyer says that isn't a good assumption to make).
It looks like another "Stockholm Syndrome" defense in the making for Nancy. She worked in the community as a nurse aide in caring for disabled adults and got high marks for her work.
We will never unravel all of this tortuous trail of terror and tears. The question is, Where do we go from here?"
Now Philip and Nancy consider themselves to be very religious. God changed them. Oh, forgot, there is the murder of the young woman and the two or three prostitutes that the police are looking into as possible crimes committed by Philip.
Posted by: half-a-sista | September 03, 2009 at 01:28 PM
How many of us have stayed in emotionally abusive relationships and/or dead-end relationships? Why does it boggle your mind, Matissta? Day after day, year after year, we tell ourselves that tomorrow, "He will be different" or "Maybe I can change," blah, blah, blah.
People do desperate things when they are lonely.
half-a-sista: you kind of went Old Testament on me with the "Third time. You're dead" advice. Kind of Taliban-esque, don't you think? You picturing a pit in the center of town square where we all gather round and stone these folks to death?
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 01:29 PM
Abduction, imprisonment, non-consensual sex especially with a child -- all of these things are beyond horrible. They are criminal. When you add the torturous pain suffered by the family of the abducted child and the child’s own terror, it is all unthinkably cruel.
Nonetheless, the doctors and psychiatrists have legitimate concerns that Jaycee and her children may be going through yet another trauma of being ripped from the “family” she has been a part of for eighteen years -- longer than her life before with her natural family. While we and everyone reading of her plight see the crime for what it is, it seems that Jaycee, like other captives, most likely came to sympathize with and identify with her captors. Her mind adjusted and reconciled her horror into something that made sense. She coped. She adapted. After eighteen years, it seems she may not feel so much the victim.
This is what has captivated me about this story. It’s the mind’s ability to create a new reality. One of the articles, indicated that persons abducted as children need to realize that, as a child, they could not have done differently but the other article points out that the Stockholm syndrome is just as potent when it is an adult that is imprisoned.
It made me think. As much as I would like to think I would be impervious to falling victim to some captor, I in fact am just as malleable as Jaycee and others (maybe even Nancy Garrrido). Just living in a relationship with a person who, by her habits and my compliance, marginalized me from friends and society, I adapted and rationalized a relationship for 17 years that I couldn’t see was crippling and deadening. It was sucking the soul out of me because my mind was unwilling to face a measly fear of being alone. What would I do if I were in Jaycee’s place where I was forced to be nice to my abductor because of very real and present physical danger and yet know that abductor was abhorrent? Would my mind not have refashioned reality and convinced me that my abductor was kind. Would my mind not have concocted a story that made my circumstances endurable?
Posted by: Jerseysista | September 03, 2009 at 01:29 PM
half-a: I believe that the Garridos have been cleared of those prostitution murders. I seem to recall reading that somewhere. Wouldn't matter, anyway. They are still, to use Jersey's words, "unthinkably cruel."
However, they are unthinkably cruel because they are human, not because they are religious. Religion is not responsible for their actions. They are responsible for their actions.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 02:03 PM
Jersey: you are so clear and transparent in your comment . . . it left me gasping a bit for air. Thank you for your generosity and honesty. You helped to clarify what hooked me so about this story -- and you did it much more cogently and directly that I have done so far.
You had to extricate yourself from SO much to leave that relationship. I'm stunned by your courage not only to finally see what was truly going on, but to follow your heart and get the hell out of Dodge. Very brave.
When I read your phrase, "the mind's ability to create a new reality," I recall the time when I was in 8th grade, casually sharing with a friend that my mother had run out of toothpaste while putting it on my brush to brush my teeth the night before. My friend said, "You mom still brushes your teeth? That's weird." My first thought in response was not to wonder why it was weird, but to wonder why HER mother still wasn't brushing HER teeth. "What a bad mom she must have," I thought.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 02:13 PM
Flann, I think your last comment sheds light on distinctions between some of the earlier comments today. The ability of the mind to create a different reality when one is a victim is different than the ability of a person to rationally justify certain actions. Your experience as an eighth-grader is the former. Those who rationalize away just punishment, like those to whom noway was referring, are the latter.
For the victim it is hard to see, except in hind-sight and the light of freedom, that her perceptions were anything but ordinary.
Posted by: Jerseysista | September 03, 2009 at 02:52 PM
One way I lost objectivity early in life was by ignoring pain rather than facing and learning from it. While there were benefits to this strategy, the toll on my soul was great.
I understand that we adapt to our circumstances, but that isn't all bad obviously. In this horrific situation for Jaycee, I hope part of her recovery will both allow for her going along with what made sense, but also naming what her captors did as wrong, no matter how kind they may have been at times.
Posted by: babysis | September 03, 2009 at 02:53 PM
Oh, and in my mind, except that your mother, Flann, obtained her prisoners through natural child birth rather than abduction, there is not much difference between her and Garrido.
Posted by: Jerseysista | September 03, 2009 at 02:57 PM
Me too, babysis. I hope Jaycee can come to name what her captors did wrong.
Posted by: Jerseysista | September 03, 2009 at 02:59 PM
Sorry that your soul was taxed, babysis. Seems pretty healthy to me, now, though I'm not exactly an expert. Thanks for commenting.
Thanks, Jersey, for articulating the distinctions. Young kids don't have a huge bank of experience to cull from in abusive situations, particularly in closed households. Eighth grade was clearly when I realized something was very wrong about my mother's boundaries. I'm certain that some of my friends may have said something about it sooner than that, but I didn't hear it, or chose not to. Why did I start to hear it in eighth grade? What circumstances came together that triggered huge questions about my mother's physical impropriety?
Was it inside me that stood up to her within the confines of her house? What WAS it?
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 03:05 PM
I love you dearly for your support, Jersey, but my mother is not a convicted sex offender like Garrido -- and I don't think I'm trying to protect an abuser. She was undoubtedly abused herself -- as I'm certain Garrido was, which may be why I'm not willing to kill him outright.
Let me say this, however. By NOT naming what your "captors" did wrong is a very slow and torturous way to murder your soul. The sooner you recognize it and name it, the sooner your soul can thrive. I feel fortunate that I have come as far as I have, but I never expected at this age to still be unhooking myself from a very insidious and constricting web.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 03:13 PM
. . . and that's with YEARS and THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS of therapy and the tireless patience and love of a chosen family.
"Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in."
It always happens when I least expect it in the oddest of circumstances and places.
Only I can free myself.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 03:17 PM
half-a: I am assuming that you were being cynical with your, "Third time. You're dead." comment, right? That's why I was kind of cynical with my stoning-in-the-center-of-town comment.
Posted by: Flannista | September 03, 2009 at 03:22 PM