Posted on 08/28/2009 4:24:46 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Elizabeth Smart knows what Jaycee Dugard — the 29-year-old woman who surfaced after being abducted 18 years ago by a sex offender — is going through.
"I would tell her to just relax and enjoy your family and spend some time reconnecting," Smart, 21, told Anderson Cooper on "AC 360" Thursday.
Smart, who was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City bedroom in 2002 and held captive for almost a year, says one of the best things Dugard can do is to move forward and "not [let] this horrible event take over and consume the rest of your life."
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"I would just encourage her to find different passions in life and continually push forward and learn more and reach more for them," says Smart, who has written a pamphlet to help other victims, "and not to look behind, because there's a lot out there."
Dugard was reunited with her family Thursday. Her abductor enslaved her in a cluster of sheds in a "hidden backyard within a backyard," raped her and had two children with her before he was arrested this week, police revealed at a news conference Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.msnbc.msn.com ...
Ping
Elizabeth Smart didn’t come home with two teenage children though.
The teenagers may have helped Jaycee to survive. Who knows? Eighteen years is a long time-—well over half of Jaycee’s life. Elizabeth seems to have found the key to moving on and not allowing her horrible misfortune to steal from the rest of her life. My prayer is that Jaycee and her daughters will be able to do the same. It’s going to take some time and some trusting in the Lord.
She'll spend the rest of her life dealing with it.
I have to wonnder how Jaycee's mother will make a family out of all of this. The issues they will deal with are beyond my imagination. So many lives ruined by this monster...
True, but how many victims of this kind are available to give encouragement? Likewise to Ms. Dugard’s parents.
not trying to be hard on ES, but her case is completely different ...this young girl was taken forcibly at age 11, not 14...and was kept in horrid circumstances... for many, many years.....its going to be a much more difficult time for the Dugard girls....for one thing, I'm sure their folks are not rich...
Elizabeth’s case was obviously very different. Not much had changed about her world in the 9 months she was gone. Her family still lived in the same house with the same number of members, still attending the same ward of the same church. She was still about to start high school. Her harp teacher was still teaching and ready to pick up right where Elizabeth had left off. The possibility existed for Elizabeth to focus on resuming the nice normal life she been snatched out of, and she latched onto that possibility and made it a reality.
Obviously Jaycee’s situation is very, very different — 18 years elapsed, her parents divorced, two adolescent daughters of own, etc. But to be fair to the media, and to Elizabeth, Elizabeth is one of tiny handful of stranger-abducted sex abuse victims who’ve ever turned up alive after more than a couple of weeks. She also seems to be the one who has made the most complete recovery from the trauma, and she seems comfortable speaking about her experience in public (though not with giving any graphic details, thankfully). She’s hardly in a position to really understand what Jaycee’s mental condition is, or what will help her, but the professional psychologists/therapists are probably grasping at straws too, so Elizabeth’s insights are valuable as a starting point.
The most obvious comparable case is woman in Austria who was held for many years in her father’s basement, having children he sired, who never saw the light of day. But I gather that she and her children are at such an early stage of their recovery that they’re not likely to be in a position to offer advice, much less to offer it via the media. I do think (and expect) that the therapists who will be working with Jaycee and her children will consult with the therapists who have been working with the Austrian woman and her children.
Sure, Jaycee - just get over it. Get over growing up captive and victim of a sex fiend who stole you from your home and denied you your childhood, teenhood and womanhood. Just forget about it.
This self-appointed expert thinks one year is like 18 formative years in a person’s life.
Wrong.
In a just world, in a couple of years after Jaycee figures out who she is, she would be allowed to enter a room with her abductors bound, with only a ball peen hammer....
“In a just world, in a couple of years after Jaycee figures out who she is, she would be allowed to enter a room with her abductors bound, with only a ball peen hammer....”
That is very appealing. However, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” - Romans 12:19
This is hard at first, but then you see that The Lord will do a better job on those abductors than you could. Better that they had had a rock tied to them and were thrown into the sea than the Lord’s retribution. Unless they repent.
They don’t sound in control of their minds enough to do that.
She might also need a blow torch and some dental tools.
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