Yes, I could have decided to allow myself to be handicapped by what happened to me. But I decided very early that I only had one life and that I wasn’t going to waste it.
As of this writing, I am twenty-five years old. I have been alive for 307 months. Nine of those months were pretty terrible. But 298 of those months have been very good. I have been happy. I have been very blessed. Who knows how many more months I have to live? But even if I died tomorrow, nine out of 307 seems like pretty good odds.
Looking at it that way, I don’t think I have much to complain about.
People sometimes ask me if I am happy. Have I truly been able to move on with my life? Have things turned out okay for me? I want you to know that they have. I am happy. I am fulfilled. I am satisfied and at peace with myself and the life that I have built.
I once heard an old saying: I never said it would be easy; I only said it would be worth it. I think that’s about right. Like everyone, I have my challenges. But I have learned from them and they have helped to make me better.
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There is one other very important explanation for why I’ve been able to overcome what happened to me.
I believe in gratitude.
When I first got home from being kidnapped, I was so grateful to be back with my family, so grateful that they cared and had not given up on me. I was so grateful for a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in, and hot water to take a bath. I was so grateful for food to eat, for shoes that fit, for clean cloths. I was grateful for literally everything.
Then, when my mom shared her advice with me, I made the firm resolution that I would always be grateful and never feel sorry for myself. I resolved that whenever I might have any doubts or moments of weakness—and I knew that they would come—I would tell myself, Elizabeth, you have everything back now! But you remember all those hard times, right? And because you remember all those hard times, you can remember the depth of your gratitude.
And I have also learned that my challenges can help me reach out to others with more empathy and understanding than I could ever have had before.
When we are faced with a challenge, it is very easy to be mad or upset. But when we have passed our great test, we are then given opportunities to reach out to other people. We are able to effect change in a way that otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to.
Because of the things I have lived through, I can help other people now. I can reach out to other victims and help them to learn to be happy. Because I have actually lived through these experiences, I am able to be a voice for change. If I hadn’t had this terrible experience, I’m not sure that I would have cared enough about these issues to become involved. And even if I did become involved, I wouldn’t be able to do many of the things that I’ve been able to do. I’d be just another young girl who doesn’t really know what she’s talking about.
I am grateful for these opportunities that I’ve had to help other people. They have blessed my life.
Gratitude has also helped me to keep a healthy perspective.
One of my favorite movies is Ever After with Drew Barrymore. For those of you who have not seen it, it is another version of Cinderella. One of my favorite lines from the movie is when the evil stepmother tells Cinderella, “We mustn’t ever feel sorry for ourselves, because no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse!”
Now, I know that sounds kind of pessimistic, but when I was being held captive, every time I thought that things couldn’t get any worse, somehow they always did.
So instead of looking at the evil stepmother’s words as being coldhearted and mean, I now translate them to say, “We always have something to be grateful for because there will always be something that could make your situation worse.”
The first time Mitchell made me go naked and said we were playing “Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden” I didn’t think anything could be worse.
Now I look back and I am grateful that I wasn’t being filmed and then exploited and traded through the Internet like so many other children have been. I’m so grateful that my captors were strangers and in no way connected with me. I don’t have to go home every night and see them, or see pictures of them hanging on the wall, or know that even though my family is so upset with what they might have done to me, there is still a piece of their hearts that cares and loves the abusers because they are their children, or parents, or brothers and sisters.
And there were other examples too.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Mitchell made me do something that made me sick. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I went seven days without anything to eat. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Mitchell made me drink until I woke up in my own vomit.