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BOOKS
It's theme; Family Protection A
Mother—and—Daughter Cindy's Story Over and over I wondered if we really needed to hear the awful stories being told in the program. Why couldn't we just learn how to defend ourselves without the stories? I didn't really want to know what happened during kidnapping and rape. But we stayed. My friends questioned my judgment in introducing my daughter to this world of violence and crime. They feared the stories would have a devastating and negative effect on her. Well, they did have an effect, they saved her life. She listened, she remembered the stories, and she made her decision—she would refuse to submit to any attacker. She would scream, resist, and fight to protect herself. Five years later, in 1989, when she was at college, I got a phone call one early Saturday morning in October. My daughter, who was living a half mile off campus, called to say that a man had tried to rape her and that he had cut her some. She assured me everything was under control, and there was no need to come up to be with her. I was on an airplane in ninety minutes. A man had snuck into her house, used a knife from her own kitchen, and tried to rape her. Her response was instantaneous, thanks to her training. I'm so pleased I didn't weaken when I began to question whether or not we should attend that real-life course. It made all the difference in her life and mine. Wendy's
Story My body seemed to slip away from me. It was like I was stepping out of my body and seeing this happen to me. He planned to rape me, I knew it. A paralyzing fear started to overwhelm me. I could feel my strength draining away. But, just as suddenly, something in my mind shouted, "Don't give up." I was starting to feel anger. His pants were off. His knife was pressed against my neck. I remember fighting the urge to give up. He was trying to get my legs apart. Something in me was shouting, "Stop him—fight him." It's funny what goes through your head in a crisis. I remember from the training program, we were told it would be that way, our mind would float, that we would have to fight against that. I had to concentrate, to focus. Then I did something I never thought I was capable of: I grabbed the knife blade. With my other hand, I struggled to gouge his eyes. I didn't have time to hesitate. I just did it. Grabbing his knife is what stopped him from raping me. I remember thinking, "You'll have to cut off my fingers, I hate you." Anger and fear drove me. I think hating him helped me hold on to the knife. .. to have made the decision: he would have to cut off my fingers before he raped me. Something inside exploded, something I didn't know was there. He told me, "I'll kill you." I thought, "You had better mean it, you son-of-a-bitch, because I'm going to fight this." I struggled to free my mouth. I started creaming. I have never screamed that loud. I was screaming my housemate's name—I knew she was home sleeping in the other room. Then I heard her screaming. That made him jump up. He tried to take off, to run. Blood was everywhere; on my sheets, my pillows, my face, my nightgown. He let go of the knife when he bolted away from me and off my bed. He was trying to get his pants on and escape. I lunged after him. I had the knife in my hand. My hands were slashed and dripping with blood, but I didn't feel a thing. I remember hearing in our training program about a woman who had grabbed her attacker's knife the instant it was out of his hand. That story had stuck in my mind. I was still screaming. I should have gone the other way and escaped, but I didn't. It was as though I was no longer in control of my body. I stabbed, him right in the face with his own knife as he was trying to fix his pants. He took off leaving a trail of blood. In fact, he even dropped his wallet—that's how he was caught. I must admit to being proud that I didn't give up. I knew I must resist the attack—I had to fight it. It was just one of my personal survival decisions I learned about. A decision I had made a long time ago and didn't have to think about when it faced me. I remember believing I would win. I was going to end it now—my way, not his way. I never questioned myself. There was no time. I listened to those rape stories. They helped me make up my mind. That night, my adrenaline exploded and the action seemed to come naturally. Another thing that helped me—I knew I was going to be cut, I expected it, so when it happened, it didn't scare me. I was badly cut, but he didn't get what he came for. It's been several years since it all happened, and I don't always sleep well at night. I have nightmares and some bad memories. My mind goes back to that night now and then. But, I'll tell you this . . . as bad as it was, it could have been a lot worse. What
Wendy Did Wrong What
They Did Right Wendy decided she feared rape more than injury. That was a pivotal decision. She knew she could be injured, so she wasn't paralyzed by fear. She had made a bottom-line decision: she would make raping her the hardest thing a man ever does against her. For
the Record Wendy's attacker was a teacher with a prior criminal record for sexual assult. He was sentenced to six years for his attack on Wendy, served two, and is now out on parole as a registered sex offender. He got his former teaching job back. Something is wrong when a rapist is paroled and allowed to teach again. I recall a talk show host's referring to Wendy's response as courageous and fearless. I said to him, "Courage is overcoming fear, not being fearless." Fear can paralyze and panic the strongest of us or fill the weakest with courage beyond any degree they've ever known—courage driven by a rage-filled determination. Which it will be for you, if you are ever targeted for a violent crime, depends on which you fear most: injury against yourself in trying to escape or control by the attacker and his crimes against you? It is essential to remember that initial injury is far from the worst consequence of violent crime. Once he has you under control and isolated, you may face death, and as a woman, torture and rape, too. If what you fear more than anything else is injury, you will not have the determination necessary to escape a criminal attack. Never. When frozen by fear of injury, you will believe all the criminal's promises, you'll be unable to concentrate on saving yourself, and you'll never notice any fleeting opportunities to escape. The criminal will use your fear to control everything you do. Then you're his— "bought and paid for," as cops refer to it.
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