Yet, some of the most overwhelming memories come from her first two years of freedom which she and her children have spent reunited with her mother.
"Wow. Now I can walk in the next room and see my mom. Wow. I can decide to jump in the car and go to the beach with the girls. Wow. It's unbelievable. Truly," Dugard said in an exclusive interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer.
Dugard was kidnapped by Phillip and Nancy Garrido when she was just 11 years old in 1991 and held captive in a backyard compound.
She was subjected to rape, manipulation and verbal abuse. She gave birth to two daughters fathered by her abductor in that backyard prison.
Dugard lived in virtual solitary confinement until her first daughter was born three years into captivity and wasn't allowed to spend time outdoors until after her second daughter was born, more than six years after her abduction.
She writes that the closest thing to freedom she ever felt in the compound was when she was allowed to live in her own tent and plant a small garden.
Now, Dugard is telling all in a new memoir, "A Stolen Life," and in her exclusive interview with Sawyer.
She's taking an unflinching look at the horror she's overcome and giving an unsparing account of the way a predator operates and how she survived.
