Jacqueline

"In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen. For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation. On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I dont think of myself as a victim. I survived...."

Leah was first thrust under the reality television microscope when her teen pregnancy was documented on MTV's groundbreaking series 16 and Pregnant. Since then, fans of Teen Mom 2 have watched her life play out on the small screen. She has learned to live under the harsh glare of media scrutiny, yet there is a truth behind the reality that the cameras have never revealed.

Dave Pelzer was brutally abused as a child by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother. She considered him a slave - no longer a boy, but an "it". He was physically and mentally tortured and starved. The outside world knew nothing of the nightmare he experienced behind closed doors, and his father was aware of the abuse but turned to denial and alcohol. The abuse only fueled a determination to survive and become stronger.

At 21-years-- old, Hope O Baker made one of the hardest decisions a person can make: She placed her son for adoption. She lived with her son's adoptive mother while she was pregnant and pursued an open adoption. After her son was born, Hope tried to resume her life. But the difficulty of letting her child go gnawed at Hope. Even though she had it together on the outside - graduating college and excelling in her career - on the inside she was battling a destructive cycle of depression and addiction.