"You just do what you have to do to survive," Dugard said.
In an interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer, Jaycee Dugard speaks publicly for the first time about her kidnapping at the age of 11 and the 18 years she spent locked up in the Antioch backyard of Phillip and Nancy Garrido.
During those years, Dugard says she was never allowed to even say or write her real name.
She spent some nights chained to the bed and gave birth to two daughters, fathered by Garrido.
Dugard says the Garridos studied videos to learn how to deliver a baby themselves. They never allowed her to see a doctor or go to school.
But the moment her first daughter was born, Dugard says she found new strength.
"I felt like I wasn't alone anymore," Dugard said. "And I knew I could never let anything happen to her."
Dugard, who has only a fifth grade education, did her best to educate her daughters -- schooling them at home from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day, while the three of them were imprisoned in the secret backyard compound.
All the while, Dugard was missing her own mother, who cautions parents never to take their children for granted.
"It's a good lesson, you know, take a minute for your kids," she said.
The entire interview airs in a two-hour primetime special, Sunday night at 9 p.m. on ABC7.
