my-life-on-the-run-blog

[my-life-on-the-run-blog]

Why I Do This

When I came back to Hedaby I was lost. It had been 40 years since I had last seen my family and the only remaining member of my intermediate family was my mother who I was never that close with in the first place. At first, I didn't really know what to do until my Uncle Henrick suggested I speak out about what happened to me. I knew instantly that the best way to do this would be to make a blog so that I could use it to communicate with the younger generations of people to inform them about what happened to me and what the best way would be to prevent it from happening again. When I found out that in 2015 alone 3.0% of women in Sweden had experienced sexual violence (according to bra.se) I was disgusted to say the very least. However, this number is inaccurate because of the amount of unreported sexual assaults. So many cases of rape go unreported on daily basis because of the stigma that is attached to a rape victim. Many people blame them claiming they seduced their attacker or that they wanted it to happen. This needs to stop now! People who are raped are not just reporting it for attention they are reporting it because they were sexually assaulted and they don't want it to happen to them or anyone else ever again. They report it because they want to see their rapist sitting behind bars so that the other women in their community do not have to live in fear.

Sources:

https://www.bra.se/bra-in-english/home/crime-and-statistics/rape-and-sex-offences.html

[my-life-on-the-run-blog]

Family Photo

Photos of my father (top) and my brother (bottom). 

[my-life-on-the-run-blog]

Before I Ran

I was born in Sweden on the island of Hedeby, to Isabella and  Gottfried Vanger. My childhood wasn't the greatest but things didn't start to get truly bad till I was fourteen years old, this was when I discovered what a true monster my father was. He always had a habit of getting drunk and he was an angry drunk. But I didn't find out how horrific it was until I was fourteen years old, I was in the small cabin on my family property when my father showed up unexpectedly and in a drunken rage, he raped me. After this time he continued to do it repeatedly and eventually he even got my brother Martin to join him. One day when I had enough I ran from him and Martin. I ran down to the pier as he chased after me and in self-defense, I hit him with a boat oar and pushed him into the water. I then held him under till the surface went still. When I turned around I saw my brother standing there looking at me in horror. Shortly there after this, my Uncle Henrik sent him away to boarding school. For a short period of time, I was free from everything and I could finally live the life of a young teenage girl and do things like be with my friends and go out in public to events such as the children's day parade without worry. However, this relief didn't last long, at the 1966 children's day parade my brother came home unannounced. As soon as I realized he had returned to Hedeby I attempted to tell My Uncle Henrick everything but he was busy and could not listen to me speak. It was in this moment that I decided to run away far away. With the help of my cousin Anita I managed to make it all the way to Australia. I stayed hidden here for over forty years before Mikael Blomkvist found me.