I don't think I'm unusual in that, in my 20s, like many people, I felt invincible.

I'm afraid of elevators, because they are an enclosed space, but I get in.

I used my captors names every chance I had. It was intentional, a way of reminding them that I saw them, of pegging them, of making them see me in return.

I swung from one place to the next, sometimes backward, sometimes forward, capitalizing on my own momentum, knowing that at some point my arms—or, more accurately, my quivering bank balance, accessed through foreign ATMs—would give out, and I’d fall to the ground.

Getting on a plane is hard for me, but I do it, because travel is vital to me.

I don't think I'm unusual in that, in my 20s, like many people, I felt invincible.

Every day I have many choices to make about who I want to be.